I have long thought that the regularity, silence, order, cleanliness, and decencies of an English inn, added to the beds, elegance, table, and liquors of a French inn, would form the ne plus ultra of inn-ism; and the house at Calais, which has, in some measure, become Anglicised by its position, goes to prove that the notion is not much out of the way. It quite puts its English competitor at Dover into the shade. We missed the mirrors, the service for the table, and the manner, but we got in their places a good deal of solid unpretending comfort.
While W—— went to the custom house, Mrs. —— and myself took a guide, and walked out to look at the cliffs. On one side the chalk rises like a wall, the houses clinging to its base, and, at this point, a shaft has been cut in it, containing a circular flight of steps, by which we ascended to the heights. This passage was made to facilitate the communications between the different military works. On quitting the stairs, we found ourselves on an irregular acclivity that forms the summit of the cliffs, and which was in grass. Of the perpendicular elevation, I should think about two-thirds of it was in the chalky precipices, looking towards the channel and the town, and the other third in the verdant cap on which we stood.
Here we found works of the modern school, consisting of the usual parapets, ditches, and glacis. The guide, who was anxious to show off his wares, led us up to a fort, into which we entered by a passage, from which he affirmed it was possible to abstract the air, a new device in warfare, and one that I should think rather superogatory here, since the enemy that got as far as this gate at the pas de charge, would already be pretty short-winded. As we climbed, I more than once inquired, with old Gloster, “When shall we come to the top of that same hill.” The honour of the invention was ascribed to the Duke of Wellington, by our companion, who was an old campaigner. But the military features were the least of the attractions of the spot. We were on the very cliffs of the “samphire gatherers:”—
——“Half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark
Diminished to her cock; her cock a buoy