Boulogne— Roads ^^\^4^S^tA^ 9 



-gam _ -J 



cheapness, for it is rather dear. The mixture of French and 

 English women makes an odd appearance in the streets; thai 

 latter are dressed in their own fashion; but the French heads 1 

 are all without hats, with close caps, and the body covered with \ 

 ^ a long cloak that reaches to the feet. The town has the appear--' 

 ance of being flourishing: the buildings good, and in repair, 

 with some modern ones; perhaps as sure a test of prosperity 

 as any other. They are raising also a new church, on a large 

 and expensive scale. The place on the whole is cheerful and 

 the environs pleasing; and the sea-shore is a flat strand of firm 

 sand as- far as the tide reaches. The high land adjoining is 

 worth viewing by those who have not already seen the petrifica- 

 tion of clay; it is found in the stony and argillaceous state, 

 just as what I described at Harwich (Annals 0/ Agriculture, 

 vol. vi. p. 218). — 24 miles. 



iSih. The view of Boulogne from the other side, at the dis- 

 tance of a mile, is a pleasing landscape ; the river meanders in the 

 vale, and spreads in a fine reach under the town, just before it 

 falls into the sea, which opens between two high lands, one of 

 , which backs the town. — The view wants only wood; for if 

 the hills had more, fancy could scarcely paint a more agree- 

 1 , ■ able scene. The country improves, more e nclosed, _and some 



' '^ J parts _s tron gly resembling England. Some fine meadows about 



Bolibrie, and^ several chateaus. I am not professedly in this 



1 diary on husbandry , but must observe that it is to the full as 



''3''^ bad as the country is good; c orn misera ble and yellowjw^ith 



,^ weeds, yet all summer fallowed with lost attention. On the 

 .^;'Jhills, which are at no greaf distance from the^a, the trees turn 



' their heads from it, shorn of their foliage: it is not therefore 

 to the S.W. alone that we should attribute this effect. — If the 

 French have not husbandry to show us, they have roads; 

 nothing can be more beautiful, or kept in more garden order, 

 if I may use the expression, than that which passes through a 

 fine wood of IMonsieur Neuvillier's; and indeed for the whole 

 way from Samer it is wonderfully formed: a vast causeway, 

 with hills cut to level vales; which would fill me with admiration 

 if I had known nothing of the abominable corvees that make me 

 commiserate the oppressed farmers, from whose extorted labour 

 this magnificence has been wrung. Women gathering grass and 

 weeds by hand in the woods for their cows is a trait of poverty. 

 Pass turberries,^ near Montreuil, like those at Newbury. The 

 walk round the ramparts of that towTi is pretty: the little 



^ Turbary, the place where peat is dug. 



