carved head over one of the gates; but I could find no such thing now. In the way thither, upon an eminence is the carcass of a castrensian amphitheatre made of turf; I suppose, for the exercise and diversion of the garrison: the soil of it is gravel and sand, and has been long ploughed over, that we need not wonder it is so level. There are three Roman _tumuli_ before Sandwich west gate; one a windmill stands on: it is not easy to assign which Contentus was buried under: _Contentum tellus quem Rutupina tegit._ +Auson.+ South of Sandwich, as we go along upon the sea-shore, are six large and broad Celtic _tumuli_, equidistant: the second from the town has been dug away, to raise a little fort upon the road: they all stand in a line east and west.[116] This flat coast is fenced against the ocean by the sand-downs, which in Lincolnshire we call _meals_: but within the memory of man, as they told me, the sea has commenced a new method of guarding against its own violence, by covering the shore, for a great depth and height, with the pebbles afore mentioned; which is an odd mutation in nature; and it is observable that these pebbles come from the south. I rode from Sandwich as far as Hithe, upon the brink of the shore or cliff, in sight of France all the way; and nothing could be more entertaining in this autumnal season, when the weather is generally clear, serene and calm. Much sea _tithymal_ grows here, and a very pretty plant, _papaver cornutum flore luteo_, rock samphire feeding upon _petroleum_, a most excellent pickle, and many more.[117] The murmur of the ocean has a noble solemnity in it, as Homer says, when latinised, _Eructante salo raucam dant littora vocem._ More copiously expressed in Virgil, _Et gemitum ingentem pelagi, pulsataque saxa, Audimus longe, fractasque ad littora voces. Exsultantque vada atque æstu miscentur arenæ._ Æn. iii. which is an exact idea of this place. By listening attentively I observed this noise of the ocean is by fits, at short but equal intervals; which I believe gave occasion to that fancy of the ancients, that every tenth wave was the largest; of which Ovid has a distich. [Sidenote: TAB. XXXVII. 2nd Vol.]