•i*;''r ., m\ 



XVIII. 



ENGLISH CHALK DOWNS. 



No form of scenery within the four sea-walls of 

 Britain appears to the American visitor more 

 distinctively and markedly English than that of 

 the chalk downs. Indeed, to all outsiders, chalk 

 is as it were the chief outward and visible sign of 

 the modern British nationality. The stranger 

 who for the first time approaches the shores of 

 England from the opposite continent sees before 

 him in long straight line the " white cliffs of per- 

 fidious Albion." That oldest of all names by 

 which the island was known to the outer world 

 is itself of course obviously derived from the 

 white gleaming bluffs which shone so brilliantly 

 in the sunlight to gazers from the high ground 

 about Boulogne and Calais. As one lies in the 

 sunshine by the mouldering ruins of Caligula's 

 tower, on the edge of the port whence the mad 

 tyrant proposed to attack the coasts of Britain, or 

 gazes across the sea from the summit of that pur- 

 poseless column erected by Napoleon's army of 

 invasion during their forced inactivity in sight of 

 the "perfidious" island, one sees a dim white 



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