"'Knoweth that beth and schul be That i am mad in help of the cuntre In knowyng of whyche thyng Thys is chartre and witnessyng.'" "(Seal, 'gules', on a chevron 'or' three lions rampant 'sable'.) "Inscriptions are rare on Gothic buildings, especially on castles. This at Coulyng is remarkable from being in English, at a time when Latin was employed in all charters; it contains that early form of the plural 'beth' instead of 'are.' The inscription measures thirty-two inches by fourteen, and the diameter of the seal is no less than seven and a quarter inches long." After stopping a short time to admire the imposing entrance gate and the remains of the ancient moat, we wend our way for two or three miles, by lanes and "over the stubble-fields," to the straggling village of Cliffe,[36] the houses of which are very old and mostly weather-boarded. The approach to the church is by a rare example of a lich-gate, having a room over it for muniments, and the church itself (which is very large, and seems to be out of proportion to the size of the village) stands in a commanding position on a ridge of chalk, overlooking the marshes, from whence the views of the river in the distance are very fine. It is supposed to be the place where the Saxon Church held its councils, and there is a local tradition of a ferry having once existed near here. Evidence of this seems to survive in the fact that all the roads both on the Kent and Essex shores appear to converge to this point. The church has some interesting _miserere_ stalls and brasses to the Faunce family (17th century). On the walls we find specimens of that somewhat rare fern, the scaly spleenwort (_Ceterach officinarum_). [Illustration: Cliffe Church] Time does not permit us to go on to Gravesend, which like this place was one of Dickens's favourite spots ("We come, you see" [says Mr. Peggotty, speaking of himself and Ham to David Copperfield, when they visited him at Salem House], "the wind and tide making in our favor, in one of our Yarmouth lugs to Gravesen'"), so we defer our visit to that popular resort until another occasion. We notice in places where the harvest has been cleared (which, alas! owing to excess of wet and absence of sun, has not been an abundant one), preparations for cultivation next year, exhibiting that peculiar effect from ploughing which that gifted writer and born naturalist, the late Richard Jeffreys, described in his book _Wild Life in a Southern County_, with that love for common things which was so characteristic of him:--