246 THE ISLE OF RUIM, 



other modern improvements and attractions followed. 

 Like the rest of Thanet, Margate has now become a 

 mere suburb of London, and what it resembles at the 

 present day a delicate regard for the feelings of the 

 inhabitants forbids me to enlarge upon. I will merely 

 add that the recognized modern name of Margate is an 

 etymological blunder, due to the idea immortalized in 

 the borough motto, " Porta maris, Portus salutis," that 

 it means Door of the Sea. The true word is still 

 universally preserved on the lips of the local fisher- 

 folk, who always religiously call it either Meregate or 

 Mergate. 



Eamsgate, a much more attractive and enjoyable 

 centre, rich in excursions to points of genuine interest, 

 dates somewhat later. It first came into note about the 

 beginning of the eighteenth century, when it did a 

 modest trade with the Levant and the Black Sea, or, as 

 contemporary English more prettily phrases it, ' with 

 Eussia and the east country.' In 1750 the first pier was 

 built, as a national work, mainly to serve as a harbour of 

 refuge for ships caught in gales off the Downs. The 

 engineer was Smeaton, and he succeeded in creating an 

 artificial harbour of great extent, which has lasted 

 substantially up to the present time. This new port, 

 rendered safer by the enlargement in 1788, made 

 Eamsgate at once into an important seafaring town, 

 the capital of the Kentish herring trade, alive with 

 Bmacks in the busy season. The steamers did it less 

 good at first than they did to Margate; but the 

 completion of the two railways, and the building of 

 the handsome extensions on the east and west cliffs, 



