was an obvious subject for a sketch.
The little port, which has two basins, and is ac-
cessible only to vessels of light tonnage, had a certain
gayety and as much local color as you please. Fisher
folk of pictuesque type were strolling about, most
of them Bretons; several of the men with handsome,
simple faces, not at all brutal, and with a splendid
brownness, - the golden-brown color, on cheek and
beard, that you see on an old Venetian sail. It was
a squally, showery day, with sudden drizzles of sun-
shine; rows of rich-toned fishing-smacks were drawn
up along the quays. The harbor is effective to the
eye by reason of three battered old towers which, at
different points, overhang it and look infinitely weather-
washed and sea-silvered. The most striking of these,
the Tour de la Lanterne, is a big gray mass, of the
fifteenth century, flanked with turrets and crowned
with a Gothic steeple. I found it was called by the
people of the place the Tour des Quatre Sergents,
though I know not what connection it has with the
touching history of the four young sergeants of the
garrison of La Rochelle, who were arrested in 1821
as conspirators against the Government of the Bour-
bons, and executed, amid general indignation, in Paris
in the following year. The quaint little walk, with
its label of Rue sur les Murs, to which one ascends
from beside the Grosse Horloge, leads to this curious
Tour de la Lanterne and passes under it. This walk
has the top of the old town-wall, toward the sea, for
a parapet on one side, and is bordered on the other