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 14, 1834
We stayed at Abbeville, a city of 19,000 inhabitants on the Somme. It is fairly lively [and has] a few attractive streets [but also] many old houses and bad streets. Cuirassiers and a battalion of infantry are garrisoned here.
Early that morning I visited my old ornithological correspondent Mr. Baillon and saw his interesting collection.9 He no longer buys birds [and] limits himself especially to waterfowl. He owns [a] very complete [collection of them]. He gave me the news that, I believe, seven of Mr. Rüppell’s crates, which had been aboard a ship from Italy that was wrecked at the mouth of the Somme, were lost. Mr. Baillon saved a number of objects; however, some of these were in bad condition. Some crates were entirely lost.
Mr. Baillon showed me the nice collection of Mr. Delamotte, a wealthy man who had constructed a special museum in his garden. [It is] a long, single-story hall, inscribed “Museum”; he intends to build a second one. In this building, a significant collection is exhibited very elegantly and attractively. Of the large animals, only the reindeer, the ostrich, [and] several common seals, among them Phoca groenlandica, can be seen at present. The cabinets contain a collection of small mammals and [many] interesting and beautiful birds, among them the Menura; the Lophophorus, with its magnificent plumage; nice waterfowl; several rare parrots (even though there are still many of these missing); nice Trochili; and so on. Unfortunately, the owner was absent.
I dined at Mr. Baillon’s and got acquainted there with a certain Mr. [——], who owns a collection of curios of all kinds, especially antique objects. The most interesting he has, however, is the collection of nests of all the birds he has been able to reach. [The nests] are in tall glass cabinets or between double panes of glass, where large numbers are arranged in a layer of moss on the ground [at the bottoms of the cases?]. Above, [I saw tree] trunks with their branches, in which the nests are set in a completely natural habitat; for instance, that of the oriole, the long-tailed titmouse, the magpie, and so on. The cutoff trunks are set on shorter, thicker wooden blocks, decorated, and covered with moss. I promised him additions. After we saw this interesting and very creative collection, I took [my] leave [of him], and in the evening, we walked a little around town. The carillon in the tower sounded its monotonous music, as in all towns close to Flanders. Three buglers of the cuirassiers blew taps.