anchors, and the like, have been discovered in what was once the bed of this sea-channel, but which is now pasture-land, or covered with corn-fields. Subsequently to the time of Henry VIII., the waters of the northern branch having been distributed by means of flood-gates over the land, the arm from the Stour to Reculver became too small for navigation, and was for a period quite dry in the neighbourhood of Sarre, so that Thanet became a peninsula rather than an island. A cut from the Stour restored the continuity of the water-course, but this north channel has never since been used for navigation, and is so narrowed and shallowed for the greater part, that in the dry seasons it may be passed without notice as a nameless brook or runnel. The traveller may go through Sarre, or by Reculver, or out of the island from any point thereabout, without perceiving where the isle begins or ends, and, indeed, without knowing, from the evidence of his own sight, that it has been an island at all. It is otherwise on the side of Minster, and towards Richborough, for there the Greater Stour is a considerable stream flowing between Thanet and the rest of Kent, down to the German Occan. This river is navigable from Pegwell Bay and Sandwich up to Fordwich, about two miles below Canterbury. Both the Greater and Lesser Stour abound in fish, and contain excellent trout; salmon-trout nine pounds weight are taken in the Greater Stour, as well as a peculiar species called the Fordwich trout, which are both larger and of a finer flavour. Without quitting the Isle of Thanet the angler, at the proper seasons of the year, may enjoy very good sport by following the river from Minster towards its mouth on the sea, or by ascending it in the direction of Stour Mouth and Sarre.

In the time of the Venerable Bede, who lived and wrote in the second half of the seventh century, and first quarter of the eighth, the breadth of the channel which flowed round the island, had diminished to three furlongs, and it was usually passable at two places only, namely, at Sarre and Stonar, the last being an old Saxon town, not far from Richborough, of which town scarcely a trace is now left. It must have stood very near the spot, close by the high road to Sandwich, where visitors now take the ferry-boat to get to Richborough Castle. Yet was this Stonar a place of fame in the olden time. Here, or close by, Turkill, the Dane, fought a terrible battle with the English; and, here, at a more recent period, the somewhat lawless mariners and townspeople of Sandwich and the turbulent Thanet islanders had many a conflict.

The ferries across the Wantsume appear to have been at a very early time managed by the monastic bodies who rose so rapidly in this part of Kent, and who afterwards did so much in reclaiming the land and protecting it by strong embankments against inundation. In a rude map of the island formerly belonging to the Abbey of St. Augustins, Canterbury, there is a quaint old drawing or illumination which has often been engraved. It represents a pretty large boat with a man sitting in the stern of it; and a lay brother, with

a cross on his right arm, and a staff in his right hand, is carrying a monk on his back to the boat. The name of the place marked on the map is Sarre. Bede, who certainly was a traveller, and not always shut up in his cell at Wearmouth, speaks of the fords and of the isle as if he had seen them. "There is," says he, "on the east side of Kent the Isle of Thanet of a considerable bigness, according to the English way of reckoning, consisting of 600 families, which the river Vantsum divides from the continent, which river is about three furlongs broad, and passable over only in two places; and it goes into the sea at both its heads."

Various causes contributed to turn what was originally an arm of the sea into a river, or the bed of two rivers, and then to change the greater part of a broad river into a narrow one. By these causes the port of Richborough came to be lost, the passage round the island by water became impracticable, and Sandwich Haven, long one of our principal ports, got choked with sand. Coincident circumstances, though having no relation to one another except in the accidental order of time, are often mistaken by the ignorant for cause and effect. Sir Thomas More, writing in the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII., tells a very good story in his own facetious way :—

"Divers men of worship assembled old folk of the country to commune and devise about the amendment of Sandwich Haven. At which time, as they began first to ensearch by reason, and by the report of old men thereabout, what thing had been the occasion that so good a Haven was in so few years so sore decayed, and such sands risen, and such shallow flats made therewith, that right small vessels had now much work to come in at divers tides, where great ships were within a few years past accustomed to ride without difficulty; and some laying the fault to Goodwin Sands, some to the land inned by divers owners in the Isle of Thanet out of the channel in which the sea was wont to compass the isle, and bring the vessels round about that, whose course at the end was wont to scour the Haven, which, now the sea excluded thence for lack of such course and scouring, is choked up with sand. As they thus alleged, divers men divers causes, there started up one good old farmer, and said; 'My masters, ye may say every man what he will. I have marked this matter as well as some others, and by God I wot how it waxed right well enough. For I knew the Haven good, I have marked, and so have I seen when it began to wax worse.'-' And what hath hurt it good father,' quoth these gentlemen? By my faith, masters,' quoth he yonder same Tenterden steeple, and nothing else.' Why hath the steeple hurt the Haven, good father,' quoth they? Nay, by our Lady, masters,' quoth he, 'I cannot tell you well why, but I wot well it hath ; for by God, I knew that a good haven till the steeple was builded, and by the Mary Mass, I have marked it well, and it never throve since.""

