248 THE DOVER ROAD 



sheep snuffling in the mouth of a dismantled cannon is 

 quite weak beside it. 



Looking over the chff' s edge, just beyond, is a view 

 of the beach below, where the South Eastern Railway 

 runs on a wooden viaduct, entering a double tunnel 

 through the chalky mass of Shakespeare Cliff, rising 

 sheer from the sea to a height of three hundred and 

 fifty feet. A narrow footpath leads to the breezy 

 summit, surmounted by a Coastguard Station, and here 

 you may gaze, if you have good nerves, over the brink 

 of the precipice, and listen to the hissing of the pebbles 

 far down below, as the waves drag them back and forth : 



. . . .Here's the place : stand still. 

 How fearful 



And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low ! 

 The crows and choughs that wing the midway air 

 Show scarce so gross as beetles : half-way down 

 Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade! 

 Methinks he seems no bigger than his head : 

 The fishermen that walk upon the beach 

 Appear like mice ; and yond tall anchoring bark, 

 Diminished to her cock ; her cock, a buoy 

 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. 



How eloquent is that passage from King Lear ! 



Just past Shakespeare Cliff come the twin workings of 

 the Channel Tunnel and the coal-mine, those notorious 

 fiascos which have cost the South Eastern shareholders 

 so much, and have afforded journalists so large an 

 amount of good " copy." From the cliff -top, a steep 

 and winding stairway cut in the chalk leads down to the 

 beach and the Dover coal mine and the beginnings of 

 the Channel Tunnel. Much money has been sunk in 

 both. Some day the Tunnel will be completed ; but 

 no one expects coal ever to be commercially mined here. 



Turn we, though, from these projects to the 

 Admiralty Pier, that centre of interest to visitors and 

 Dover folks alike. Some one — I know not whom — has 

 styled the Admiralty Pier " the pier of the realm," and 

 truly, though you search these coasts, you shall find 



