Hastings saw us for the night. Hastings and St. Leonards, twin sea-front towns, are what, for a better description, might be called snug and smug. They are simply the most depressing, unlovely resorts of sea-front and villas that one will see in a round of all the English resorts.
As a pompous, bustling, self-sufficient little city, Hastings, with its fisher men and women, its fish-market and the ruined castle-crowned height, has some quaintness and character; but as a resort where the chief amusements are scrappy, tuneless hurdy-gurdies, blatant brass bands, living picture shows, or third-rate repetitious of a last year's London theatrical successes, it is about the rankest boring proposition which ever drew the unwary visitor.
We had our "B. B. B." that night at the Queen's Hotel, a vast barracks of a place near the end of the Parade. The best thing about it was the view from the windows of our sleeping-rooms, and the fact that we could stable our automobile under the same roof.
We made a little run inland from Hastings the next morning to view old Battle Abbey. The battlement-crowned gateway is still one of the architectural marvels of England. It took us a dozen miles out of our way, but always among the rolling downs which dip down to the sea, chalk-faced and grass-grown in a manner characteristic only of the south coast of England.
We came to Eastbourne through Pevensey, famed for its old ruined castle and much history. A low-lying marsh-grown fishing-port of olden times, Pevensey was the landing-place of the Conqueror when he came to lay the foundation-stones of England's greatness. It is a shrine that Britons should bow down before, and reverently.
Eastbourne is a vast improvement, as a resort, over any south coast town we had yet seen. It is not gay, it is rather sedate, and certainly eminently respectable and dignified. Giant wheels, hurdy-gurdies, and quack photographers are banished from its beach and esplanade, and one may stroll undisturbed by anything but perambulators and bath-chairs. Its sea-front walk of a couple of miles or more is as fine as any that can be found from the Foreland to the Lizard.
Most energetically we climbed to the top of Beachy Head, gossiped with the coast-guard, stole a peep through the telescope by which Lloyd's observer at the signal-station picks out passing ships, and got down the great hill again in time for lunch at the Burlington Hotel. We lunched in more or less stately fashion, well, if not luxuriously, in a great dining-room whose sole occupant, besides ourselves, was England's laureate.
He is herein endorsed as possessing a good taste in seaside hotels, whatever one may think of the qualities of his verse. The Burlington seemed to us the best conducted and most satisfactory hotel on all the south coast, except perhaps the Lord Warden at Dover.
It was a more or less rugged climb, by a badly made road, up over the downs from Eastbourne, only to drop down again as quickly through Eastdean to Newhaven, a short ten miles, but a trying one.
Newhaven is a sickly burg sheltered well to the west of Beachy Head. Its only excitements are the comings and goings of the Dieppe steamers and a few fishing-boats. It is one of the best ports for shipping one's automobile to France, and one of the cheapest. In no other respect is Newhaven worth a glance of the eye, and English travelers themselves have no good word for the abominable tea and coffee served to limp, half-famished travellers as they get off the Dieppe boat. This well-worn and well-deserved reputation was no inducement for us to stop, so we made speed for Brighton via Rottingdean.