6

In ancient times, ships and fleets of ships proceeding to the Continent, entered this strait by Reculver, and, going round the Isle of Thanet, issued

from it at Richborough and Sandwich; and ships and fleets coming from the Continent for London entered by Sandwich Haven and Richborough, and issued from it at Reculver. The North Foreland, and the heavy seas which often break upon it, were thus avoided. In the year 360, Lupicinus, a Roman commander, and magister armorum, or master of the ordnance, coming from Boulogne took this route by Richborough as the nearest cut and smoothest voyage to the mouth of the Thames. Long after this, in A.D. 1052, Harold's fleet, having plundered the eastern coast of Kent, went through these quiet inland waters. But in the long interval of these two recorded voyages thousands of ships passed through, and the passage was threaded by better men than Lupicinus or the maurauding Harold. In the year 600, or thereabout, Saint Augustin and his companions, after traversing Italy, the Alps, Switzerland, and France, embarked at Witsand near Boulogne, sailed to Richborough, and passing that place landed at or near to Sarre, whence they advanced to the fields and groves near Canterbury, to meet King Ethelbert, to find in him a ready convert, and to lay the broad foundations of the Christian church in these realms.

These are recollections to hallow the old Roman walls of Richborough, and the windings of the Greater Stour, and the hills and plains of all this part of the country, in the eyes of every educated, right-minded Englishman.

The fertility of the soil of the Isle of Thanet was attributed by the monkish writers to the coming of Saint Augustin, the first apostle to the English. They represent it as a land happy in its fecundity Felix tellus, Tanet sua fecunditate. And let not modern scepticism and self-sufficiency tax those old writers with superstition. The Christian missionaries taught our rude ancestors habits of industry, and agriculture, and many useful arts of which they had previously been ignorant; and the successors of Saint Augustin, the Bishops and Abbots of Canterbury, and the Monks of Minster, drained the wet soil, drew strongs dikes along the water courses, and gave to the plough and spade wide tracks of rich alluvial soil, which had theretofore been under water, or unproductive impassable swamps.

One of the charms of the Isle of Thanet is its compactness. Every point within it may be reached by a short ride or walk. A good pedestrian may take a glance at most that is interesting in it in the course of day. But, so numerous are the objects of interest it contains, the Island may occupy and amuse him for a week or more.

The common guide books will point out the roads and paths, and hostels' and other places of entertainment; so that on these matters we need say nothing. It signifies little where we begin; but before we notice the modern features of the Isle of Thanet, let us say a few words upon the old Roman stations of Richborough and Reculver. A lengthened description is given by Mr. Knight in Old England;' and from

this description we abridge the following brief account of these remarkable places :

"Ascending the narrow road which passes the cottage at the foot of the bank, we reach some masses of wall which lie below the regular plan. Passing by these fragments we are under the north (strictly northeast) wall—a wondrous work, calculated to impress us with a conviction that the people who built it were not the petty labourers of an hour, who were contented with temporary defences and frail resting-places. Here stand the walls of Richborough, as they have stood for eighteen hundred years, from twenty to thirty feet high, in some places with foundations five feet below the earth, eleven or twelve feet thick at the base, with their outer masonry in many parts as perfect as at the hour when their courses of tiles and stones were first laid in beautiful regularity. The northern wall is five hundred and sixty feet in length. From the eastern end, for more than two-fifths of its whole length, it presents a surface almost wholly unbroken. It exhibits seven courses of stone, each course about four feet thick, and the courses separated each from the other by a double line of red or yellow tiles, each tile being about an inch and a half in thickness. The entrance to the camp through this north wall is very perfect. This was called by the Romans the Porta Principalis, but in after times the Postern-gate. We pass through this entrance, and we are at once in the interior of the Roman Castle. The area within the walls is a field of five acres, much higher in most places than the ground without; and therefore the walls present a far more imposing appearance on their outer side. As we pass along the north wall to its western extremity, it becomes much more broken and dilapidated; large fragments having fallen from the top, which now presents a very irregular line. It is considered that at the north-west and south-west angles there were circular towers. The west wall is very much broken down; and it is held that at the opening was the Decuman gate (the gate through which ten men could march abreast). The south wall is considerably dilapidated; and from the nature of the ground is at present of much less length than the north wall. Immense cavities present themselves in this wall, in which the farmer deposites his ploughs and harrows, and the wandering gipsy seeks shelter from the driving north-east rain. The wall is in some places completely pierced through; so that here is a long low arch, with fifteen or eighteen feet of solid work, ten feet thick, above it, held up almost entirely by the lateral cohesion.

