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AN EASY HOLIDAY.

IN describing a holiday tour just at the time when the equinoctial gales are frightening home the last pleasure-seekers, we have to face the doubt whether what we do will be able to interest others. Either they have had their tour and are full of memories of their own, or they have missed a holiday altogether and are overworked and spiteful. The latter we would fain propitiate by telling them that the Indian summer may yet afford a fine opportunity for some such little run as ours, wherein we wish them good speed.

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There are two of us, physically not very strong, and not good sailors. We began our holiday in a state of considerable exhaustion from intellectual overwork, combined with the weariness arising from the heavy stormy days of August, with their troubled skies and the electrical depression that was not kindly to the nerves. question we put to ourselves, which will only interest busy people, was this-Which is the greater rest, to vegetate in some tranquil village among the hills or by the sea, or to oust by a rapid succession of new impressions the old series that was fagging the mind? We chose the latter, and have not regretted our choice. The best of friends may quarrel when there is no distraction from vacancy but such yawns as fresh air produces when the body is allowed to realise quietly that it is tired.

Distance from home is an essential of holiday. It might be thought that, given proper condi

tions of air and scenery, the nearest farmhouse to our own residence might become a sufficient arbour of recreation. It is not so, however; our immediate surroundings seem to become as tired of us as we are of them, and it is necessary to cut the links absolutely which bind us to our everyday life.

To get on to the water is the best way of cutting these links. There is such an evident impossibility of immediate return, such a manifest frustration for the time being of letters, telegrams, and messages, that the old horizon which seemed so impervious is broken up at once. Instead of passing passing from London through the ordinary gateways of the Continent with the English mails, we chose therefore the more plebeian route from the Irongate and St. Katherine's Wharf, near the Tower, to Boulogne. Incidentally, it may be named that this is a very cheap journey, a dozen shillings being the fare. Passengers who have to make arrangements for a continuation of their journey beyond Boulogne should be warned of the mistake (we are almost tempted to say deliberate untruth) of the time-tables, that eight hours is the time of passage; ten is nearer the mark, under the most favourable circumstances.

There is no need to recount the marvels of the Thames, the evidences of the wealth of the port of

London. And it is too absurd to relate how a tug named " Orion," passing close to a boat bearing a too conspicuous cargo of "horn,'

reminded us of a friend of ours, an old poet, one of whose finest lines is inscribed upon the sundial on Brighton pier. Nor perhaps is it wise to wander off into a disquisition upon the vicissitudes in the lives of bargees; how, when two barges are floating down with the tide and a steamer passes them, the water rushes up between the two, and comes down upon their decks like small cataracts. This is not so bad as for a barge to be gently pushed out of its course by a steamboat, and as it slides astern for the big boat's discharge pipes to play down freely upon it.

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Our position was made unique in a way, by reason of a semi-French old spinster informing the public confidently that she had never been before in the regions where we were, and never would be there again. We had several quasi-historical characters on board; there was an undoubted Miss Wardle from "Pickwick," a type whose curls are growing rare; while the most conspicuous passenger was mighty Falstaff in modern dress. He wore a broad-brimmed beaver, and huge coats pervaded by huger pockets, which contained a large assortment of newspapers and pamphlets, and untold supplies of drink and food. His husky throat was making deep, hoarse music all the way. He was not Phelps, but we suspected him of leader-writing for the most gushing of the dailies. After exhausting his pockets, within and without, of their bottles of sundry liquors, he was forced to content himself with a large bottle of the steward's sherry. With this he had three wineglasses set, to which he invited many; but, after thus disposing of about half a glass, he battled through the remainder by himself most manfully. He had the politics of the world at the tip of his tongue, and might have

passed for wise if his inflated utterances had not made him so conspicuous. For a time he had two young women for an audience, but, as is always the case with Falstaff, he ended by being despised and deserted. He afterwards enchained a somewhat plebeian youth, for whose benefit he poured out political leaders, which might have been worth guineas in their proper place, but evidently fell upon ears unable to appreciate them, however spellbound by the guttural music of that fat red throat and the vinous sparkle of the style. He seemed to go through alternate processes of becoming stupid through his potations and of recovery through the fresh stimulus of the air.

