Havre-de-Grâce – Stay there – Mr. Eyriès and his country home – Dealers in natural history objects – Large amount of foreign curiosities – Cabinets – The harbor and trade – Stores – the Bavarian consul Mr. Meinel – Trip to Harfleur – Pack voyage on the steamboat Le Rouannais to Rouen – Stay there – The cathedral – Dealers in natural history objects – Departure from Rouen to Abbeville – Stay there – The cabinets of Messrs. Baillon and Delamotte – Rüppel’s stranded natural history objects at the mouth of the Somme – Journey via Montreuil – Boulogne – Calais to Dunkerque – Stay there – Embarkation on the steamboat Graaf Cancrin for Rotterdam – Stay at Rotterdam – Embarkation on the steamboat Zeuw (or Nederlander) and voyage to Cologne – Journey overland via Bonn to Forch – Walk via Hammerstein, and arrival at Monrepos.
August 13, 1834
We departed early at eight o’clock with the diligence [stagecoach]. We had seven relais until Abbeville or Lieneville. About three lieues are considered one stagecoach relay, or relais. The roads are good, but the area is very hilly, also fertile, with much forest and shrubbery, especially in the valleys. The fruit trees, particularly the apple trees, were heavily laden with fruit. [It] was harvest time for the summer grains, particularly oats; the rye had been harvested long ago. We saw wide expanses of clover. We stopped in the little town Monytreuil and had breakfast there. The heat and the dust were very troublesome. Large flocks of black turkeys grazed on the fields. The French like this fowl very much and eat much of it.
There were three postes [stations?] before Neufchatel. Beyond this place, the harvest was under way everywhere. All the farmers were in the fields; many were busy with bringing in the crops, and the countryside was very busy.
We reached Abbeville at twelve o’clock that night and stopped at the Hotel d’Angleterre.