On my way thither I passed the open door of a saloon in which Mr. and Mrs. L., whose friendship I had formed the previous day, sat at coffee.  It was a pleasant surprise, and I took my seat with them, drinking coffee for the benefit of the milk (du lait) which I poured into it.  This done, Mr. L. invited me to accompany him to their hotel to “see what a nice place they had found last night!” It was a excellant hotel, and as we approached the beautiful flower-beds which lined the path leading to the entrance, their daughter came down the walk, and greeted us, the old gentleman remarking that they had been inquiring last night what had become of me.  It is very pleasant and agreeable to fall into such society, and to behold the cloth spread and the China and glass ware set with an excellent breakfast (a regular home-fashion scene) after one has spent several hours in lingual conflicts for a breakfast, and seen nothing but the outside of old weather-beaten houses.

I took my seat with the English party and my French friend (Prof.  P.S.) in the same car, and left Calais at 7:20 a.m.  Everything looked strange again; even more so than when I first came to England.  Everybody, except our English company, spoke French, and the cars, the buildings, and the tickets and conductors, seemed all different from what I was accustomed to in England.  The houses which we saw from the train, were small and covered with tiles like those which I had seen in northwestern England.  We soon passed burial grounds in which the graves were headed with crosses, in place of marble slabs, for tombstones.  Large quantities of peat and the white stone quarries in the chalk formations, next arrested our attention.  Though it was the 22nd of July, haying was not yet finished.  Some of the farmers were, however, engaged in reaping both their wheat and barley.  At 8:34 a.m., the English Channel came again into view.  Thus we passed along enjoying the scenery of “belle France,” (beautiful France), but by and by we became tired of watching landscapes.

To see odd styles of architecture, and watch the strange ways about a people, may afford a pleasant diversion for a time; but the eyes, too, become tired of looking.  A striking feature about the agriculture is the smallness of many of the fields; there being no fences, the fields are distinguished by their crops.  Some of them are but several rods in extent.  The various colors which the different kinds of vegetables assume in their progress of growth and ripening, make the landscape look like an immense expanse of checkered carpet, exceedingly beautiful to behold.

When these scenes seemed no longer to be charming, or we had become too fatigued to appreciate them, we commenced to amuse ourselves in games, joking and tricks, of which the traveler sees and enjoys his fill.

Gambling; which is such a wide-spread social evil in America, is prohibited or restricted to certain fixed days of the year, in some countries of Europe; but games of various kinds are played, by the best society, almost everywhere.  Notwithstanding all the arguments that may be advanced in favor of games at chess and back-gammon, as exercises in mental gymnastics, and of playing cards as affording pleasant diversion for mixed parties, the diligent tourist, like the industrious student, should not squander much of his time at it.