1828.] Dunkerque. 163 



appearance and supposed pretensions of her various guests ; the other, 

 alike to all, with an immovable smile upon her face, half-innocent, half- 

 coquettish, which is just as much at the service of the gar9on d'ecurie 

 as of the colonel himself, who sometimes honours her mamma's military 

 table d'hote with his presence. 



I must not forget to tell you that Dunkerque is one of the finest ports 

 of France, but that the causes which make it so take away all the other 

 advantages of its situation on the sea-coast. You might live in it for 

 years without knowing (except by the sight of the shipping coming up 

 as it were into the middle of the town) that you were near the sea : and 

 this not from its distance, but from the unfavourable nature of the coast, 

 and the peculiar manner in which the sea is shut out by the sand-banks, 

 and only permitted to enter at that one opening in them which forms the 

 harbour. This runs in a direct line from the sea for about a third of a 

 mile, bounded on either side by a wooden jetty ; and then it makes a 

 right angle, and runs on again for at least an equal distance, to the great 

 basin at the extremity : so that the port is very little less than a mile in 

 length. The five quays, which border the last half of it, are lined, two 

 or three deep, with the vessels of all nations ; and there are, besides, 

 seldom less than eight or ten merchant vessels building in the harbour^ 

 But, for a sea-side residence, I repeat, Dunkerque might as well be fifty 

 miles inland. There is no such thing as bathing ; for the shore is so flat, 

 that, half an hour after high- water, the sea is almost out of sight : and so 

 ill-adapted is the shore in every other respect, for purposes of either 

 health or pleasure, that there is not a single dwelling-house even within 

 sight of the sea. 



I would here willingly close my description of Dunkerque, while it is 

 likely to leave as favourable an impression upon your mind, as the place 

 itself has always created in mine. But there is one fact connected with 

 it, which I must not conceal from you. It is unquestionably not healthy, 

 even to the natives of it, and still less so to the English constitution, at 

 least during the autumn months. During that period, for the last two or 

 three years, there has prevailed an intermittent fever and ague, similar to 

 that which is so frequent in the low and marshy districts of England. 

 The better classes of the inhabitants are not much, if at all, troubled by 

 it ; but, among the lower classes, and especially their children, it is often 

 very fatal chiefly on account of their extreme poverty preventing them 

 from using the due means of preventing or counteracting it. The inha- 

 bitants themselves strenuously deny the existence of any such malady, 

 But they would be puzzled to account in any other way for an average of 

 eight deaths a day which have taken place during this last autumn, in 

 a population of two or three and twenty thousand. But among the Eng- 

 lish residents the Dunkerque fever has this year shewn no respect of 

 persons ; and, if it should return the next year, will completely, and with 

 good reason, put an end to that growing liking which our countrymen were 

 contracting for the place. In fact, if it were not for this serious objec- 

 tion to Dunkerque, there would be no other town in this part of France 

 nearly so well adapted to the purposes of those English families in the 

 middle classes, who seek a temporary residence out of their own country, 

 either with a view to the education of their children, the temporary 

 retrenchment of their expenses, or the permanent procuring of more of 

 the comforts and luxuries of life, with an income of two hundred a year, 

 than can be had at home with one of five or six. 



Y 2 



