The life in our quarter on the quais is very different, an extraordinary animation and movement. There are hundreds of vessels of every description in the port. All day and all night boats are coming in and going out: The English steamers with their peculiar, dull, penetrating whistle that one hears at a great distance--steam tugs that take passengers and luggage out to the Atlantic liners, lying just outside the digue--yachts, pilot boats, easily distinguished by a broad white line around their hulls, and a number very conspicuously printed in large black letters on their white sails, "baliseurs," smart-looking little craft that take buoys out to the various points where they must be laid. One came in the other day with two large, red, bell-shaped buoys on her deck which made a great effect from a distance; we were standing on the pier, and couldn't imagine what they were; "avisos" (dispatch-boats), with their long, narrow flamme, which marks them as war vessels, streaming out in the wind. Their sailors looked very picturesque in white jerseys and blue bérets with red pompons. Small steamers that run along the coast from Calais to Dunkirk--others, cargo boats, broad and deep in the water, that take fruit and eggs over to England. The baskets of peaches, plums, and apricots look most appetizing when they are taken on board. The steamers look funny when they come back with empty baskets, quantities of them, piled up on the decks, tied to the masts. Many little pleasure boats--flat, broad rowing boats that take one across the harbour to the Gare Maritime (which is a long way around by the bridge), a most uncomfortable performance at low tide, as you go down long, steep, slippery steps with no railing, and have to scramble into the boat as well as you can. Of course, there are fishing-boats of every description, from the modest little sloop with one mast and small sail to the big steam trawlers which are increasing every year and gradually replacing the old-fashioned sailing-boat. One always knows when the fishing-boats are arriving by the crowd that assembles on the quay; that peculiar population that seems natural to all ports, young, able-bodied sailors, full of interest about the run and the cargo--old men in blue jerseys who sit on the wall, in the sun, all day, and recount their experiences--various officials with gold bands on their caps, men with hand carts waiting to carry off the fish and fishwives--their baskets strapped on their backs--hoping for a haul of crabs and shrimps or fish from some of the small boats.