"In the field within the walls of Richborough, there is at the depth of a few feet, between the soil and rubbish, a solid regular platform, one hundred and forty-four feet in length, and one hundred and four feet in breadth, being a most compact mass of masonry composed of flint stones and strong coarse mortar. Upon this platform is placed a second compact mass of masonry, rising nearly five feet above the lower mass, in the form of a cross, very narrow in the

"The Roman remains still existing at Reculver are less interesting than those at Richborough, chiefly because they are of less magnitude, and are more dilapidated. Very close to the ruins of the ancient church, whose spires were once held in such reverence that ships entering the Thames were wont to lower their top-sails as they passed, is an area, now partly under the plough, and partly a kitchen-garden. It is somewhat elevated above the surrounding fields; and, descending a little distance to the west of the ruined church, we are under the Roman wall, which still stands up on the western and southern sides with its layers of flat stone and concrete, defying the dripping rain and the insidious ivy. The castle stood upon a natural rising ground, beneath which still flows the thread-like stream of the river Stour, or Wantsum. Although it was once the key of the northern mouth of the great estuary, it did not overhang the sea on the northern cliff, as the old church-ruin now hangs. When the legions were here encamped, it stood far away from the dashing of the northern tide, which for many generations has been here invading the land with an irresistible power. Century after century has the wave been gnawing at this cliff; and, as successive portions have fallen, the bare sides have presented human bones, and coins, and fragments of pottery, and tessellated pavements, which told that man had been here, with his comforts and luxuries around him, long before Ethelbert was laid beneath the floor of the Saxon church, upon whose ruins the sister spires of the Norman rose, themselves to be a ruin, now preserved only as a sea-mark."

As Margate was a place of some note when Ramsgate as yet was not, or was only a fishing village of the narrowest dimensions; and as ten people land at Margate for one that lands at any other part of the island, we will begin our modern descriptions with Margate!

And, first, as to the habits of its shoals of visitors. That part of society which is called 'fashionable,' and which once frequented the place, have long deserted it, and almost entirely. There is a talk among the Margate residents, that they once had a 'Lord Marquis' for a

not apocryphal. The place is annually visited by tradespeople, varying in degrees of prosperity, or, as it is styled, 'respectability,' by professional men and their families, and by not a few retired independent gentlefolk, who can be happy without being fashionable, and enjoy the gaiety they see around them without marring the pleasure by sneering at fashions in dress, and fashions in manners not quite their own. Of course as wherever English people congregatethere are grades, and distinctions, and strong demarkation lines. The shop-keeper from Piccadilly or Oxfordstreet looks down upon the Cheapsider, the Cheapsider looks down upon the Whitechapeler, the Whitechapeler upon the Mile-Ender; and their respective spouses and daughters have a critical gamut about spheres' and 'fashions,' and 'good company' and 'fit company,' and so on. The real genuine Cockneys-we use not the word disrespectfully, for Cockneys have always been foremost in industry and in arms; the best of our sailors in the last war were men born within the sound of Bow-bells; the best of our soldiers were, and still are, to be found among the Londoners; the trade of the world has been headed by Cockneys of humble degreethe real, genuine Cockneys, we say, are to be found in the lower part of the scale; and they are the merriest and happiest, and, in our estimation, the most interesting of the whole host. They come down to enjoy themselves, and they set about it with a zest and earnestness truly exemplary. The first thing they do, when landing from the steamer, is to sit in an open window and eat shrimps; the second thing is, to level a telescope or some sort of spy-glass at the broad sea; and the third thing is, to sally out and buy a pair of yellow or 'whitey-brown' Margate slippers, wherewith to trudge along the sands, and ascend the gaps or gates cut in the cliffs, and walk along-shore and over the chalky cliffs, whose soil is unfriendly to Day and Martin's blacking. With the regularity with which these three offices are performed, that witty rogue Haji Baba, barber and diplomatist of Ispahan, might have concluded that they were religious observances, or connected in some way with the popular worship of the Cockneys. No doubt they rest upon family tradition, and are cherished as ancestral practices. the morning after the arrival of the modern visitors, row-boats, sailing-boats, donkeys, and donkey-chaises, (all things to be had in abundance at Margate), are in great request; as are also among the ladies—or such of them as do not like sailing, or rowing, or donkeyriding-the novels of the circulating libraries. On a very fine day, the sands, from No-Man's Land' to Long-Nose Point,' may be seen littered by Mr. Stone's and Mr. Osborn's Novels, and the fair readers of them. Romances and tales, which are now never seen elsewhere, abound at Margate. Even the Scottish Chiefs,' the 'Watch Tower, or the Sons of Ulthona ;' the Midnight Bell,' the Children of the Abbey,' Moss-Cliff Abbey, or the Sepulchral Harmonist,' Manfroni, or the One-handed Monk,' the Cottage

