All this was unpleasant to hear; but I was determined not to be thwarted; and so, portmanteau in hand, I stepped on board the Kingstown boat. It was the 15th August, a most glorious autumn evening, and the sea was beautifully calm. I now felt that my enterprise had begun, and as I stood on deck watching the beautiful scenery of Dublin Bay receding from my view, the natural reflection occurred that this might be the last time I should see my native land. I was leaving the cherished inmates of that bright little spot, which I now more than ever felt was my home. It would be my first real experience of the world, and I was about to enter upon the battle of life alone. Arriving in London on the morning of the 16th, and having spent the day with some of my school friends, in the evening I went on board the Ostend boat at St. Katharine's wharf. We were to start at four o'clock next morning. I slept until I was awakened by the rolling of the vessel out at sea. The boat was a villainous little tub, and appeared to me to go round like a teetotum. We had an unusually long and rough passage of sixteen hours, and I was fearfully ill the whole time. When we arrived at Ostend, so bad was I that I could not leave my cabin until long after everybody else. Hence a friend of mine, Monsieur le Chevalier de Sauvage Vercourt, who had come up from Liège to meet me, made certain when he failed to perceive me among the passengers that I had missed the boat. On inquiring, however, of the steward if any one had remained below he discovered me. My friend gave me two letters of introduction, one to M. le Vicomte de Melun, which subsequently got me admitted into "La Société Française pour le secours aux blessés de terre et de mer"; the other to the Mayor, M. Lévy, asking him whether he could find a way for me into the Army as an assistant. When I had pulled myself together a bit, Vercourt and I dined together in the open air, at a Café on the Grande Promenade. It was the fashionable hour, and every one seemed to be in gala dress. Half, at least, of those we saw were English, the remainder French and Belgians. It is a curious sensation, that of being for the first time in a foreign country, where one's whole surroundings differ from all one has been accustomed to see and hear in one's native land. My boyish experience made everything, however trivial, a subject of interest. As I walked through the town with Vercourt, I was greatly struck by the civility of the people, their cleanliness and the neatness of their persons and dress, and above all by the absence of any visible wretchedness even among the poor. These points occupied our attention and conversation until we found ourselves on our way to Brussels. The country through which we passed, though really most unattractive, had for me many points of interest, and gave me an agreeable picture of what was meant by "foreign climes".