The poor fellow was hardly on deck ere he was surrounded and assailed by innumerable questions--“Where is Buonaparte?” “Where is the French army?” “What are the English about?” “Has there been any fighting?” &c. &c. Of this he understood or heard only the word “Buonaparte,” and therefore to all kept repeating, “Il est capôte,” accompanied by a significant motion of the hand across the throat, at the same time showing much anxiety to get rid of his tormentors and proceed to business, which he did with such earnestness as soon gave us to understand there must be more than ordinary difficulty in entering the port of Ostend. The first and principal care was the getting up a hawser and coiling it on deck, the use of which we were soon to learn. Meanwhile we had been approaching the coast, which, though still invisible, the pilot informed us was not distant. The first intimation of the truth of this was the appearance of the church tower and lofty lighthouse of Ostend; and we had brought about half their height above the horizon before land began to show itself, which it did in a number of isolated and rounded yellow hummocks, and at the same time the houses of the town became distinctly visible. With that impatience and excessive curiosity always felt upon approaching for the first time a strange land, especially under the present interesting state of things, all our glasses were directed to the coast, which we were rapidly nearing and hoped soon to reach, when, to our great disappointment, the pilot ordered the vessel to be hove to, and we found that the tide would not permit our running for the port before two P.M. Numbers of ships, brigs, and schooners were lying-to as well as ourselves, and others continually arriving. Nothing, certainly, could be more repulsive than the appearance of the coast--sand-hills as far as the eye could reach, broken only by the grey and lugubrious works and buildings of Ostend, and further west by the spires of Mittelkerke and Nieuport, peering above the sand-hills. The day, too, was one little calculated to enliven the scene. A fresh breeze and cloudy sky; the sea black, rough, and chilly; the land all under one uniform cold grey tint, presenting scarcely any relief of light and shadow, consequently no feature. Upon reconnoitring it, however, closer, we found that this forbidding exterior was only an outer coating to a lovely gem. Through the openings between the sand-hills could be seen a rich level country, of the liveliest verdure, studded with villages and farms interspersed amongst avenues of trees and small patches of wood. An occasional gleam of sunshine breaking out and illumining it, communicated to it a dreamy appearance that was very pleasing, and tended to revive our spirits, drooping from the gloomy aspect of the coast.