“TRIP TO THE SUNNY SOUTH.”
“TRY a sea trip, if you can manage it,” was the last prescription I had from Dr. Banks, “it will do you more good than any medicine.” This was about the beginning of February. I found a companion in the same humour as myself, and it was agreed that we should make for the Mediterranean, going overland.
Armed with passport, pistols, powder (Keating’s insect), candles, soap, Bradshaw’s Continental and Baedeker’s Guides, and other requisites too numerous to mention, on the 18th of February we started from Birkenhead for London.
After a day in London, we booked and registered our luggage for Paris, and swept through beautiful Kent, with its hills and valleys and hop fields, like a garden in early spring.
The chops in the channel were very disagreeable, and made us feel quiet, and look very green and uncomfortable.
The steamer ran us alongside the railway pier at Calais. After luncheon we took train; were then backed through some of the principal streets, to attach some more carriages. As we sped along we soon came across the old familiar blue blouse and baggy trousers of the French peasant, busy with his spring cultivation. Leaving Boulogne and Amiens, reached Paris early in the evening.
At the searching room I met with my first trouble. Knowing, from experience, the quality of French tobacco and cigars would not satisfy an Englishman–I had also been charged for the credit of my own country not to forsake the pipe–was provided with a box of each, both of which were broken into. This would not satisfy the Frenchmen; they gathered round my portmanteau in a troop, turned out all my sundries, and finally agreed to let me off with a fine of eighteen francs. My friend managed to pass, by good luck; they seized his parcel of candles, which he described as “flambeaux” in his hurry to pick up his French, but afterwards corrected to “bougie,” which were carefully examined, and he was allowed to go scot free. We spent Saturday and Sunday here, visited the Madelene, Champs Elysées, Arch de Triomph, and the Louvre Galleries. Here we met one of those bland, sleek gentlemen, a guide courier and interpreter, with his small cane, gloves, and well-polished hat, so seductive, so suggestive and polite. We engaged him for two hours, at two francs per hour, to take us over the Picture Galleries. He badly wanted to shew us the sights of Paris by night, but this we declined. We sauntered through the well-known gay thoroughfares, the Avenue de L’Opera, Boulevard des Capucines, Boulevard de Italians, the Palais Royal, with tasteful and tempting shops of gloves, fancy nic-nacs, flowers, lace, and millinery, and tempting confectionery establishments. The prices they ask, and get, are fabulous, still they seem to find buyers; every one appears to be doing well; you scarcely ever see a shop to let.
On Saturday evening we did not think the performance of “La Favorita” did much credit to the company at the Grand Opera House. As regards the decorations of the house, I consider them too massive, too gorgeous, too heavy, and too much gold; but the grand staircase and promenade crush room are the finest I have seen.