has retired miles inland, and Dover has burst
out to look for it. It has a last dip and slide in
its character, has Calais, to be especially
commended to the infernal gods. Thrice accursed
be that garrison-town, when it dives under the
boat's keel, and comes up a league or two to
the right, with the packet shivering and
spluttering and staring about for it!

Not but what I have my animosities towards
Dover. I particularly detest Dover for the
self-complacency with which it goes to bed. It
always goes to bed (when I am going to Calais)
with a more brilliant display of lamp and candle
than any other town. Mr. and Mrs. Birmingham,
host and hostess of the Lord Warden Hotel,
are my much-esteemed friends, but they are
too conceited about the comforts of that
establishment when the Night Mail is starting.
I know it is a good house to stay at, and I
don't want the fact insisted upon in all its warm
bright windows at such an hour. I know the
Warden is a stationary edifice that never rolls
or pitches, and I object to its big outline
seeming to insist upon that circumstance, and,
as it were, to come over me with it, when I am
reeling on the deck of the boat. Beshrew the
Warden likewise, for obstructing that corner,
and making the wind so angry as it rushes round.
Shall I not know that it blows, quite soon
enough, without the officious Warden's
interference?

As I wait here on board the night packet, for
the South Eastern Train to come down with the
Mail, Dover appears to me to be illuminated for
some intensely aggravating festivity in my
personal dishonour. All its noises smack of taunting
praises of the land, and dispraises of the gloomy
sea, and of me for going on it. The drums upon
the heights have gone to bed, or I know they
would rattle taunts against me for having my
unsteady footing on this slippery deck. The
many gas eyes of the Marine Parade twinkle in
an offensive manner, as if with derision. The
distant dogs of Dover bark at me in my
misshapen wrappers, as if I were Richard the
Third.

A screech, a bell, and two red eyes come
gliding down the Admiralty Pier with a smoothness
of motion rendered more smooth by the
heaving of the boat. The sea makes noises
against the pier, as if several hippopotami were
lapping at it, and were prevented by circumstances
over which they had no control from
drinking peaceably. We, the boat, become
violently agitated—rumble, hum, scream, roar, and
establish an immense family washing-day at
each paddle-box. Bright patches break out in
the train as the doors of the post-office vans
are opened, and instantly stooping figures with
sacks upon their backs begin to be beheld among
the piles, descending as it would seem in ghostly
procession to Davy Jones's Locker. The
passengers come on board; a few shadowy
French-men, with hatboxes shaped like the stoppers of
gigantic case-bottles; a few shadowy Germans in
immense fur coats and boots; a few shadowy
Englishmen, prepared for the worst and pretending
not to expect it. I cannot disguise from
my uncommercial mind the miserable fact that
we are a body of outcasts; that the attendants
on us are as scant in number as may serve to
get rid of us with the least possible delay; that
there are no night-loungers interested in us;
that the unwilling lamps shiver and shudder at
us; that the sole object is to commit us to the
deep and abandon us. Lo, the two red eyes
glaring in increasing distance, and then the
very train itself has gone to bed before we
are off!

What is the moral support derived by some
sea-going amateurs from an umbrella? Why do
certain voyagers across the Channel always put
up that article, and hold it up with a grim and
fierce tenacity? A fellow-creature near me—
whom I only know to be a fellow-creature,
because of his umbrella: without which he might
be a dark bit of cliff, pier, or bulkhead—clutches
that instrument with a desperate grasp, that will
not relax until he lands at Calais. Is there
any analogy, in certain constitutions, between
keeping an umbrella up, and keeping the spirits
up? A hawser thrown on board with a flop
replies. " Stand by!" " Stand by, below."
"Half a turn ahead!" " Half a turn ahead!"
"Half speed!" " Half speed " " Port!"
"Port!" " Steady!" " Steady!" " Go on!"
"Go on!"

A stout wooden wedge driven-in at my right
temple and out at my left, a floating deposit of
lukewarm oil in my throat, and a compression
of the bridge of my nose in a blunt pair of
pincers,—these are the personal sensations by
which I know we are off, and by which I shall
continue to know it until I am on the soil of
France. My symptoms have scarcely
established themselves comfortably, when two or
three skating shadows that have been trying to
walk or stand, get flung together, and other two
or three shadows in tarpaulin slide with them
into corners and cover them up. Then the South
Foreland lights begin to hiccup at us in a way
that bodes no good.

It is at about this period that my detestation
of Calais knows no bounds. Inwardly I
resolve afresh that I never will forgive that hated
town. I have done so before, many times, but
that is past. Let me register a vow. Implacable
animosity towards Calais everm——that was
an awkward sea, and the funnel seems of my
opinion, for it gives a complaining roar.

The wind blows stiffly from the Nor'-East, the
sea runs high, we ship a deal of water, the night
is dark and cold, and the shapeless passengers lie
about in melancholy bundles, as if they were
sorted out for the laundress; but for my own
uncommercial part I cannot pretend that I am
much inconvenienced by any of these things.
A general howling whistling flopping gurgling
and scooping, I am aware of, and a general
knocking about of Nature; but the impressions
I receive are very vague. In a sweet faint
temper, something like the smell of damaged
oranges, I think I should feel languidly benevolent
if I had time. I have not time, because I