“... Stand still. How fearful
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half-way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire—dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark
Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber’d idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high.—I’ll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.”
SHAKESPEARE’S CLIFF.
After W. Daniell, R.A.
The height of Shakespeare’s Cliff is said to be 365 feet; but it looks more, owing to the grand outline it presents to the sea. It was once much taller, but for centuries the waves have been nibbling at it. In 1847 some 48,000 tons of chalk fell, and numerous other falls have taken place since.
Not even the ugly tunnel by which the South-Eastern Railway penetrates it can spoil the majesty of Shakespeare’s Cliff, whose bastioned steeps present so romantic a profile to the surges. It stands boldly out before you, as you essay the toilsome cliff-walk, by way of Archcliff Fort, to Folkestone.
Samphire, the gathering of which, as Shakespeare truly says, is a “dreadful trade,” still grows plentifully here; and is also found growing amid the shingle by Shoreham Harbour, near Brighton, well above the reach of high water. It has been much esteemed from early times as a pickle. Thus we find, in Gerald’s “Herbal,” of 1596, “Rock samphire groweth on the rocky cliffs of Dover, Winchelsea, about Southampton, and the Isle of Wight. The leaves, kept in pickle and eaten in salads, with oil and vinegar, is a pleasant sauce for meat.”
This curious aromatic plant, with the fleshy, glaucous leaves and yellow flowers, is not uncommon, but at the same time it is very choice and selective in its habitat. Although to be found in the crannies of coastwise cliffs, there are few among the great crowds of holiday-makers by the sea, other than botanists, who have ever set eyes upon it. Curiously enough, although it looks upon the sea from its favourite spots, it will only grow in situations well out of the reach of salt water.
Samphire is said to be “St. Peter’s plant,” and to derive its name from “St. Pierre.” It is nowadays known in France as “Passe-Pierre,” or “Christe marine,” and in Italy is called “Herba di San Pietro.”
Samphire-picking is carried on in May, when the leaves of the plant are young and succulent. One must needs be young or active, and of a good nerve, to be a samphire-picker, for it is generally only in the more dangerous and inaccessible situations that it is to be found; and many have in years gone by lost their lives in the “dreadful trade,” not in these latter days so greatly followed, although, to be sure, bottles of samphire pickle are to be purchased at Pegwell Bay. The samphire nowadays more generally appeals to the collecting instincts of those devastating persons, the amateur botanists, and enthusiasts in what is known, in the latest fashion, as “Nature Study,” who are stripping the country of all its ferns and desirable wild plants; and many must be the narrow escapes every year of those who climb cliffs in search of it.