If we had been upon these heights in the summer of 1858, and later in
1865, we might have seen the combined fleets of England and France in
the roadstead; and, in the spring of 1865, with a good telescope, we
might have witnessed a miniature naval engagement between the famous
_Alabama_ and the _Kearsage_, which took place a few miles from the
shore.
The _Port Militaire_ and the _Arsenal de Marine_ at Cherbourg (which are
said to be five times as large as Portsmouth), and its basins, in which
a hundred sail of the line can be accommodated at one time, are sights
which we scarcely realize in description, but which almost overwhelm us
with their magnitude and importance, when seen from this vantage ground.
In three hours after leaving Cherbourg we may find ourselves settled in
the little old-fashioned inn, called the _Hotel du Soleil Levant_, at
ST. LO, which we shall probably have entirely to ourselves.
St. Lo, although the _chef-lieu_ of the department of La Manche, appears
to the traveller a quiet, second-rate manufacturing town, well-situated
and picturesquely built, but possessing no particular objects of
interest excepting the cathedral; although visitors who have spent any
time in this neighbourhood find it rich in antiquities, and a good
centre from which to visit various places in the environs. In no part of
this beautiful province do we see the country to better advantage, and
nowhere than in the suburbs of St.
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