A SHOOTING PARTY AT SEA. 97 



experience of the strange manner in which "masses" of 

 game melt away under a little daylight, I did not cal- 

 culate on anything further than lots of fun in seeing my 

 friends manage the boat ; for, softly be it spoken, Frcncli- 

 men have no more idea of boating than sailors of riding. 

 It is not their nature to have sympathy with water under 

 any circumstances, as their skins in general show plainly 

 enough ; but of salt water especially they have an abhor- 

 rence, and never venture into or upon it if they can pos- 

 sibly avoid doing so. The regular French sailor is but 

 half a sailor, a cross-bred animal in comparison with the 

 real English sea-dog, casts up his accounts continually, 

 and has a horrible dread of the wind. It is well known 

 that previous to Trafalgar the sickness on board the French 

 fleet was awful — not heart sickness only, though there 

 w^as plenty of that — but real stomach sickness, turning a 

 man inside out like a glove. And this is nothing extra- 

 ordinary, when we remember that they were so seldom at 

 sea. It was the British fleet which kept the sea while 

 Mons. Crapaud kept in port, and as a natural consequence 

 he soon dwindled down into a mere landsman, and when 

 he turned out again was as squeamish as a young lady. 

 As usual, we had a rendezvous the previous day to settle 

 preliminaries and eat our hares before they were caught, 

 and then, oh! the joys of the sea! "The sea, the sea" 

 was the biarden of the song — the pleasures of a " wet sheet 

 and a flowing sail," and the other delights of a sailor's life. 

 One man said that for himself he would not give a fig for 

 anything less than a gale of wind ; it was only then that he 

 felt in his element; it was sublime, magnificent, superb, 



G 