At an early hour of our journey we passed a sobering sight. Near the Powder Magazine, by Woolwich, lay, drawn up on the shore, the fore part of a beautiful boat that once carried barbaric royalty. Another great fragment of wreck as we passed was being towed towards the shore, where a crowd was anxiously waiting. Saturday, the 7th of September, was the first lovely day of early autumn, and the bright river shining in the sun showed no guilty face as if engulfing in the depths over which we passed hundreds of human corpses. Of these we saw no trace; there was not a shred of anything unusual afloat. We did, indeed, see several unclothed bodies, but they were those of live beings. pack of boys were bathing most unconcernedly within not very many yards of the spot where no doubt lay the greater number of the army of the dead.

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We are compelled soon to forget disasters at the present day, for new ones jostle the old out of our attention. We thought of no dangers of the sea in the calm evening as we neared Boulogne.

The sun slowly sank below a very substantial cloud with an irregular edge that lay low upon the horizon. Through the clear dry air the vanishing rays shone upwards upon the upper edge of that western cloud, until at last, when the sun had gone below, the sharp and jagged edge was marked out by a slender brilliant line of gold— as it were, a flash of lightning flying in horizontal forkings that had been arrested in transit.

The peculiar form of this solidified flash gave it nearly the air and vitality of motion. A few moments and it died away, and nothing was to be seen but the gaunt cape of the Grey Nose, at which a Capt. Webb swimming the Channel might be glad to land. We, however ready to do the same, had to steam on and leave it behind us in the darkness, until we came to the bustle and jabber of our landing place.

The Customs inspection was to be in half an hour, we were told, so we went off to select our hotel, and on our return within the time specified found the whole process over, the vérificateur gone home, and our heavy baggage impounded until the morning. Fortunately we had taken the precaution of stowing simple necessaries in a handbag, so that our injuries were slight, being comprised in the payment of a small fee to a pseudo-official on the spot, which payment had to be repeated to the authorised recipients in the morning.

Boulogne was in excitement, preparing for its fête. This public rejoicing was not over anything actually accomplished, but over an intention to accomplish. The deepsea harbour was authorised by law. It

may take twenty years to complete, but that will afford an opportunity for another fête. There is surely no harm in rejoicing at a bold inception. The

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times for a costume, and fifteen for a maillot, with a sous or two for the driver, who enjoys cracking his long whip, and does not understand reckoning in centimes; this is the cost at the municipal estaThere blishment of the baths.

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might with advantage be a few more long planks laid over the deep soft sand on the way. The Boulogne hotels amusing, though horribly infested by Cockneydom. There the great British tradesman turns to champagne with a sort of awesome joy, and his wife learns the first exultation of riches. We were fortunate in finding some Muscat Lunel in the wine-list, which had apparently been neglected, for it had been in the house long enough to have developed from its original sickly sweetness into an excellent vigour. It was three francs a bottle, and we tried in vain to match it at a higher price at a merchant's afterwards. The dinner generally was fair; we had occasion to criticise once when there came epigrammes as an entrée, with no note upon what the epigram was foundeda fact which it did not even reveal in its tail.

Our hotel was so placed on the side of a hill that the bedrooms on the second floor opened at the back upon the beginning of a garden which stretched far away upwards. It was pleasant to walk

out and see the lights increase over the town, and the various illuminations shine out. Our greatest fun was in watching the praiseworthy efforts of the people of our own hotel. It had a fine courtyard, surrounded with shrubs and flowers in pots. During the day we had remarked a large collection of tin pattypans filled with solidified grease and holding a thick cotton wick, patty pans which one of us wickedly suggested were alternately used for making tarts. When the evening came Monsieur would take it into his own head to find places for these little lamps. He first lighted them, which heated the metal, then endeavoured to fix them right way up in each green bush and in each flower-pot. We appealed to Madame to show how here a fuchsia, and there a geranium, was having the life scorched out of it, while in another place the pattypan was fixed awry, and the grease was running down a valuable evergreen; but it was fête time, and all she could do was to hold her sides and laugh at her good man's enthusiasm.

