she could not have been twenty yards distant, yet could they not afford the despairing crew the slightest aid. Whilst thus attending in breathless expectation the horrid catastrophe, the return of our quartermaster with the rations summoned us unwillingly from the rampart to commence our march. We afterwards learnt that a boat from the harbour had succeeded in saving the crew (she had no troops on board); but the unfortunate pilot who thus gallantly risked his own life for them was killed by the boat rising suddenly under the vessel’s counter as he stood in the bow, which dashed his brains out. Of Ostend I have little to say, my whole time and mind being fully occupied during the few hours of my stay in it. The impression it made on me was a dismal one. Narrow dirty streets; gloomy, old-fashioned, low, mean houses; the whole surrounded by marsh, sand-hills, or sea; and that sea, from its muddy colour, detracting nought from the lugubrious effect of the scene. Of the fortifications I saw still less than of the town; yet, from what little I did see, it would appear that Ostend depends more upon water than earth or stone--its great protection consisting in the facility of inundating the neighbouring marshes. On the Blanckenberg side, situated upon an eminence (I think of sand), we had a glimpse of Fort Napoleon, and working parties were busy constructing a redoubt among the sand-hills toward Nieuport. We had no leisure, however, to visit either. CHAPTER III. Right glad were we to find ourselves at last _en route_ from this dismal place. In passing through the streets towards the barrier, soon after leaving the quays, we found that we had likewise left all the bustle, crowd, and confusion behind us. Few people were moving about in any of them, and some were totally deserted. The prospect which presented itself on issuing from the gates was as _triste_ and repulsive as can well be conceived. In front and to the left marsh! marsh! for miles, and looking black, dreary, and pestilential; the distance obscured by a red haze, occasioned by the clouds of sand blown inland by the gale from a range of sand and sand-hills (the _dûnes_) extending all along the coast. A straight, ill-paved, and muddy road, running away in long perspective between two wide ditches filled with stagnant, stinking water, bordered here and there by a few stunted willows bending to the blast, and their usual cold colour rendered still more cold by thus exposing the whitish backs of their young leaves. Such was the scene, in which our column (men, horses, and carriages, soiled, and looking miserable; the mounted gunners leaning to windward, with one hand generally upraised holding on their helmets; the limber-gunners sitting sideways, turning their backs to the gale) formed an appropriate accompaniment, as it proceeded slowly along the causeway. About half-way to Ghystelles,[2] at a barrier, we were rejoiced at finding the horses that had escaped from us on the sands.