bright butter-kegs, and the like, on the jolliest little donkeys in
the world.

We have another market in our French watering-place - that is to
say, a few wooden hutches in the open street, down by the Port -
devoted to fish. Our fishing-boats are famous everywhere; and our
fishing people, though they love lively colours, and taste is
neutral (see Bilkins), are among the most picturesque people we
ever encountered. They have not only a quarter of their own in the
town itself, but they occupy whole villages of their own on the
neighbouring cliffs. Their churches and chapels are their own;
they consort with one another, they intermarry among themselves,
their customs are their own, and their costume is their own and
never changes. As soon as one of their boys can walk, he is
provided with a long bright red nightcap; and one of their men
would as soon think of going afloat without his head, as without
that indispensable appendage to it. Then, they wear the noblest
boots, with the hugest tops - flapping and bulging over anyhow;
above which, they encase themselves in such wonderful overalls and
petticoat trousers, made to all appearance of tarry old sails, so
additionally stiffened with pitch and salt, that the wearers have a
walk of their own, and go straddling and swinging about among the
boats and barrels and nets and rigging, a sight to see. Then,
their younger women, by dint of going down to the sea barefoot, to
fling their baskets into the boats as they come in with the tide,
and bespeak the first fruits of the haul with propitiatory promises
to love and marry that dear fisherman who shall fill that basket
like an Angel, have the finest legs ever carved by Nature in the
brightest mahogany, and they walk like Juno. Their eyes, too, are
so lustrous that their long gold ear-rings turn dull beside those