Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge,
That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high. I’ll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.”
DOVER.
From the heights about Dover the views are magnificent. Seaward is the beautiful bay, the Straits and the Downs, with its ever-changing fleets, the ships of all nations. [pg 241]Stretching one’s vision a little farther are seen the lofty white cliffs of the French coast; Cape Grisnez, near Calais (which itself lies on low land, and is therefore undiscernible), and the heights of Boulogne.
The antiquity of Dover is undeniable. Julius Cæsar here made his first descent on Britain, in August, B.C. 55. Picts and Scots, Danes and Normans, successively attacked it; while at the period of the Conquest, 1066, the town suffered fearfully, the whole place being reduced to ashes except twenty-nine houses. But when it became one of the Cinque Ports it soon rose in importance, and Dover men largely helped that brilliant attack on Philip IV.’s fleet, by which France lost 240 vessels. That enraged monarch retaliated on Dover by burning the larger part of the town; but before the year 1296 the British navy had not merely swept the enemy from the Channel, but had made several reprisals on the coast of France. At the period of the Armada, Dover, with the other Cinque Ports, fitted out, at a cost of £43,000, six large ships for the Queen’s service, which were the means of decoying the great Galleas of Spain on a shoal, afterwards engaging and burning her.
Riding or walking over the Downs some interesting places may be seen on or near the coast. At St. Margaret’s Bay, seven miles north from Dover—to the merits of the [pg 242]lobsters of which the present writer can testify, having both caught and eaten them—there is a pretty little fishing-village, with “Fisherman’s Inn” embowered in trees, at the base of lofty cliffs. Here the preliminary borings for the possible Channel Tunnel of the future were made. Farther on is Kingsdown, a fishing village and lifeboat station, the men and boat of which have done specially good service in saving life. Visible from thence is Walmer Castle and quaint old Deal, so often mentioned in these pages in connection with lifeboat work on the Goodwin Sands, themselves also plainly in sight. Riding at anchor in Deal Roads, or outward bound, or on the homeward tack, are seen ships, great and little, flying the colours of every maritime nation under the sun. The trip from Dover to Deal and back can be made by any tolerable pedestrian in a day, allowing time for visits to all the points just named. That part of the trip from Dover to St. Margaret’s Bay can be made over the Downs only, but thence to Deal the coast can be easily followed.