alive till he should get tired of it, and long
for a breath of upper atmosphere. These
cellar habitations are puzzling to a stranger.
Look at that table, covered with smoking-hot
shrimps, and standing in the street just
outside the foot pavement. [By the way, all
along this northern corner of coast, what
ought to be shrimps (crevettes) are universally
known as grasshoppers (sauterelles).] It seems
deserted there, as if it belonged to nobody.
I passed by it, on my way to the door of this
tower, and was doubting whether I could buy,
or should be obliged to steal, a few pints of
shrimps from the invisible owner, when a neat
young woman tripped quickly up stairs, and
left me no farther alternative. She takes care of
my purchase till we start, by railway; but there
she is, snug and underground, with her aged
mother, her baskets, nets, shrimps, and all,
not to mention her husband at night. She
may keep her glass door bright with Flemish
neatness; she may whitewash the mouth of
her cavern three times a week; but it still
must be very, very "close" work. Look, too,
at those little boys and girls that are come up
to play in the open air of the street, like a
troop of young rabbits venturing out of their
burrow by moonlight. When their mammas
give the signal, they will all dart down again.
At night, the double trap-doors which open
upon the pavement will be closed down over
the household gods of the cave-tenants of
Dunkerque, who may then defy the storms
of the world above, like the divers in the
Payerne, when it sinks beneath the waves at
Cherbourg. No doubt, happiness may, and
does lie concealed in those dim, deep-retiring
dwellings, if we could but take a tour amongst
them. The outside entrance is uninviting;
but if we have the courage to descend into
the vault, we shall often behold there a fairy
treasure; plenty of honest work to do, with
strength and good-will to do it manfully. To
that individual close by, whose cellar is his
privileged and official castle—the ramoneur,
or chimney-sweep, "authorised by the town"
—it must be a positive pleasure to stir now
and then in a downward direction. When he
is tired of running up chimneys, he may at
the same time vary his promenade, and take
his ease, by making a short trip into the
bowels of the earth.

Why thousands of people choose to lodge
in cellars while garrets are to be had is not
entirely obvious at first. The restricted room
in a fortified town may make their occupation,
in some degree, a necessity; but, in a
place which has suffered so cruelly and so
ruinously from all the infernal horrors of
war, considerations of safety and concealment
may make a smart well-furnished cellar house
a matter of traditional preference. The same
thing is to be observed at Saint Omer, though
the cellars there are neither so generally nor
so respectably tenanted as at Dunkerque, but
often offer to the mind a sad and painful
contrast of unequal fortune. In the cellar dwells
want, and the diseases which it engenders; on
the ground-floor health and comfort abound;—
the two extremes of human condition
separated only by the thickness of a floor. At
Dunkerque there are cellars which, if they
were not cellars, would be extremely pleasant
apartments to live in; and they are so
thoroughly a part of old and genuine
Flemish habits, that nothing but compulsory
police regulations would cause them to be
given up.

Look forward to the southwards, and
behold what I shall venture to call "The City
of Sacks," exemplifying the delightful life one
is apt to lead on border-land. Bergues has
been thoroughly well sacked of yore; and is
well sacked also, at the present day. In the
course of eight centuries of the good old
times, it has been eight times taken and re-
taken, and nine times pillaged. Now, it is
the grand emporium for the grain of this
productive district, and beyond it. The
Monday's market at Bergues decides the
price of wheat hereabouts, and of several
other " bread-stuff" staffs of life. Bergues, too,
is a Flemish fragment of our mosaic border,
speaking the language of the hhouhynhyms;
which we, however, must not too loudly laugh
at, because it is cousin-german to our own.
The Englishman who runs—and has a smattering
of High Dutch— may read with ease
many a Flemish notice. "Verbod van hier te
klimmen," is merely a "Forbidding from here
to climb." Hier verkoopt men Schersen en
Schœren, is "Here sell people scissors and
razors." Shears, in English, are not exactly
razors, and yet are not altogether wide of the
mark. On several walls in Dunkerque you
will see the inscription Kook Huys; the
savoury smell proceeding thence will sharpen
your wits to interpret the phrase. Not a
few proper names are quite familiar and
household words; such as Baetman
(immortalised in comic verse), Baert, Palmaert,
Everaert, and Gilbert, which last, further
west, is Frenchified into Guilbert.
Wellebrouck, with a slight alteration, might furnish
a surname to figure in one of Fielding's
novels. But most of the names which we see
on the doors and signs, and over the shop-
windows, suggest that we are virtually out
of France, so ill do they accord with the
French words describing the profession or
trade of their owner. Vancosten, cordier,
ropemaker, and Bommelaer, dealer in pitch
and tar, are nothing but sprigs of some
Teutonic root which has shot forth its runners
to the wrong side of the frontier. Cosy
comfortable Dunkerque, who liest outstretched
beneath us, I will address thee heartily in the
words of the Russian proverb: "I do not love
thee because thou art pretty, but thou art
pretty because I love thee." With that
sincere and qualified amount of compliment,
receive, dear Dunkerque, the assurance (as
they politely write in France) of my
distinguished consideration.