But what gave the country that unlikeness to English chalk and heath-lands, that charming unlikeness, so dear to new travellers, that gives the feeling of being _somewhere else_, the true foreign touch? To this pleasure she surrendered herself with drowsy content, forgetful of recent sufferings, forgetful of the superb _ragout_ peculiar to Calais somebody had solemnly charged her to take at lunch in the long wait between train and boat, forgetful of lunch to be had on the car, till the spectacle of a waiter carrying tea past the door reminded her that "perfect meals are served," and that none approaching that description had fallen to her lot since that far-off yesterday, when the luxuries of travel had still been a dream. After many and vain requests to the "civil attendants" to bring tea, she staggered to the dining-car, wondering why the waiters all looked so absurdly drunk, and the tables behaved as if they were at spirit-rapping _séances_, and wondering still more when the modest cup of tea "for about tenpence" took a couple of francs to pacify the staggering, taciturn waiter's demand. It was evident that foreigners, civil and talkative when sober, are surly and taciturn when drunk, just as Britons, surly and taciturn by nature, become over-civil and garrulous in liquor. Snow lay here and there on the bleak levels flying past the windows. How small the cottages were! Cottages? No--huts--cottage was too cosy a word for these poor cabins. What a poverty-stricken country; the very trees lopped and starved of branch, starved houses, starved peasants ploughing with horse-ploughs, no comfort, no prosperity anywhere; all like a pinched, starved England, till after Boulogne, where sand blowing about from the great dunes was a distinct foreign note. What if the train was over-hot? Cold, cold it was outside, and, if the windows were opened, the wind cut in like a sword. A city of a splendid tower lay in the cold light after a pale pink sunset; the rushing, rocking train came to a stop by a dusky, empty platform, where a solitary, starved-looking boy stood motionless, cold in the cold twilight, his arms rolled in his apron, listless, benumbed. This must be Amiens, or else some dim city of twilit dreamland; mortal railway station it could hardly be, so dim, so chill, so empty, so silent, with no passengers, no officials, only that one ghostly train, whence none descended and whither none climbed, hissing furtively in the greyness, while vague figures in blouses passed silently by, tapping thoughtfully at the wheels now and then, and the thin, hunger-pinched boy looked listlessly about him, his bare arms rolled in his apron. Evidently nobody ever goes to French cathedral cities except to stay there; perhaps even the boy was only a statue, the latest triumph of realistic art.