The stranger in France : $b or, a tour from Devonshire to Paris illustrated by engravings in aqua tint of sketches taken on the spot.Carr, John, Sir
History
The stranger in France : $b or, a tour from Devonshire to Paris illustrated by engravings in aqua tint of sketches taken on the spot.
Carr, John, Sir
France -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Description and travel
glass, fixed in squares of iron, and discharges a prodigious light, in
dark nights. A furnace of coal, was formerly used, but this has been
judiciously superseded by the present invention. Round the lantern, is a
gallery with an iron balustrade, the view from this elevation upon the
beach, the entrance of the Seine, Honfleur (where our Henry III is said
to have fought the french armies, and to have distinguished himself by
his valour) the distant hills of Lower Normandy, and the ocean, is truly
grand. It brought to my mind that beautiful description of Shakspeare--
------------------The murmuring surge
That on th' unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high: I'll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.
We did not visit the other tower, as it was uniform with this. The woman
who has the charge of the light, was very good humoured, and very
talkative, she seemed delighted to show us every thing, and said she
preferred seeing englishmen _in_ her tower as friends, to the view she
frequently had of them _from_ it as enemies, alluding to the long, and
masterly blockade of this port by a squadron of english frigates. She
carried us to her little museum, as she called it, where she had
arranged, very neatly, a considerable collection of fossils, shells, and
petrefactions. Here she showed us with great animation, two british
cannon balls, which during the blockade, had very nearly rendered her
husband and herself, as cold and as silent as any of the petrefactions
in her collection. In this little cabinet was her bed, where amidst the
war of winds and waves, she told us she slept as sound as a _consul_.
In the basins of Havre, we saw several rafts, once so much talked of,
constructed for the real, or ostensible purpose of conveying the
invading legions of France, to the shores of Great Britain. I expected
to have seen an immense floating platform, but the vessels which we saw,
were made like brigs of an unusual breadth, with two low masts. The
sincerity of this project has been much disputed, but that the french
government expended considerable sums upon the scheme, I have no doubt.
I must not omit to mention, the admirable mode, which they have here,
and in most parts of France, of constructing their carts. They are
placed upon very high wheels, the load is generally arranged so as to
create an equipoise, and is raised by an axle, fastened near the shafts.
I was informed by a merchant, that a single horse can draw with ease
thirty-six hundred weight, in one of these carts. These animals have a
formidable appearance, owing to a strange custom which the french have,
of covering the collar, with an entire sheep's skin, which gives them
the appearance of having an enormous shaggy mane.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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