grass-grown, with a row of yellow houses overhanging
it, an unfrequented cafe, with a striped awning, a tall,
cold, florid, uninteresting cathedral of the eighteenth
century on one side, and on the other a shady walk,
which forms part of an old rampart. I followed this
walk for some time, under the stunted trees, beside
the grass-covered bastions; it is very charming, wind-
ing and wandering, always with trees. Beneath the
rampart is a tidal river, and on the other side, for a
long distance, the mossy walls of the immense garden
of a seminary. Three hundred years ago, La Rochelle
was the great French stronghold of Protestantism; but
to-day it appears to be a'nursery of Papists.

The walk upon the rampart led me round to one
of the gatesi of the town, where I found some small
modern, fortifications and sundry red-legged soldiers,
and, beyond the fortifications, another shady walk, -
a _mail_, as the French say, as well as a _champ de
manoeuvre_, - on which latter expanse the poor little
red-legs were doing their exercise. It was all very
quiet and very picturesque, rather in miniature; and
at once very tidy and a little out of repair. This,
however, was but a meagre back-view of La Rochelle,
or poor side-view at best. There are other gates than
the small fortified aperture just mentioned; one of
them, an old gray arch beneath a fine clock-tower, I
had passed through on my way from the station.
This picturesque Tour de l'Horloge separates the town
proper from the port; for beyond the old gray arch,