GRAVESEND. 347 



the attacks of the water. In some places these walls 

 were 3 good fathoms higher than the meadows, ploughed 

 fields, and pastures, lying within and behind them ; and 

 i£ fathoms higher than the water at ordinary high tides 

 in the river. Sometimes there was double and some- 

 times treble pile-work outside the wall against the river. 

 The rest of the wall itself was made of the earth which 

 they had dug on the spot. Here and there [T. I. p. 478] 

 was some opening under the walls to the meadows, 

 through which the water could be made to go either to 

 or from the meadows. These small water-gangs* vatten- 

 gang, which on both sides were built in with boards 

 had a sluice, damluka, which could be taken up and let 

 fall again. These sluice gates were fastened with locks, that 

 wanton people could not take them up, and lay the whole 

 country near the river under water. The flat land which 

 lay inside the earth walls was laid out either as meadows 

 or pasture, or also in some places where it was a little 

 higher, as ploughed fields. Here and there it was inter- 

 sected with runnels and dikes to lead off the water, and 

 drain the sour and low land. It was pleasant to go on 

 this wall and see, that when the water in the river stood 

 at its highest, the land and meadows, together with the 

 ploughed fields immediately inside the wall, were much 

 lower than the surface of the water in the river. It was 

 also at high water a pleasure to see how great ships in 

 the river were moving at a much higher level than the 



* Vattengang, ' Watergang ' is the word used in the old Ordinances. 

 Thus, in the suit of Godfrey le Fauconer, re Romney Marsh, 43 Hen. III., 

 1259, Defdts. plead " that distress taken for repair of those banks and 

 Watergangs was justly made." (Dugdale Embanking and Draining, 1652, 

 c. xi., p. 21, Ed. 1772.) So also in Ordinances of John de Lovetot (p. 24), 

 1288 ; and, of the Thames, the Ords. of Henry de Apeldrefeld, 1290, respect- 

 ing inter alia ' banks and watergangs' (ib. p. 27) ; and many other Ordinances 

 in Dugdale. [J. L.] 



