It ran through

through the midland counties. Kent over the Thames by London; on by St. Albans and Stratford; along the Severn by Worcester; and then through the middle of Wales to Caradigan on the Irish Channel. Nothing by halves, was the Roman motto. What a conception one gets of the power of ancient Rome to find her roads, viaducts, bridges, arches, baths, citadels, standing in the midst of totally dissimilar and fardistant regions, like England, Northern Germany, Syria, and the wastes of Africa. Her rule in Britain was on the whole beneficial, and she taught the painted barbarians of "The Little Island" their first grand lesson in civilization — the idea of Law.

Dover has little to interest with the exception of its castle, which stands upon a high rock to the east of the town, and covers some thirty-five acres with its buildings of Roman, Saxon, Norman, and modern architecture. As the principal of the

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Cinque Ports," and as the great outlet to the Continent, and more than all as one of the few places of safety along that sweep of dangerous coast, Dover will always be important. And even this is a precarious haven. The immense works now going on for the improvement of the harbor, so that fleets may ride in safety in it, are very slowly progressing. Another generation may enjoy their advantages. It is a mighty submarine battle with shifting sands, and an external one with winter storms. When finished, this "harbor of ref

uge " will embrace an area of 760 acres, surrounded by a wall more than two miles in length, and securing a depth of 30 or 40 feet of water at low tide.

These great white cliffs of Dover, covered with fierce barbarians, presented a formidable sight to the galleys of Cæsar, as they sailed slowly by to find a difficult landing-place a little further north at Deal. In those times the water came up to the foot of the cliffs, and the port of Dover was at the mouth of the Dour Valley, on the north of the city, extending as far as Charlton, and which is now filled up. Coming into Dover Harbor in a dark night the lines of lights upon the lofty heights, the bright lights of the Castle, and the brilliant beacons along the towering cliffs, have a singular effect; they seem as if written on the face of the sky. The town stands chiefly upon a strip of soil formed under the cliffs, and is mostly composed of one long street. It has broken an outlet for itself from its confined prison-house on the ocean, right through the hills that surround it. The double tunnel under Shakspeare's Cliff, for the passage of the South Eastern Railroad, more than three quarters of a mile long, is a stupendous work. From the soft and crumbling nature of the chalk rock, its cutting was a perilous and often disastrous operation. And there are seven other tunnels on this line, some of them still more difficult and extended. Shakspeare's Cliff" is not so high as it was in the poet's time, and its base has receded from the

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water. From its form, sloping inward, and answering perfectly to the words of Edgar,

"There is a cliff whose high and bending head," &c., every fragment that falls from the edge lessens its height. In walking up it I roused a host of little birds, making the air melodious with their morning songs. From the top of the cliff I counted one hundred and twenty sail, and saw the coast of France distinctly, although the day was dusky. It is twenty-one miles across. The time was when this England was thought to be a mere appendage to yonder coast by its Norman kings. The view toward Folkestone has something wild and solemn in it. The white cliffs solitary and stern, gleaming pale under the sombre sky, look like resolute and thoughtful sentinels watching the opposite hostile coast, the giant guardians of freedom.

Folkestone, six miles from Dover, is soon reached upon the railway. It has been greatly improved, purified, and beautified, since it has become the chief point of communication with Boulogne, a sail of an hour and a half. Here, as at Dover, one sees the genuine English sailor such as France cannot grow. He "smacks of the wild Norwegian still," and has an impudent, independent swagger, but stands on the deck firm as a rock, and carries a calm eye and ruddy cheek.

The "Pavilion Hotel" at Folkestone is a most comfortable and ample house. The aristocratic town stands above on the heights. The grassy edge of the cliff forms a beautiful promenade.

Not far from Folkestone to the south are Hythe, Romney, and Hastings, three other towns of the Cinque Ports,

"Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hythe and Dover,
Were all alert that day."

Seven miles from Hastings is "Battle Abbey," the remains of that proud structure built by William the Conqueror on the field of Hastings, over the spot where Harold fell. It was also upon these shores that our free-roving ancestors, the rough, big, blue-eyed Saxons, swarmed in upon England. At the Isle of Thanet," near Margate, landed the first Saxon invaders. Craftily obtaining possession of but just as much land as a bull's hide would go around, with true Anglo-Saxon acquisitiveness they finally overran and conquered the whole island. The same old viking spirit of the lust of power and possession has manifested itself in the whole course of English history, in the harrying of Scotland, the oppression of Ireland, and the unprincipled conquest of India; and it has cropped out in the New World in the policy of the United States toward the American Indian, and in the system of American Slavery. But let us be thankful that the spark of a nobler spirit was also sown with this inborn piratical instinct the spark of the love of liberty-which though long lying latent finally breaks out and burns up what is base and material.

CHAPTER XVIII.

TUNBRIDGE WELLS TO ISLE OF WIGHT.

TUNBRIDGE JUNCTION on the South Eastern Railway is just half way between Folkestone and London; and by a branch line of five miles one comes to Tunbridge Wells. Seated in the garden of Kent, on the brow of a hill overlooking a broad and gentle vale, is this old and popular wateringplace. Its thymy and healthy moors strewn with singular masses of isolated rock, its luxuriant hopvines, its chalybeate spring, and above all its union of pastoral beauty with the comforts and elegancies of a handsome town, will always make it a favorite English health resort, to those who can bear the rough breezes of the English Channel.

The sandstone rocks of Tunbridge Wells form a part of that remarkable geological feature called "The Wealden Beds." They are a superficial stratum of clay, sandstone, limestone, and ironstone, formed over and around the great chalk-bed of this region. They extend over large portions of Kent and Sussex, and reach even to the coast of France. From petrified forests, and characteristic fossil remains found in the "Wealden," it is inferred that these strata were a fresh - water deposit. Here