Goats in Harness.

365

patch of beach, monopolised by a bathingmachine.

Not that patches of beach are bad; give me a shore with hidden little bays, where you may wander alone if you like, and then go back to the beauty and fashion on the promenade. Nothing is worse than one public walk, where you cannot get away from people, and where a conspicuous figure, say some staring snob, with a white hat in half mourning, meets you on every tack; even without him it is dreary work to be confined to the same pier, up and down, like the bubble in a spirit level.

There is one class of the population at most watering-places which I pity with all my heart. I don't mean the donkeys, who affect an expression of patience I am convinced they don't feel; but the goats. Goats in harness, towed by young plebeians in front, and worried by young gentlemen passengers from behind. I can't conceive a more unhappy, inappropriate fortune befalling any animal. I wonder whether they derive any malicious satisfaction from the consciousness of being goats, and that a ride behind them must displace even the fresh smell of the sea. But I don't believe they think of

it themselves.

Let me say a word about bathing, and I will have done.

In many respects they manage this better abroad. If you have your dip in public there you are obliged to wear a "costume;" and the machines are often not shoved into the water; but the arrangements are convenient and decorous. The bathing at many of our watering-places is anything but this last. Perhaps it is more outrageous at Margate than elsewhere. The first time I saw it I was reminded of some old picture of the landing of the Romans, when the beach was lined with naked natives, half in and half out of the water. There is, moreover, something inexpressibly dismal in the unrobing within a machine, in the flapping of the spray at the outer door, and the shivering station on the gritty ladder, before the leap. This and the treacherous recall of the machine to the beach

while you are standing on one leg, tugging at a sticky boot, make the whole process intolerable. If I must bathe, give me a clear header from a rock, and sunshine to dress in.

The young lady's amusement in the water seems to consist in a quick succession of deep perpendicular curtsies, and an attempt to tug the machine in after her by its tail.

Independence.

367

Sea-fishing is generally a failure; one or two are partially successful, the rest are sick. So with aimless sails, at a shilling an hour; the boatmen are extortionate and oracular, the excursionists wretched.

By the sea-side, however, as everywhere else, those only enjoy themselves as they might who dare seek recreation as the innocent whim may lead them; who defy the dressiness of the prigs and puppies, in easy clothing and old shoes indoors and out; who are not ashamed to roll or lounge on the shingle, unattracted by the band and the esplanade; who, having come to rest, idle wisely, with perpetual acted protest against the fuss of affected science and fashionable propriety.

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SEA-BATHING IN FRANCE.

SAW it at St. Malo, where it is said to flourish. There was nothing

edge of the

very particular in the shape of the machines which were drawn up on the beach. Except that they were made of canvas instead of wood, and had much lower wheels than ours, they had the same bald, gritty look which those vehicles generally wear. They were twenty or thirty yards from the water, and therefore, as I was not thinking much about bathers, but idling along in a promiscuous sort of way, I supposed that the day's dipping was over. Judge of my surprise when, on passing close by a machine, the door opened, and a short, stout gentleman, in a jacket and drawers of a large staring check flannel, stepped out with a smile and a shudder

like a clown. I almost expected him to put his head on one side, and say "Here we are again," before turning a summersault.

But it was the mayor. The Mayor of St.

Malo, going to bathe. Or, if it was not the mayor, it was as good, for I saw him afterwards, and he had a red ribbon in his buttonhole, to which no end of people took off their hats. Perhaps he was a préfet. At any rate, he had on nothing but breeches and a shortish jacket, of flaring check flannel, and proceeded to paddle down to the water after a few minutes, with Mrs. M., who popped out of a neighbouring machine similarly dressed, on his arm; and I can assure you Mrs. M. did not owe all her charms to crinoline.

Bless my heart, I said to myself, this is worth coming to France to see. So I brisked up, opened my eyes, got a chair for a sou, sat down, and took it all in. Let me reflect-no, not reflect—but consult my notes, which I made on the sly, lest a ferocious gendarme, who paced about, should suspect me of sketching a fort, and sabre me on the spot.

Let me see. There were about fifty or sixty machines in this village, all of canvas, and upon very low wheels, the floor of the hut not being above a foot from the ground. They are seldom, if ever, taken into the water, and, of course, a plunge from one of them is impossible even then, as they cannot draw above six inches.