As we increased our distance from England, the French coast came more and
more distinctly in sight, with a low, wavy outline, not very well worth
looking at, except because it was the coast of France. Indeed, I looked
at it but little; for the wind was bleak and boisterous, and I went down
into the cabin, where I found the fire very comfortable, and several
people were stretched on sofas in a state of placid wretchedness. . . . .
I have never suffered from sea-sickness, but had been somewhat
apprehensive of this rough strait between England and France, which seems
to have more potency over people's stomachs than ten times the extent of
sea in other quarters. Our passage was of two hours, at the end of which
we landed on French soil, and found ourselves immediately in the clutches
of the custom-house officers, who, however, merely made a momentary
examination of my passport, and allowed us to pass without opening even
one of our carpet-bags. The great bulk of our luggage had been
registered through to Paris, for examination after our arrival there.

We left Boulogne in about an hour after our arrival, when it was already
a darkening twilight. The weather had grown colder than ever, since our
arrival in sunny France, and the night was now setting in, wickedly black
and dreary. The frost hardened upon the carriage windows in such
thickness that I could scarcely scratch a peep-hole through it; but, from
such glimpses as I could catch, the aspect of the country seemed pretty
much to resemble the December aspect of my dear native land,--broad,
bare, brown fields, with streaks of snow at the foot of ridges, and along
fences, or in the furrows of ploughed soil. There was ice wherever there
happened to be water to form it.

We had feet-warmers in the carriage, but the cold crept in nevertheless;
and I do not remember hardly in my life a more disagreeable short journey