CHAPTER VII 

 THE CONSTITUENTS OF A SEABEACH 



I ONCE went down to Aldebufgh, on the Suffolk 

 coast, with a party of friends, which included an 

 American writer, himself as delightful and charming as 

 his stories. Why should I not give his name ? It was 

 Cable, the author of " Old Creole Days." We walked 

 through the little town to the sea-front, and came upon 

 the immense beach spreading out for miles towards 

 Orford Ness. " Well, I never ! " said he to me ; "I 

 suppose the hotel people have put those stones there to 

 make a promenade for the visitors. It's a big thing." 

 It took me some time to persuade him that they were 

 brought there by the sea and spread out by it alone. 

 It was his first visit to Europe, but he had seen the 

 seashore on the other side, and there was nothing like 

 this over there, he declared. A similar readiness to 

 ascribe Nature's handiwork to the enterprise of hotel- 

 keepers led a visitor to the Bel Alp, in the Rhone 

 Valley, when he looked down from that high-placed 

 hostelry on to the great Aletsch glacier, with its central 

 " moraine " of huge rock masses and debris, to exclaim, 

 " I see the proprietor has spread a cinder-path along the 

 glacier to prevent us from slipping. It's a convenience, 

 no doubt, but gives a nasty dirty look to the snow." 

 Mr. Cable, when he once realized that the great 

 Aldeburgh, beach was a natural production, did what a 