The streets blazed with brightcoloured flags. To take our station among the crowd where four ways met and look up each avenue filled with gay pennons fluttering in the wind, even made us strangers feel the fête-day hilarity. As the evening came, Chinese lanterns blossomed over the houses, made festoons across the streets, hung from every doorway. Transparencies stretched across windows, bearing a device, four letters to a pane, that might have been difficult to decipher had we not the clue: PORT-AEAU- PROF -ONDE. There were fireworks playing from cunning chemists' shops, catherinewheels, and roman candles, and Bengal fire; but the most effective demonstration was a procession of a band of young men with burning

Chinese lanterns. Each bore a slender pole with a horizontal cross affixed, to each arm of which was fastened one of these orbs of soft warm-coloured light. In ranks and in double-quick time, with eager faces, and with much swift badinage, these raced up and down the streets, a crowd preceding and following. Without thinking of a pun, the priestly Galli at their revels came to the mind, but for. tunately this was a lighter kind of revelry than that of the maddening mysteries of Cybele. But, alas! it was just as feverish and shortlived, for a shower came on; and the last we saw of what had been so bright a galaxy was a draggle tailed irregular procession of weary men, half of whose lamps had fallen, and of what were left half had gone out.

A French fête gathers a crowd in which one can mix with vastly less discomfort than in that which is brought forth by an English holiday. The gaiety of the French is lighter and more spontaneous, and requires less to be evoked by potations. The natural politeness of the race, which, however artificial it may be, is an excellent thing and a true step towards a real consideration, is a very appre ciable quality in the crowd, in which there is next to nothing of that rude rough jostling by hulking vagabonds such as we find ourselves confronted by in a London mob.

So soon as we left Boulogne we had done with Anglicisms. started by rail for solid-looking, old-fashioned Abbeville, where we saw no Cockneys or any familiar

face.

We left by rail in the evening; and, as we passed on by French Neufchatel, heavy white mists were resting in the low-lying fields like thick gauzes, which, in the moonlight, became resplendent sheets of silver. Where we passed a lonely part-and these fields

were many-the scene realised indeed, the dream of "faery seas forlorn." At Abbeville station the omnibuses of the hotels were waiting; and, after a rattle over the stones, we soon found ourselves in a comfortable, old-fashioned inn, looking out from our room and balcony upon a court that in the bright moonlight seemed more appropriate to a Romeo and Juliet than to ourselves. A great mountain ash shone with plentiful red berries. The horses were being walked into their stables, and soon the house was asleep. We had come by the last train. Had we not waited for the fête at Boulogne we might have seen more of Abbeville or other places. As it was, we found in the morning that a vehicle of some kind went to Tréport on the coast once a day at eleven o'clock; so, dispensing with further breakfast than the café-aulait, we made for this conveyance, which was to start from a neighbouring hotel. Our pecuniary relations with Abbeville were consequently not extensive. The account of "La Tête de Boeuf" will show the manner of them: Omnibus one franc, coffee and milk, which was about a gill of strong coffee to a pint and a half of milk, as usual, with rolls and delicate butter, three francs; bed-room, four; service, one; and candles, half a franc. The boy who carried our baggage in a truck, when a franc was given to him, looked as if he had even such coins but seldom for his own; he must have been junior "boots."

In company with a very stout priest who regaled himself alternately with prayer-book and with peach from some rich convent garden, and some chattering peasant women, with the functionary who carried the mails, on the box, we jogged on towards Tréport in a rusty sort of omnibus. One of the

women had two great flat loaves with her, which served the stout priest for something to lean on, while another bore his broadbrim upon her knee. It is worthy of remark, considering how clean and delicate the French generally are with their cookery, even in the humbler inns, how very reckless they are with their loaves, which are to be seen everywhere tumbled about at random in any dirty corner, it being thought sufficient to wipe them with an apron, or not at all, before they are used. "Nostrès-chers-frères are nearly as plentiful as loaves, their black petticoats being seen flying about every railway station and in every town. From Abbeville our journey was, we took it, something over twenty miles, with one change of horses. The road for the greater part of the way, which led up and down some steep hills, was flanked by regular rows of trees and looked like an interminable avenue. Great fields of what we believed to be hemp were lying in shocks or being reaped by the side of the way. Apples grew abundantly overhanging the road. If any hungry wayfarer had plucked of them, it could not have been noticed. Why should not apple trees be planted in that way along every country road in England? We passed shrines at intervals and one or two great ghastly crucifixes. A more modern life was manifested in the placards posted up on the occasional houses urging "Messieurs les électeurs" to vote, with "pas d'abstentions."

As we were booked for Tréport, when the omnibus stopped in a busy little village, and we were told to descend, we supposed we were in Tréport, but rather marvelled at its being a fashionable watering place, and wondered on which side the sea lay. A host of waiters from hotels and restaurants buzzed

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