ity
of the Esplanade very magnanimously. So (the swell not being
favourable for tide-observations) I gave them up and determined to go
to see the surf on the Chesil Bank. I started with my great-coat on,
more for defence against the wind than against rain; but in a short
time it began to rain, and just when I was approaching the bridge
which connects the mainland with the point where the Chesil Bank ends
at Portland (there being an arm of the sea behind the Chesil Bank) it
rained and blew most dreadfully. However I kept on and mounted the
bank and descended a little way towards the sea, and there was the
surf in all its glory. I cannot give you an idea of its majestic
appearance. It was evidently very high, but that was not the most
striking part of it, for there was no such thing as going within a
considerable distance of it (the occasional outbreaks of the water
advancing so far) so that its magnitude could not be well seen. My
impression is that the height of the surf was from 10 to 20 feet. But
the striking part was the clouds of solid spray which formed
immediately and which completely concealed all the other operations of
the water. They rose a good deal higher than the top of the surf, so
the state of things was this. A great swell is seen coming, growing
steeper and steeper; then it all turns over and you see a face just
like the pictures of falls of Niagara; but in a little more than one
second this is totally lost and there is nothing before you but an
enormous impenetrable cloud of white spray. In about another second
there comes from the bottom of this cloud the foaming current of water
up the bank, and it returns grating the pebbles together till their
jar penetrates the very brain. I stood in the face of the wind and
rain watching this a good while, and should have stood longer but that
I was so miserably wet. It appeared to me that the surf was higher
farther along the bank, but the air was so thickened by the rain and
the spray that I could not tell. When I returned the bad weather
abated. I have now borrowed somebody else's trowsers while mine are
drying (having got little wet in other parts, thanks to my great-coat,
which successfully brought home a hundredweight of water), and do not
intend to stir out again except perhaps to post this letter.

* * * * *

FLAMSTEED HOUSE,