266 A MONTH IN THE FORESTS OF FRANCE. 



minutes' detention, and being kept in Havre till the 

 following Monday, when the next packet sailed. In 

 addition to this, a host of empty cabs from the stand 

 near the station would have followed us, each driver 

 swearing, when he got to the quay, we had called 

 him off the stand, and every man Jack of them 

 demanding five francs, a friendly policeman ready to 

 detain us beyond time, if we did not submit to the 

 disgraceful extortion. Hear it, ye French gentlemen ; 

 this state of things you permit to stain the rules of 

 transit through the realms of beautiful France ; and 

 when a stranger and a traveller complains of it, you 

 afford him no redress. Hear it, ye railway compa- 

 nies from London to Southampton and Paris via 

 Havre ; this is the way you expect to keep up your 

 traffic with advantage. But listen. Englishmen and 

 Frenchmen, to that which is about to be related in 

 the next and last chapter, and then wonder, if you 

 can, that so many persons, as well as myself, would, 

 for the future, sooner travel any other way, than risk 

 collision, after dark, and tied to time, with the den of 

 thieves that haunt the railway terminus at Havre. 



