We are particularly anxious to verify Dickens's experience of the walk from Maidstone to Rochester. In a letter to Forster, written soon after he came to reside at Gad's Hill Place, he says:--"I have discovered that the seven miles between Maidstone and Rochester is one of the most beautiful walks in England," and so indeed we find it to be. It is, however, a rather long seven miles; so, cheerfully leaving the gloomy-looking gaol to our right and proceeding along the raised terrace by the side of the turn-pike road, we pass through the little village of Sandling, and soon after commence the ascent of the great chalk range of hills which form the eastern water-parting of the Medway. The most noticeable object before we reach "Upper Bell" is "Kit's Coty (or Coity) House," about one and a half miles north-east from Aylesford, and not very far from the Bell Inn. According to Mr. Phillips Bevan, the peculiar name is derived from the Celtic "Ked," and "Coity" or "Coed" (Welsh), and means the Tomb in the Wood. Seymour considers the words a corruption of "Catigern's House." Below Kit's Coty House, Mr. Wright, the archaeologist, found the remains of a Roman villa, with quantities of Samian ware, coins, and other articles. There are many excavations in the chalk above Kit's Coty House, apparently for interments; and the whole district appears in remote ages to have been a huge cemetery. Tradition states that "the hero Catigern was buried here, after the battle fought at Aylesford between Hengist and Vortigern." The Cromlech, which is now included in the provisions of the Ancient Monuments Protection Act, 1882, lies under the hillside, a few yards from the main road, and is fenced in with iron railings, and beautifully surrounded by woods, the yew,[29] said to have been one of the sacred trees of the Druids, being conspicuous here and there. That somewhat rare plant the juniper is also found in this neighbourhood. The "dolmens" which have been "set on end by a vanished people" are four in number, and consist of sandstone, three of them, measuring about eight feet each, forming the uprights, and the fourth, which is much larger, serving as the covering stone. In a field which we visit, not very far from Kit's Coty House, is another group of stones, called the "countless stones." As we pass some boys are trying to solve the arithmetical problem, which cannot be readily accomplished, as the stones lie intermingled in a very strange and irregular manner, and are overgrown with brushwood. The belief that these stones cannot be counted is one constantly found connected with similar remains, _e.g._ Stonehenge, Avebury, etc. We heard a local story of a baker, who once tried to effect the operation by placing a loaf on the top of each stone as a kind of check or tally; but a dog running away with one of his loaves, upset his calculations. [Illustration: Kit's Coty House]