Accordingly A Boat Put Off To
Her Assistance, And Brought Her Safe Into The Harbour:
Since
which time she has continued to patronize the watermen of
Boulogne.
At present she is very black and very ugly, besides
being cruelly mutilated in different parts of her body, which I
suppose have been amputated, and converted into tobacco-stoppers;
but once a year she is dressed in very rich attire, and carried
in procession, with a silver boat, provided at the expence of the
sailors. That vanity which characterises the French extends even
to the canaille. The lowest creature among them is sure to have
her ear-rings and golden cross hanging about her neck. Indeed
this last is an implement of superstition as well as of dress,
without which no female appears. The common people here, as in
all countries where they live poorly and dirtily, are hard-featured,
and of very brown, or rather tawny complexions. As they
seldom eat meat, their juices are destitute of that animal oil
which gives a plumpness and smoothness to the skin, and defends
those fine capillaries from the injuries of the weather, which
would otherwise coalesce, or be shrunk up, so as to impede the
circulation on the external surface of the body. As for the dirt,
it undoubtedly blocks up the pores of the skin, and disorders the
perspiration; consequently must contribute to the scurvy, itch,
and other cutaneous distempers.
In the quarter of the matelots at Boulogne. there is a number of
poor Canadians, who were removed from the island of St. John, in
the gulph of St. Laurence.
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