206 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



into its foundation. Water, too, has carried the soil from 

 under the turf at the summit over the verge, forming 

 brown streaks. 



Upon the beach lies a piece of timber, part of a 

 wreck; the wood is torn and the fibres rent where it 

 was battered against the dull edge of the rocks. The 

 heat of the sun burns, thrown back by the dazzling 

 chalk ; the river of ocean flows ceaselessly, casting the 

 spray over the stones ; the unchanged sky is blue. 



Let us go back and mount the steps at the Gap, and 

 rest on the sward there. I feel that I want the presence 

 of grass. The sky is a softer blue, and the sun genial 

 now the eye and the mind alike are relieved the one of 

 the strain of too great solitude (not the solitude of the 

 woods), the other of too brilliant and hard a contrast of 

 colours. Touch but the grass and the harmony returns ; 

 it is repose after exaltation. 



A vessel comes round the promontory; it is not a 

 trireme of old Rome, nor the " fair and stately galley " 

 Count Arnaldus hailed with its seamen singing the 

 mystery of the sea. It is but a brig in ballast, high out 

 of the water, black of hull and dingy of sail : still it is a 

 ship, and there is always an interest about a ship. She is 

 so near, running along but just outside the reef, that the 

 deck is visible. Up rises her stern as the billows come 

 fast and roll under ; then her bow lifts, and immediately 

 she rolls, and, loosely swaying with the sea, drives along. 



The slope of the billow now behind her is white with 

 the bubbles of her passage, rising, too, from her rudder. 

 Steering athwart with a widening angle from the land, 

 she is laid to clear the distant point of Dungeness, 

 Next, a steamer glides forth, unseen till she passed the 

 cliff; and thus each vessel that comes from the west- 

 ward has the charm of the unexpected. Eastward there 

 is many a sail working slowly into the wind, and as they 



