f, tho' doubtless salt far beyond due proportion, was relished by
all, Dinmont excepted, who pronounced it, together with the
dark-coloured bread, unfit for English hogs, and shook his head with a
most significant expression of doubt at my assertion that I never
enjoyed a better dinner in my life. At five o'clock the low sand hills
appeared to view in little nodules upon the horizon, and the Steeple of
Ostend with its Lighthouse were visible from deck. At 6 we were close in
upon land, and in half an hour were boarded by a Dutch boat, but alas!
there was nothing in its appearance to excite curiosity, and with the
exception of large earrings you might have fancied yourself in Holyhead
Harbour. Four stout, tall fellows, hard and resolute in feature and
decided in action, proclaimed their near alliance to British Jack Tars.
They remained a little while and tried to cheat the passengers as much
as possible, to take us on shore, but finding us determined to remain
till the Captain could get his own boat ready, they shrugged their
shoulders, abused us in Dutch, and sailed away. We were too many for one
boat, so taking Kitty and the best of our English passengers and honest
Farmer Dinmont, with all the luggage, we pushed off from the vessel.
People of all descriptions, pilots, sailors, customs officers, soldiers,
waiters soliciting customs for their respective turns. Porters regular
and irregular, the latter consisting of a sort of light Infantry corps
of ragged boys. All these people, I say, were crowded together on a
little peninsular jetty against which our boat was shoved, and no sooner
had the oars ceased to play and our keel cleared the sand than all these
people set up their pipes in every dialect of every tongue, French and
English both bad of their sort, Dutch high and low, Flemish and German.
All burst upon us at one and the same moment, and the Cossack corps of
ragged porters all stept forward, arm, leg and foot, to claim the honour
of carrying up (most probably of carrying off) our baggage. By dint of
words fair and foul, a shove here and a push there, I contrived to get
Kitty under my arm and superintend, tho' with no small trouble and
inconceivable watchfulness, the adjustment of our small portmanteaux,
writing case, &c., in a wheelbarrow, which, from its formidable length
of handle, bespoke its foreign manufacturer. On we jogged, but jogged
not long; for before this accumulating procession could disperse we were
ar