Page:Madame Rolland (Blind 1886).djvu/89

Rh On the 1st July 1784, the Rolands landed at Dover, and her first remarks on the country are such as would not occur to women in general. "The soil of the environs," she says in the Journal written on this occasion, "perfectly resembles that of the Boulonnois; light, poor lands over a bed of sand and chalk; the country hilly, entirely broken into sinuosities, which diversify its surface in a striking manner; it is precisely the same soil on either side the water. But a traveller may soon observe which is the best understood and most improved culture. A small breed of sheep were grazing on the downs; they are quite different from ours; the legs short, the body compact, a great deal of wool, even underneath them, the head crowned with a ruff, from which it seems to issue as from a cowl, small ears thrown back into this tuft of wool—this is what at once distinguishes them from other breeds."

The country from Dover to London, by way of Canterbury, in a stage-coach, delighted Madame Roland. Nothing escaped her notice, from the trim-clipped hedges, sleek green fields and hop-gardens to the snug Kentish villages, where every cottage boasted its neatly-kept garden, and "every cabbage had its rose-tree." Some curious glimpses of English manners, as they were just a hundred years since, are afforded by Madame Roland's account of her tour. It sounds very strange and quaint to hear of "watchmen that walk about with a rattle, a lantern, and a long white pole, calling the hours as they struck." These were the flourishing days of highway and other robberies, and our traveller remarks that well-to-do persons, leaving town in the summer, "expect to find their houses robbed on their return; and that, for precaution's sake, they carried what is called the