OUTWARD BOUND. 



We have on board a little boy, aged six years, who, 

 with a pug dog, was shipped at Liverpool in charge of the 

 stewardess. He, therefore, is quite alone, and runs about 

 the deck all day. We three — i.e. dog, boy, and I — have 

 fraternized. There is also a very pleasant young Irish 

 priest going to Bordeaux, and thence to Marseilles. He 

 can't speak a word of French, and thinks it rather a joke. 

 We-have likewise foregathered, and have been looking into 

 Portuguese a bit. He agrees with me, that with a know- 

 ledge of Latin and French it should be easy. 



You may like to know something about food. It is 

 excellent. Coffee and biscuits at seven ; breakfast, with 

 cold and hot meats, porridge, eggs and bacon, beefsteak, 

 salad, etc., at nine ; lunch, of cold meat, cheese, salad, at 

 one ; dinner, of soup, fish, entries, joints, puddings, .etc., 

 cheese, and desert, with coffee, at six ; tea, coffee, and 

 biscuits, at 8.30 ; lights out at eleven. I look forward 

 with great anxiety and inward craving to each meal. 



We passed Ouessant, or Ushant, at 7.30 last night, and, 

 entering the Bay of Biscay, pitched considerably. The 

 sunset was splendid : oh the horizon, three barques against 

 a dark neutral-tint bank of clouds ; above these, apricot 

 sky, with belts of dark purple fringed with bright orange, 

 and floating masses of dark apricot' merging into the pale 

 blue cloudless heavens overhead ; the sea tinged with red, 

 and the vessel rising and sinking in the dark green waves. 

 At eight this morning we passed the He Dieu, about four 

 miles off, and no miles from Pauillac. Entering the 

 mouth of the Gironde, it is very hot ; hitherto at sea it has 

 been quite cold, and the ship rolled much, but now the 

 yellow river is calm as glass. We are about thirty miles 

 from Pauillac, and thence it is another forty miles to 

 Bordeaux. 



