; and all mine I have paid pretty dearly for. We dined at
Canterbury the day we parted from you, and called at Captain
Sandys' house, but he was just gone out to dinner in the country,
therefore we did not see him. We slept at Dover, and next morning
at seven o'clock put to sea with a fine north-west wind, and at
half-past ten we were safe at breakfast in Monsieur Grandsire's
house at Calais. His mother kept it when Hogarth wrote his _Gate
of Calais_. Sterne's _Sentimental Journey_ is the best
description I can give of our tour. Mac advised me to go first to
St Omer, as he had experienced the difficulty of attempting to
fix in any place where there are no English; after dinner we set
off, intended for Montreuil, sixty miles from Calais; they told
us we travelled _en poste_, but I am sure we did not get on more
than four miles an hour. I was highly diverted with looking what
a curious figure the postilions in their jack-boots, and their
rats of horses, made together. Their chaises have no springs, and
the roads generally paved like London streets; therefore you will
naturally suppose we were pretty well shook together by the time
we had travelled two posts and a half, which is fifteen miles, to
Marquise. Here we were shown into an inn--they called it, I
should have called it a pig-stye: we were shown into a room with
two straw beds, and with great difficulty they mustered up clean
sheets, and gave us two pigeons for supper, upon a dirty cloth,
and wooden-handled knives. _Oh, what a transition from happy
England!_

"But we laughed at the repast, and went to bed with the
determination that nothing should ruffle our tempers. Having
slept very well, we set off at daylight for Boulogne, where we
breakfasted. This place was full of English; I suppose because
wine is so very cheap. We went on after breakfast for Montreuil,
and passed through the finest corn country that my eyes ever
beheld, diversified with fine woods, sometimes for miles
together, through noble forests. The roads mostly were planted
with trees, which made as fine an avenue as to any gentleman's
country-seat. Montreuil is thirty miles from Boulogne, situated
upon a small hill, in the middle of a fine plain, which reached
as far as the eye could carry you, except towards the sea, which