"It was therefore settled that Mr. Tupman should be left at home in charge of the females, and that the remainder of the guests under the guidance of Mr. Wardle should proceed to the spot, where was to be held that trial of skill, which had roused all Muggleton from its torpor, and inoculated Dingley Dell with a fever of excitement. "As their walk, _which was not above two miles long_,[27] lay through shady lanes and sequestered footpaths, and as their conversation turned upon the delightful scenery by which they were on every side surrounded, Mr. Pickwick was almost inclined to regret the expedition they had used, when he found himself in the main street of the town of Muggleton." The chronicle of _Pickwick_ then proceeds to state that-- "Muggleton is a corporate town, with a mayor, burgesses, and freemen; . . . an ancient and loyal borough, mingling a zealous advocacy of Christian principles with a devoted attachment to commercial rights; in demonstration whereof, the mayor, corporation, and other inhabitants, have presented at divers times, no fewer than one thousand four hundred and twenty petitions, against the continuance of negro slavery abroad, and an equal number against any interference with the factory system at home; sixty-eight in favour of the sales of livings in the Church, and eighty-six for abolishing Sunday trading in the streets." On the occasion of their second visit to Manor Farm to spend Christmas, the Pickwickians came by the "Muggleton Telegraph," which stopped at the "Blue Lion," and they walked over to Dingley Dell. Assuming, as has been suggested by Mr. Frost in his _In Kent with Charles Dickens_, that Dingley Dell is somewhere on the eastern side of the river Medway, within fifteen miles of Rochester,--Mr. William James Budden (a gentleman whom we met at Chatham) gave as his opinion that it was near Burham,[28]--then it would require a much greater walk than that ("which was not above two miles long") to reach Town Malling (leaving out of the question the fact that Burham is only about six miles from Rochester instead of fifteen miles, as the waiter at the Bull told Mr. Pickwick in reply to his enquiry), whereby we reluctantly for the time arrive at the conclusion,--as Mr. Frost did before us--that Dingley Dell as such near Town Malling cannot be identified. On another visit to "Dickens-Land" Mr. R. L. Cobb suggested that Cobtree Hall, near Aylesford, was the prototype of Dingley Dell. It may have been; but except one goes as the crow flies, it is more than two miles distant from Town Malling. But as Captain Cuttle would say--we "make a note of it."