_Amiens, April, 1739._ We left Dover at noon, and with a pretty brisk
gale reached Calais by five. This is an exceeding old, but very pretty
town, and we hardly saw anything there that was not so new and so
different from England that it surprised us agreeably. We went the next
morning to the great church, and were at high mass, it being Easter
Monday. In the afternoon we took a post-chaise for Boulogne, which was
only eighteen miles further.
This chaise is a strange sort of conveyance, resembling an ill-shaped
chariot, only with the door opening before, instead of the side; three
horses draw it, one between the shafts, and the other two on each side,
on one of which the postillion rides and drives, too. This vehicle will,
upon occasion, go fourscore miles a day; but Mr. Walpole, being in no
hurry, chooses to make easy journeys of it, and we go about six miles an
hour. They are no very graceful steeds, but they go well, and through
roads which they say are bad for France, but to me they seem gravel
walks and bowling greens. In short, it would be the finest travelling in
the world were it not for the inns, which are most terrible places
indeed.
The country we have passed through hitherto has been flat, open, but
agreeably diversified with villages, fields well cultivated, and little
rivers. On every hillock is a windmill, a crucifix, or a Virgin Mary
dressed in flowers and a sarcenet robe; one sees not many people or
carriages on the road; now and then, indeed, you meet a strolling friar,
a countryman, or a woman riding astride on a little ass, with short
petticoats and a great headdress of blue wool.