DEAR SIR, - My Stay In This Place Now Draws Towards A Period.
'Till within these few days I have continued bathing, with some
advantage to my health, though the season has been cold and wet,
and disagreeable.
There was a fine prospect of a plentiful
harvest in this neighbourhood. I used to have great pleasure in
driving between the fields of wheat, oats, and barley; but the
crop has been entirely ruined by the rain, and nothing is now to
be seen on the ground but the tarnished straw, and the rotten
spoils of the husbandman's labour. The ground scarce affords
subsistence to a few flocks of meagre sheep, that crop the
stubble, and the intervening grass; each flock under the
protection of its shepherd, with his crook and dogs, who lies
every night in the midst of the fold, in a little thatched
travelling lodge, mounted on a wheel-carriage. Here he passes the
night, in order to defend his flock from the wolves, which are
sometimes, especially in winter, very bold and desperate.
Two days ago we made an excursion with Mrs. B - and Capt. L - to
the village of Samers, on the Paris road, about three leagues
from Boulogne. Here is a venerable abbey of Benedictines, well
endowed, with large agreeable gardens prettily laid out. The
monks are well lodged, and well entertained. Tho' restricted from
flesh meals by the rules of their order, they are allowed to eat
wild duck and teal, as a species of fish; and when they long for
a good bouillon, or a partridge, or pullet, they have nothing to
do but to say they are out of order.
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