Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/124

Rh François, not speaking a word of English, has been of little use to us; and in our greatest need, at our arrivals and departures, he has been worse than useless, as John Bull's nerves are disturbed by a foreign tongue, and the sub-officials are sure to get in a fluster. Mr. P.'s intervention came in most timely to our aid, and the last boat from the shore brought us our baggage safely. What we shall do without this friend, whose ministering kindness has been so steadfast and so effective, I know not; though François said, as soon as he had shaken the London dust from his feet, with a ludicrously self-sufficient air, "à present, madame, le courier fait tout!"

The Soho, we were told, is the best steamer that plies between London and Antwerp. It is one hundred and seventy-five feet in length and twenty-eight in breadth. It has some advantages over our Hudson River steamers, a steadier motion, the result of more perfect machinery, a salle à manger (an eating-room where there are no berths), and two dinners, served two hours apart So that with one hundred and twenty passengers, there is no scrambling, and the dinner is served with English order, and eaten at leisure. I was disappointed to find, last night, our condition quite as bad as in a similar position at home. There were thirty more passengers than berths, and these luckless thirty were strewn over the saloon floor, after having waited till a late hour for the last loitering men to be driven forth