All sorts of odds and ends were hanging over the side, and about the rigging; the yards were not properly squared, and so forth; till--as old sailors would say--the ships had no more decency about them than so many collier- brigs.
Beyond them were arsenals, docks, fortifications, of which of course we could not judge; and backing all, a cliff, some two hundred feet high, much quarried for building-stone.

An ugly place it is to look at; and, I should think, an ugly place to get into, with the wind anywhere between N.W.and N.E.; an artificial and expensive luxury, built originally as a mere menace to England, in days when France, which has had too long a moral mission to right some one, thought of fighting us, who only wished to live in peace with our neighbours.

Alas! alas! 'Tu l'a voulu, George Dandin.' She has fought at last: but not us.
Out of Cherbourg we steamed again, sulky enough; for the delay would cause us to get home on the Sunday evening instead of the Sunday morning; and ran northward for the Needles.

With what joy we saw at last the white wall of the island glooming dim ahead.

With what joy we first discerned that huge outline of a visage on Freshwater Cliff, so well known to sailors, which, as the eye catches it in one direction, is a ridiculous caricature; in another, really noble, and even beautiful.