236 THE ISLE OF RUIM. 



attempted to scale the flanks of the chalk downs. As 

 lying so near Rutupiae, too, villas must certainly havo 

 occupied the soil in places, as we know they did in the 

 Isle of Wight ; while the immense number of Roman 

 coins picked up in the island appears to betoken a some- 

 what dense provincial population. 



The advent of the English brings Thanet itself, as 

 distinct from its ancient port, the Wantsum, into the 

 full glare of legendary history. According to tradition, 

 it was at Ebb's Fleet, a little side creek near Minster, 

 that Hengest and Horsa first disembarked in Britain. 

 As a matter of fact, there is reason to suppose that at a 

 very early time an English colony did really settle down 

 in peace in Thanet. On Osengal Hill, not far from Ebb's 

 Fleet, the cemetery of these earliest English pioneers 

 in England was laid bare by the building of the South 

 Eastern Eailway. The graves are dug very shallow in 

 the chalk, seldom as deep as four feet ; and in them lie 

 the remains of the old heathen pirates, buried with their 

 arms and personal ornaments, their amber beads and 

 strings of glass, and the coins that were to pay their 

 way in the other world. But, what is oddest of all, a 

 few of the graves in this earliest English cemetery are 

 Roman in character, and in them the interment is made 

 in the Roman fashion. The inference is almost 

 irresistible that the first settlement of Thanet by the 

 English was a purely friendly one, and that Roman and 

 Jute lived on side by side as neighbours and allies on 

 the Kentish island. 



I don't doubt, myself, that the whole settlement of 

 Kent was equally friendly, and that the population of 



