Digue, with the sea breeze fresh about you. We
are now on the parade-ground of Cherbourg, on
the "Quai Napoléon." A showy equestrian
statue in bronze, mounted on a pedestal of
granite surrounded by a rail and guarded by a
sentry, is the grand feature of this quay.  Here,
opposite the blue waters, the Cherbourgian idea,
embodied in a theatrical bit of art, is rampant.
For, on proceeding, we find the mighty First
Napoleon, his cocked-hat slouched over a face
full of what is intended to be the poetry of a
gloomy meditativeness and resolution, seated on
a prancing steed, with his left hand pointing
towards England.  On one side of the pedestal
is inscribed, in golden letters, the words which
we here translate:

I HAD RESOLVED
TO REVIVE AT CHERBOURG
THE MARVELS OF EGYPT.

On the other side, the simple date of the Third
Napoleon's visit last year.  The statue is a
poor affair, though showy in execution.  But
how execrable is the taste which could give
such a gesture to the great man, who surely
does not need a clap-trap celebration of this
kind!  Yet it tickles the common French mind.
Brisk young commercial gents allude to it, with
a polite chuckle, before you.  No wonder that a
sturdy Briton should be tempted to apostrophise
the horseman with "Ah, your majesty! you
prance, but you don't move on for all that!"
As for Egypt, when one sees Egypt mentioned
at Cherbourg, one thinks of the Nile—perhaps,
too, of Nelson.

Turning our back on the theatrical nag, and,
perhaps, musing of Astley's, we stride into the
town.  It is a white-looking, irregular town,
of twenty-five thousand, or so, inhabitants,
with winding streets, conspicuously clean—
much cleaner than Rouen or Caen, and a
paradise compared with the smaller Norman
places.  Though populous and reasonably
extensive, it is, however, singularly ill-provided
with the conveniences of good urban life.  We
heard one Frenchman tell another, that when
Prince Napoleon Jerome passed from the railway
station to the quay a couple of months
since, he had to make the transit in an omnibus.
This poverty of French social life strikes an
Englishman much.  For example, we had at my
hotel a general staying, who had come to make
an inspection, and whose guard of honour
rather gave dignity to the establishment.  Whenever
this veteran went out, he was driven by a
man in a blouse, as shabby as the carriage
he drove.  Cherbourg is bare and beggarly in all
these respects compared with our seaports; and,
indeed, its dulness is deplored by the French
naval officers.  It is simply a strong place, a
cold, hard, clenched fist presented at the nose
of John Bull.  The church is ugly, the public
buildings insignificant, the hotels ordinary, the
shops third-rate.  We had better stick to the
military or naval works, for these are noble.

So, then, let us call a batelier or boatman, and
take a look at things from the water.

But no, we had better first ascend that
grand-looking hill (it is hardly "a mountain"
though the French take care to call it so) in
the rear of the city, rising behind the railway
station, like a baby Rock of Gibraltar.  That is
the Montagne de la Roule, from whose stony
sides many a slice was cut to help the building
of the Digue.  There are two roads up it, a
broad and a small one, made zig-zag along its
sides, reminding one of the aforesaid Gib with its
old Mole, Ragged Staff, &c., and the midshipman's
matutinal cruise in the jolly-boat to fetch
the ship's beef; a disagreeable duty which mids
generally relieve by capturing the kidneys for
breakfast.  Her Britannic Majesty ascended the
Roule, with the French Emperor, in a carriage.
We shall go more modestly, by the narrower of
the roads, afoot. The sun of a mild October day
is quite strong enough to make climbing warm
work, and we are glad to pause at the top and
breathe the delicious air amidst the yellow broom
which crowns it, and which recalls at once bonny
Scotland and the Plantagenets. The eye ranges
inland over a wild brown country merging into
pleasant green plains; and, seawards, many a
league beyond, the long, white-towered Digue,
some three miles long, lies across the
anchorage like a mighty bar of bone.  At our
feet is the town, bounded left and right by
dockyard and mercantile basin, and trimmed
somewhat at the corner just below us, where
the railway station stands fringed by trees.

La Roule, the mountain of Cherbourg—quarry,
look-out place, and fort in one—has been
advancing in its military character since her
Majesty's visit.  The summit is attaining completion
as a fortification.  The masonry is of beautiful
granite, the earthworks solid and neat, and a bran
new caserne or barrack is just finished there
also.  In walking round, you observe spacious
corners with room for big guns to traverse in;
and the big guns, no doubt, are to be there soon.
The barracks are extremely neat.  They are
sunk in the head of the hill without being dark
or close; and the rooms, including kitchens with
their large solid stewing-boilers, are substantial
and convenient in all their arrangements.  La
Roule will not accommodate a large force; yet
one of moderate size holding a fortified hill
which rises over Cherbourg in this fashion,
would be formidable enough.  It is the Capitol
of Cherbourg—its Acropolis.  Capricious Nature
has denied an Acropolis to Caen, which calls
itself the Athens of Normandy.

La Roule once visited, we make our next
excursion a nautical one, and are soon bowling
along in a lug-rigged boat, leaving quays, houses,
and the prancing statue behind us. The ear
is startled at the boatmen's cry to the man
steering of "loff;" one of several sea-terms
common to both tongues, and probably drawn
from a very remote antiquity.

As the boat moves cheerfully on its way, a
look behind at the Port Militaire, or dockyard (it
is on the right of us while so looking), shows
the smoke of its forges, and the edging of
cannon which it presents to the sea.  But we
soon begin to draw near to the Digue, and its