. The proceedings
of the former, especially if they be young and pretty, the philosopher
watches with indescribable emotion and interest. What a number of pretty
coquetries do the ladies perform, and into what pretty attitudes do they
take care to fall! All the little children have been gathered up by the
nursery-maids, and are taken down to roost below. Balmy sleep seals
the eyes of many tired wayfarers, as you see in the case of the Russian
nobleman asleep among the portmanteaus; and Titmarsh, who has been
walking the deck for some time with a great mattress on his shoulders,
knowing full well that were he to relinquish it for an instant, some
other person would seize on it, now stretches his bed upon the deck,
wraps his cloak about his knees, draws his white cotton nightcap tight
over his head and ears; and, as the smoke of his cigar rises calmly
upwards to the deep sky and the cheerful twinkling stars, he feels
himself exquisitely happy, and thinks of thee, my Juliana!

*****

Why people, because they are in a steamboat, should get up so deucedly
early I cannot understand. Gentlemen have been walking over my legs ever
since three o'clock this morning, and, no doubt, have been indulging
in personalities (which I hate) regarding my appearance and manner of
sleeping, lying, snoring. Let the wags laugh on; but a far pleasanter
occupation is to sleep until breakfast-time, or near it.

The tea, and ham and eggs, which, with a beefsteak or two, and three
or four rounds of toast, form the component parts of the above-named
elegant meal, are taken in the River Scheldt. Little neat, plump-looking
churches and villages are rising here and there among tufts of trees and
pastures that are wonderfully green. To the right, as the "Guide-book"
says, is Walcheren; and on the left Cadsand, memorable for the English
expedition of 1809, when Lord Chatham, Sir Walter Manny, and Henry Earl
of Derby, at the head of the English, gained a great victory over the
Flemish mercenaries in the pay of Philippe of Valois. The cloth-yard
shafts of the English archers did great execution. Flushing was taken,
and Lord Chatham returned to England, where he distinguished himself
greatly in the debates on the American war, which he called the
brightest jewel of the British crown. You see, my love, that, though an
artist by profession, my education has by no means been neglected; and
what, indeed, would be the pleasure of travel, unless these charming