on the platform to scatter. After a long run, with no stops,
we reach Dover and go on board a steamer which seems quite large enough
to anyone who is not used to steamers. Our heavy luggage has been sent
on board the big ship which will meet us at Marseilles, so we have only
our handbags to carry. The crossing is quite short, and it is best to
stay on deck if you don't want to be ill. The very first thing to
notice, as we gradually draw away from the land, is the whiteness of the
towering chalk cliffs which stand out prominently near Dover. Often you
must have read of the "white cliffs of Old Albion," and if you live in
the north or away from the sea, you must have wondered what they were;
now this explains it all. When the Romans came over from the Continent
they crossed the sea the shortest way, and in approaching this unknown
island were struck with astonishment at the high gleaming white cliffs,
unlike anything they had seen before; they were so much amazed that ever
after the "white cliffs" were the chief feature of Britain in their
eyes.

There is a break in the cliffs, where Dover now stands, and here the
Romans later on made a port, and a port it has remained to this day.

If we are lucky in getting a fine day for the crossing we can sit on
deck-chairs, looking at the dazzling milky-blue sea and sky until
someone cries out, "There's France!"

[Illustration: NUMBERS OF EAGER LITTLE PORTERS.]

You will not be able to make out anything at all at first, because land
does not look in the least what you expect when you see it first from
the sea. You would naturally search for a long dark line low down on the
horizon, but it isn't like that at all. There is a hazy bluish cloud,
very indistinct, and seemingly transparent, but as we draw nearer it
grows clearer, and then houses and ships can be discerned, and after a
good deal of manoeuvring and shouting and throwing of ropes and
churning up the water with the screw, two bridges are pushed across to
the dock, and numbers of eager little porters, dressed in bright blue
linen suits with very baggy trousers, surround us and implore us to
allow them to carry our baggage.

"Me Engleesh speaking, sir."

"Good me, good man me."

"Baggage carrying me."

They are here, there, and everywhere, so good-natured, so lively, so
different from the stolid English porters. Their eyes are very bright
and they will take money of any kind, French or English, it matters not
to them.