I am sure one would find many curious specimens if one could penetrate into the back of the old shops and pull the things about—­evidently sailors from all parts of the world have passed at Boulogne.  Still I don’t hear many foreign languages spoken—­almost always French and English; occasionally a dark face, with bright black eyes, strikes one.  We saw two Italians the other day, talking and gesticulating hard, shivering, too, with woollen comforters tied over their caps.  There was a cold fog and we were all wrapped up.  It must be awful weather for Southerners who only live when the sun shines and go to bed when it is cold and gray.  There are all sorts of itinerants, petits marchands, on the other side of the quay, looking on the water—­old women with fruit and cakes—­children with crabs and shrimps—­dolls in Boulonaise costume—­fishwives and matelottes, stalls with every description of food, tea, coffee, chocolate, sandwiches, and fried potatoes.  The children bought some potatoes the other day wrapped up in brown paper—­quite a big portion for two sous—­and said they were very good.

The quais are very broad, happily, for everything is put there.  One morning there were quantities of barrels.  I asked what was in them.  Salt, they told me, for the herring-boats which are starting these days.  Nets, coils of ropes, big sails, baskets, boxes, odd bits of iron, some anchors—­one has rather to pick one’s way.  An automobile has been standing there for three or four days.  I asked if that was going to Iceland on a trawler, but the man answered quite simply, “Oh, no, Madame, what should we do with an automobile in a fishing-boat.  It belongs to the owner of one of the ships, and has been here en panne waiting till he can have it repaired.”

We went one evening to the Casino to see a “bal des matelottes.”  It was a curious sight—­a band playing on a raised stand—­a broad space cleared all round it and lots of people dancing.  The great feature, of course, was the matelottes.  Their costumes were very effective—­they all wore short, very full skirts, different coloured jackets, short, with a belt, very good stout shoes and stockings, and their white frilled caps.  They always danced together (very rarely with a man—­it is not etiquette for them to dance with any man when their husbands or lovers are at sea), their hands on each other’s shoulders.  They dance perfectly well and keep excellent time and, I suppose, enjoy themselves, but they look very solemn going round and round until the music stops.  Their feet and ankles are usually small.  I heard an explanation the other day of their dark skins, clean cut features, and small feet.  They are of Portuguese origin.  The first foreign sailors who came to France were Portuguese.  Many of them remained, married French girls, and that accounts for that peculiar type in their descendants which is very different from the look of the Frenchwoman in general.  There are one or two villages in Brittany where the women have the same colouring and features, and there also Portuguese sailors had remained and married, and one still hears some Portuguese names—­Jose, Manuel—­and among the women some Annunziatas, Carmelas, etc.  We had a house in Brittany one summer and our kitchen maid was called Dolores.