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T was on a cloudy morning in July, that we started from Herne Bay for a walk to Reculvers. It looked as if it would rain, but we determined to risk it. Dr. S was with us; and we knew he would be able to tell us about the ruins.

The rain did come when our journey was half finished; so we sat down on a green bank, under some

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trees, on the edge of a small wood, to eat raspberries till the shower had gone over. We were sheltered in a pleasant nook; only Peggy was rather frightened, because somebody had told her that long, black snakes infested the place. We had a discussion about snakes, whether they were poisonous or not. Dr. S said that the adder was dangerous, but that the common English snake was perfectly harmless. Of course, this is the case, because Dr. S is so learned.

After a little time the rain cleared off, and we pursued our journey. Our road lay along the margin of the cliffs, winding in and out, and sometimes crossing deep dells, being altogether a very romantic road for people like us, who usually live in matter of fact London.

Reculvers was reached at last. We were not sorry, for the walk was rather a long one for such young feet as ours. We gazed at the ruins with all due reverence, but before climbing up to them, determined to seek out "granny" and her cottage, to get rest and something to eat. Granny, we found to be a tidy old woman, with a neat little cottage, and an equally neat little granddaughter, on whom the office of show-keeper to the ruins seems to devolve. While we were satisfying our wants, some neighbours of the old woman came in, and Dr. S began to talk to them about the schools in the neighbourhood. It seems there is no school, not even a Sunday school. Yet, they said that there were many children, quite enough to fill a school; only there were no respectable persons living near them to begin or support one. The people were very anxious to have their children taught, and were actually planning to get up a Sunday school of their own, which, for want of a room, they meant to hold in their old Church. Granny's neat little granddaughter said she was to be one of the teachers. Dr. Ssaid it was very gratifying and somewhat remarkable, to find that the poor people were so determined to have some sort of school for their

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children; he observed that it was very unusual for such a scheme to originate with the poor people of a country hamlet.

Then we went to see the ruined Church. We ascended the narrow winding stairs, but we did not go quite to the top, because the ascent was by uninviting, ricketty ladders. We had a good prospect from the window slits in the tower. Then we descended to the beach to see how it looked from the shore.

The Reculvers stand on the verge of a crumbling cliff, in front of which a stone wall is in course of erection, I suppose to protect the ruins from the inroads of the sea. As I made this observation, Dr. S- said I was quite right, and that the Trinity House people were anxious to preserve these towers, as they were an important sea mark. He added that the Church stood formerly at some distance from the sea. "Was not Reculver a Roman station ?"

"Yes," replied Dr. S, "it was the old Regulbium, and was not only a military station, but a large and populous town. Coins of Tiberius and Nero have been picked up here, mingled with fossil remains. When Augustine came over to this country, the king resigned to his use a palace which he had at Canterbury, and retired to Reculver, where he ended his days and was buried."

"Was it ever a Popish Church ?" asked Bobby.

"You may judge for yourself Bobby," answered our kind friend, "for, not many centuries ago, when the Stour was navigable, the boatmen, as they passed in melancholy silence, were accustomed to offer worship to a representation of the Saviour's crucifixion, which was placed on one of these towers."

"How did they offer it ?" was my question.

"I believe it was by lowering their topsails as they passed by the spires."

"But how could they come along the river here? I see no river but one like a thread, winding along."

Bobby is in his way a philosopher, and would know the why and the wherefore.

"Ah, Bobby, time works great changes. Where now are fields waving with corn, was once a river three or four miles across. In these fields, fragments of old vessels are sometimes discovered. The channel of the Stour in this vicinity, is now so often completely dry in summer, that it is passed over without the traveller's noticing that, by so doing, he leaves the Isle of Thanet."

"Oh look!" Peggy said, rather abruptly. She is often too abrupt, mamma tells her. "Oh look!" she said, "there are some bones sticking out of the cliff, under the ruins!"

"Bones!" echoed my brother, "let me get them." So he clambered up the crumbling cliff, and dislodged one or two bones, with a fragment that he declared was part of a skull, for he could see the eyes. What bones could these be?

The Doctor came to our assistance. "These are relics of the ancient churchyard; the waves have washed away the side of the cliff above which it stood, and so have exposed to view these memorials of some who were buried ages ago in its graves."

"And will these bones ever come to life?" asked Peggy, with a serious look.

"Of course they will," replied Bobby, with a confident air; "don't you know there is to be a resurrection? Dear me, though," he added; "I should not like to see these bones coming to life while we were here. I should not like to see this leg-bone walking about looking for its other bones!"

It is a great pity that Bobby will not be more serious! Mamma talks to him about it; but he will speak about very serious matters in a sadly irreverent tone. Dr. S- says we must make allowance for exuberance of animal spirits, I think he calls it; but I do wish my brother could or would be graver.

Mamma inquired whether there were not many other instances of the sea washing away the land and gaining greatly upon it.

"There are numerous instances," replied our learned friend; "there is Dunwich, in Suffolk, for example, which has suffered very considerably from the encroachments of the sea. The sea eats away the land; the land fills up the sea; vallies rise, and mountains diminish in height. The steeple of Craitch, in the Peak of Devonshire, in the memory of some old men, living in 1762, could not have been seen from a certain hill lying between Hopton and Wirksworth. Now, not only the steeple, but a great part of the body of the Church may thence be seen; which comes to pass by the sinking of a hill between the Church and place of view. The learned Dr. Plot adduces a similar case, that of a hill between Tibbertoft and Hasleby, in Northamptonshire. Thus they will continue to do, as long as there falls any rain, and they retain any declivity, till they be levelled with the plains. Herodotus calls all lower Egypt, 'the gift of the river,' because it was formed from the soil which the stream of the Nile collected in its cource, and deposited where it disgorged itself into the sea. Homer says, that in his time, the Island of Pharos was situate as far from the coast of Egypt as a ship could sail in a day; but now the distance between is filled up, and that place become part of the main land. On the Tuscan shore, Kircher tells us, that not far from Leghorn, he himself observed a whole city under water, that had been in former times drowned by an inundation of the sea; and over against Puzzioli, and in the Bay of Baia, he asserts that in the bottom of the sea, there are not only houses, but the traces and footsteps of the streets of some city clearly discernible. The mighty American rivers, the Potowac and Shenandoah, have wrought strange alterations in the aspect of the wild scenery through which they roll. Their united streams have burst the mountain ramparts

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