On

on the Cliff,' the Cottage on the Moor,' and all those inspirations of the Leadenhall-street Minerva, are to be seen in broad daylight on the sands and cliffs of Margate, together with a new species of romance, which is not half so pleasant,—as Greenacre's murder of Sarah Brown with a rolling-pin, turned into a sentimental story, under the title of 'The Murdered Bride.' There is no escaping the sight of these things-if you jump from the Cottage on the Cliff' under No-Man's Land, you are pretty sure to fall on the Cottage on the Moor' by the time you reach the Clifton Baths; and, if you miss the Murdered Bride' on the rocks by Newgate (a memorable preventive-service station), you are pretty sure to find her sitting on the rocks a little farther on, or looking right at you from the cliffs above. Whenever the children fall into the salt-water pools, or spoil their best jackets by rolling on the wet chalk, it is because the lady in charge of them has been reading one of Mr. Stone's most exciting novels.

The ladies tire their eyes as much with these books as the men wear out theirs with their spy-glasses. It seems strange that the glorious view of the open, fresh, and "far-resounding" sea cannot be enjoyed without these wooden tubes and bits of glass; but so it is, and your true Cockney cannot think he is at the sea side, unless he has a glass constantly at his eye. So far they resemble the pilots that are always on the lookout for vessels; but whether they know an outward from a homeward bound ship, a brig from a schooner, or a fishing smack from one of the Messrs. Green's splendid East Indiamen, are points upon which we will by no means decide. All that we flatly affirm is, that they can't be without their spy-glasses. They keep them on their dinner-tables, so as to be ready to take a peep seaward between the dishes. And the mention of dinner reminds us that, generally speaking, "this classis of men" (as Lord Clarendon hath it) do somewhat overmuch indulge in eating and drinking during their sojourn on the coast. The sea air, and the exercise, and the lounge by "sandy margent," or " breezy cliff," give them a good appetite, and they seem to fancy that the more they eat at Margate, the more health they will carry back with them to smoky London. Dear Cockneys, let us warn you, in the words which Charles Fox once used to First Consul Bonaparte, to "drive this nonsense out of your head." You will go back much better if you eat less, and drink less, and walk and think a great deal more. We are experienced

voy

men: we know what it is to make the homeward age on the Monday morning with 250 or more Londoners; and we have seen but too many instances of men going back heated and feverish, and in a worse state of health than when they came down. Yet let it not be understood that we complain of, or even hint at, any barefaced exhibition of inebriety. In the good old times-in the days of the Margate Hoys-the cockney merriment too generally ended in downright drunkenness. It stops far short of that point now.

In the Hoy' days there were public gardens, and public breakfasts, with music, and dancing on well

kept lawns at Dandelion; but Dandelion is now a farm-house (though still deserving of a visit on account of the tower and picturesque gate-house of its ancient manor-house). The Tivoli Gardens were obscured last summer by the high chalk viaduct of the new railway; nevertheless, there were piping, and dancing, and fireworks, and other amusements, albeit the support given to the proprietor was so poor that, at the end of the season, he was obliged to give up that speculation. It appears that there has been a general decay of custom and attendance at these places. Ranelagh, at the neighbouring village of St. Peter's, though in truth a pretty place, and with good exhibitions, and music, and good appliances for dancing, made but a poor season of it, though Margate, and Ramsgate, and all the other lodging places, were so crowded. We should regret this the less, if the taverns-wherein there was no amusement but drinking and smoking, and no place for the ladies-had been somewhat less full every night. We suspect that false notions of gentility, and ridiculous notions about 'spheres,' have had a great deal to do with the decay of these old places of amusement. Cheapside can't go through a quadrille with Whitechapel; and Whitechapel won't do the Polka with Mile End. The other places of resort are numerous in the town and the neighbourhood; and have they not been sung of in heroic verse by Peter Theophilus Turner, Schoolmaster and Poet Laureate of Margate ? There is a Bazaar, and there is another Bazaar called (the godfathers of misnomers best know why!) the Boulevard, where ladies in white muslin and measureless bustles play upon pianos, and gentlemen and ladies try the wheel of fortune,' and shake dice boxes at And of these Peter Theophilus chants,-

