The Old Dover Eoacl. 175 



which makes a line of sight, beyond which are orchards, 

 and a sea of golden corn between the garden and the 

 Medway, which is a mile or so off. In the corn fields throw 

 in figures of harvesters and waggons. On the extreme left 

 don't forget a tract of green marsh land terminating with a 

 picturesque hill ; and on the right centre a broken line of 

 quays and wharves, and lazy barges with red and brown 

 sails going in and out ; intersperse the surface of the 

 Medway with any number of fishing boats with white sails, 

 and beyond the river in the distance paint the hundred of 

 Hoo and a long stretch of mainland, and beyond the main- 

 land a<yainst the horizon put in the Thames covered with 

 shippino-, and the Essex coast and Southend, and through 

 a vista between some splendid elms at the end of the garden 

 on the extreme right, and also in the horizon, is the Nore, 

 ten miles off, with the men-of-war standing out against 

 the clear atmosphere, and the shipping, and the dockyard 

 sheds with their skylights all ablaze in the evening sun. 



Charles Dickens's story, incidentally mentioned in 

 "Pickwick" about the two brothers, one of whom drove 

 the up, and the other the down-coach on the Dover road 

 for many years, and who had no communication with each 

 other except the coachman's salute in passing, is quite true. 

 I remember the two brothers well, and no doubt Dickens's 

 story, that when one died the other pined, is correct. And 

 what nice fellows the coachmen were, many of them quite 

 gentlemen in their manners, though we had no " swell " 

 coachmen on that road. 



The iron horse was ruin to many good men, some of 

 whom came to absolute beggary, and others had to drive a 

 'bus and luorh their sixteen miles on the stones in London. 

 The guards were all right enough, as they were sent with 

 the mail bags by railway. I met one of them at a railway 

 station some time after the Dover day mail was stopped, and 



