On our return from the Dutch vessel from which we recruited our exhausted store, we found our poor Captain in sad tribulation, his patience exhausted, but his temper luckily preserved. Having paced his deck with a fidgeting velocity a due number of times, peeped thro' his glass at every distant sail or cloud to observe whether they were in any degree movable, and invoked Boreas in the most pitiable terms such as "Oh Borus! Now do, good Borus just give us a blow," we had the satisfaction at length, the supreme satisfaction, of perceiving a gentle curl upon the water which soon settled into a steady breeze, before which we glided away, delightfully enjoying our dinner upon the deck, during which our party manifested their respective characters in most charming style. One Farmer Dinmont[108] and Dousterswivel, a Dutchman, were perfect specimens. A merry Belgian Equerry to the Prince of Orange, laughed, joked, and amused us with sleight-of-hand tricks. Our Dutch beef, tho' doubtless salt far beyond due proportion, was relished by all, Dinmont excepted, who pronounced it, together with the dark-coloured bread, unfit for English hogs, and shook his head with a most significant expression of doubt at my assertion that I never enjoyed a better dinner in my life. At five o'clock the low sand hills appeared to view in little nodules upon the horizon, and the Steeple of Ostend with its Lighthouse were visible from deck. At 6 we were close in upon land, and in half an hour were boarded by a Dutch boat, but alas! there was nothing in its appearance to excite curiosity, and with the exception of large earrings you might have fancied yourself in Holyhead Harbour. Four stout, tall fellows, hard and resolute in feature and decided in action, proclaimed their near alliance to British Jack Tars. They remained a little while and tried to cheat the passengers as much as possible, to take us on shore, but finding us determined to remain till the Captain could get his own boat ready, they shrugged their shoulders, abused us in Dutch, and sailed away. We were too many for one boat, so taking Kitty and the best of our English passengers and honest Farmer Dinmont, with all the luggage, we pushed off from the vessel. People of all descriptions, pilots, sailors, customs officers, soldiers, waiters soliciting customs for their respective turns. Porters regular and irregular, the latter consisting of a sort of light Infantry corps of ragged boys. All these people, I say, were crowded together on a little peninsular jetty against which our boat was shoved, and no sooner had the oars ceased to play and our keel cleared the sand than all these people set up their pipes in every dialect of every tongue, French and English both bad of their sort, Dutch high and low, Flemish and German. All burst upon us at one and the same moment, and the Cossack corps of ragged porters all stept forward, arm, leg and foot, to claim the honour