A NEVER-TO-BE-FORGOTTEN day was Saturday, the twenty-fifth of August, 1888, a day remarkable, as were many of the closing days of the summer of that year, for its bright, sunny, and cheerful nature. The sky was a deep blue--usually described as an Italian sky--broken only by a few fleecy, cumulus clouds, which served to bring out more clearly the rich colour of the background. There was a fine bracing air coming from the north-west, for which the county of Kent is famous. Truly an enjoyable day for a holiday! and one that Dickens himself would have loved to describe. So after a desultory stroll about the streets of Rochester, one of many delightful strolls, we make our first outward tramp, and that of course to Gad's Hill. By the way, much attention has been devoted to the consideration of the derivation of the name, "Gad's Hill." It is no doubt a corruption of "God's Hill," of which there are two so-called places in the county, and there is also a veritable "God's Hill" a little further south, in the Isle of Wight. [Illustration: Rochester from Strood Hill.] Crossing Rochester Bridge, we enter the busy town of Strood, pass through its long thoroughfare, go up the Dover Road,--which was the ancient Roman military road afterwards called Watling Street, until a little above Strood it turned slightly to the left, passing through what is now Cobham Park,--and leave the windmill on Broomhill to the right. The ground rises gently, the chalk formation being exposed here and there in disused pits. A portion of the road higher up is cut through the Thanet sands, which rest on the chalk. Again and again we stop, and turn to admire the winding valley of the Medway. As we get more into the country and leave the town behind, we find the roadsides still decked with summer flowers, notably the fine dark blue Canterbury bell--the nettle-leaved Campanula (_Campanula Trachelium_)--and the exquisite light-blue chicory (_Cichorium Intybus_); but the flowers of the latter are so evanescent that, when gathered, they fade in an hour or two. This beautiful starlike-blossomed plant is abundant in many parts of Kent. We pass on the right the pretty high-standing grounds of Mr. Hulkes at the "Little Hermitage," and notice the obelisk further to the right on still higher land, erected about fifty years ago to the memory of Charles Larkin (a name very suggestive of "the eldest Miss Larkins") of Rochester,--"a parish orator and borough Hampden"--by his grateful fellow-citizens. A walk of less than three miles brings us to the "Sir John Falstaff"--"a delightfully old-fashioned roadside inn of the coaching days, which stands on the north side of the road a little below 'Gad's Hill Place,' and which no man possessed of a penny was ever known to pass in warm weather." Mr. Kitton relates in _Dickensiana_ the following amusing story of a former waiter at the "Falstaff":--