We were just in time for the Channel-boat, but our first impression when we stepped on board was not very favourable, thanks to a battery of basins placed under the sofas of the saloon; I began to feel sick on the spot and hurried up on deck where the air felt cool and delicious after the close atmosphere of the saloon. Leaning on the rail, I looked out at the fast disappearing French coast. There was no wind and the ocean was as smooth as a lake. We had a first-rate passage and it only took us three-quarters of an hour to get to Folkestone. We soon perceived the white cliffs of England. At Folkestone we took the express to London; the train rushed across the pleasant English landscape. All around lay pasture of green velvet with flocks of sheep grazing on the meadows. Soon tall chimneys rose against the sky. Here was London! its suburbs look like one immense building with an endless line of similar houses with boxes of red geraniums on the window-sills, surmounted by numerous chimney-pots smoking in the misty air. CHAPTER XXII LONDON When the train drew up at Charing Cross platform, we hastened to collect our belongings for there was nobody to help us down with our luggage, and we had to find our way alone to Charing Cross Hotel loaded with our hand-bags. We were accosted on our way by a little hunch-backed man who pushed up to us on the crowded platform, a real ant’s nest, and offered in very good Russian his services as guide, proposing to show us the principal sights of London. He must know foreigners by heart to have guessed our nationality at first sight. We turned deaf ears to his importunities, fearing that miserable Æsop to be a pickpocket, but he continued to trot steadily behind us and repeated: “Can I be of any assistance.” “Thank you,” we replied, “None is needed,” and we entered the hotel. The porter handed over the number of our room to us which proved to be No. 575, then we found ourselves in the lift en route for the fifth floor. As soon as we had repaired somehow, the ravages of sea and train, we went out to saunter through London. When we emerged from the gates of the hotel we again met Mr. Punch, our humpbacked pursuer, and this time we yielded to his assertions that without his aid we should be lost in the immense Metropolis, which he had at his finger ends, and arranged a meeting for the next day at the “Café Gatti” for ten o’clock in the morning. It appears that our guide is a Pole by birth, who had to leave Russia for political reasons after the rising in Poland, and has been settled in London for the last thirty years. This exile must be very trying in his old age. An intense compassion sprang up in my heart for the lonely old Pole, dismissed abroad to end his days, a friendless stranger in a foreign land.