raffles.

"See, to the abode of goddesses we go,

And proudly pass beneath grand portico;
By fair Aglaia and Euphros'ne led,

O'er velvet paths in chaste fantastic tread."

Then there are the Bathing Rooms, where crowds are collected every summer evening, and pianos played upon, and songs sung, while in the morning they abound with loungers, bathers, children, toys, and newspapers. Peter Theophilus Turner has the delicate mind of the true poet. He is afraid that that the uninitiated may fancy that people bathe all together in the crowded rooms; and he therefore explains at starting that they do not:

"Along the borders of the Western strand,

In High-street many Bathing houses stand;
Though thus they're nam'd, they are not strictly so:
They're only places where the bathers go

To wait their turns of plunging in the sea,
Which here they do with strictest decency."

The Clifton Baths are among the delights and wonders of Margate. They are cut out of the chalk cliff, and are really curious. There are winding passages, subterranean chambers, terraces, newspapers of course, spy-glasses, and an organ upon which every body may play.

The Fort, near these Clifton Baths, has been converted into a very pleasant and open promenade. Beneath are the Pier and the Jetty. The Pier, which

affords another excellent promenade-with a band in the evenings-is 901 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 26 feet high. The Jetty is still longer. It also serves as a promenade, and a cool one and a pleasant one it is, except that to walk along it is like walking over a very long cold gridiron. According to the state of the tide at the time of the arrival of the steamers either the Pierhead or the Jetty-head is crowded.

Behind the town, in the part called the Dane' there is a curious grotto cut out in the chalk, and prettily and tastefully covered with shells. It long passed for an antique; but it now appears that although the Cave was old, the shell work was done by an ingenious artisan of Margate, who some years ago went to America.

Such are a few of the lions of the place. But other amusements are not wanting. Italian organ-boys, image-boys, fortune-telling gipsies, bears and monkeys, a camel, hurdigurdies, conjurors, tumblers, fish-hawkers, shrimp-sellers, criers of fruit and vegetables, matchvenders, sellers of corn-plaster, and the town bellman, keep the Fort-the choicest part of all Margate-alive and ringing, from eight o'clock in the morning till nine at night. Heaven knows, there is no being dull or too quiet there! The tapage lasts all through June, July, August, and September. We have omitted many of We have omitted many of the performers; but of one of those we have enumerated we must say a few words. And this is the Bellman, the famous Margate Bellman, in his blue coat, gilded buttons, red collar, gold lace, and gold laced hat-the

noble Margate Bellman! rough and weather beaten, and who always looks tipsy, without ever having been known to be so. Many are the years we have known him, and his bell, and his jokes. A friend, a humourist, a man of wit, who could find fun everywhere and in everything, but who, woe the while! is gone where there is no more laughing-used to say that were there no other public amusements in Margate, the public Bellman would be enough. He is a poet, our Bellman, and has often been the cause of poetry in others. He announces tea and cakes, tea gardens and skittle grounds, in rhyme; he bids you to Tivoli or St. Peter's in verse; he has rhymes for auctions and lost pocket handkerchiefs, and a standing rhyming joke for a lady's lost bustle; he tells you of the departures and arrivals of steamers in rhyme; and he will sell you, for fourpence, the history of his life and adventures written in

verse.

The liveliest scene at this lively watering place is on the Saturday night. There is a late steam-boat, called, in the language of the place, 'The Hats boat,' or 'The Husbands' boat.' The good men wind up their week's business on the Saturday afternoon, and then embark to rejoin their wives and children. All circumstances favourable, the husbands' boat ought to arrive at nine, or half-past nine, in the evening, and the wives expect its arrival at that time, as if it could go, on every occasion, as regularly as the clock in the Margate clockhouse. But tides and winds will at times be contrary, and impede even the progress of steam: off Herne Bay