world’s orbit than the other; for the famous golf links with which Sandwich has again, in widely different fashion, made its name familiar throughout England, affect the old town itself but little. A walk now runs along the old walls within which the beautiful Norman tower of St. Clement’s Church rises above the low roofs. Open spaces and gardens lie easily about in the little town which, as an unchanged survival from Tudor or Mediæval times, has no equal in England. Before the Norman Conquest it was the chief port of the nation. As late as 1446 its harbour, now dry land, is described by a German ambassador as “wonderful, the resort of ships of all sizes from all parts of Europe.”
By the water-gate at the entrance to the old bridge over the Stour is the Barbican. But the behaviour of the Stour as it draws towards the sea under present conditions is the most remarkable; for when within half a mile of the south end of Pegwell Bay opposite Ramsgate it bends suddenly southward, runs for 3 or 4 miles parallel with the east coast to Sandwich, and then doubles back upon the same course to meet the sea at the spot where its original intention of ending its career seems obviously to have been. Close to its mouth upon the other side is the shingle spit of Ebbsfleet, where not merely St. Augustine, but more than a century earlier Hengist and Horsa, first planted their pagan feet upon British soil.
On the very banks of the river are the long embankments still strewn with tiles and pottery, marking the site of the Roman Rutupium, a station of sufficient importance to be the headquarters of the Second Legion in the third century, or, in other words, of a garrison of about 8000 men. And in scarcely any part of England has such a mass of coins been recovered, while on the rising ground the graves of the early Saxon settlers and invaders lie thick amid the chalk. But the mouth of the Stour, where the action of the sea alone during the long centuries since Roman times affords in itself a fascinating subject, is so rich besides in human memories that I should be in danger of slipping too deeply into the maritime aspect of English rivers, which I have described as having no immediate concern with the nature of this book. Still, it must be admitted, though less with the Kentish than the Sussex rivers, that their real interests and their physical attractions only begin with the first breath of the sea.
CHAPTER VIII
THE YORKSHIRE DALES
THE Rivers of Yorkshire present to the writer of these pages much the same embarrassment of riches and problems of compression on an only lesser scale than those presented by the general title of this work. One thing, however, reduces the rather bewildering amplitude of the subject as expressed upon the map by not a little, and that is the natural reluctance in a work like this to linger by rivers after they have lost their purity from the refuse of mines and factories, and most certainly after they have actually entered the industrial districts. Another thing which tends to further simplification is that the country generally known as the “Yorkshire dales,” comprising the Upper and most beautiful portion of the best of the rivers, is the district that is associated in the minds of most people with the typical river scenery of this great county. And this region may be roughly described as covering the north-west quarter of Yorkshire, and including the Upper and cleaner portions of nearly all its important rivers. From hence come the Tees, the Swale, the Ure, the Nidd, the Wharfe, and the Ribble, with their many tributaries. It is a curious fact, too, that with the exception of the first and last, every one of them takes a south-east course, and every one eventually pours its waters into the Ouse near the Humber estuary. The Tees, whose northern bank is Durham territory for nearly the whole of its course, flows into the North Sea, having its own ample and busy estuary at Middlesborough. Through the centre of Yorkshire, running north and south, is the great plain, or by comparison a plain with which the traveller on the Great Northern railroad to Scotland is so familiar, and whence thousands of persons no doubt derive their impressions of this distinguished county. But at intervals any such traveller with an eye to the country may see rising far away in the east as on the west, those lofty hills and moors that in the minds of as many others represent the Yorkshire which their memory turns to. I have spoken of the north-western highlands, usually known as the Yorkshire
dales, with their rivers pouring away to the south-east. But before dealing with them in greater detail, in accordance with the plan of this chapter and the drift of Mr. Sutton Palmer’s skilful brush, I should like to remind the reader that the greater part of East Yorkshire, from north to south—from the Tees, that is, to the Humber—also consists of either moors or chalk wolds. The former, practically filling the north-east quarter of the county (I leave the three Ridings alone as they have no physical significance), also gives birth to many streams. But the Esk alone breaks its way eastward into the North Sea, having its mouth at Whitby. With the exception of a few trifling brooks all the other rivers of these north-eastern moors, as well as the few small streams of the south-eastern wolds, flow south or south-west to find their way eventually into the Ouse or its estuary the Humber. It is quite curious how, south of the Esk watershed, practically every brook turns its back on the neighbouring North Sea. The infant springs of the Derwent, which eventually carries all the waters of these northern moors between Thirsk and Scarborough to the Ouse, are situated within 3 or 4 miles of the east coast.