At Cromer, the well-known watering-place, the old town is under water. The present town is quite new, and out to sea lie the houses of the Cromer of past days, covered with seaweed, and with the fish swimming up and down the streets where once the Cromer folk went about their business. At low tides the ancient dwellings and ways can still be clearly traced. Still farther out to sea lie the remains of a yet older village, called Shipden. Five hundred years ago Shipden was a port on the seaward side of Cromer, but harbour, village, and church were swallowed up by the waves. The church tower was built of flint, as is the custom of the East Country, and so well had the old masons done their work that a piece of the tower is at times seen by the fishermen about 400 yards out to sea, and they call it "the Church Rock." The same story is told of many other places. Towns, villages, churches, have been swallowed, either little by little or at one great gulp, by the never-resting sea. So serious are these inroads that plans are being formed by Government to check the rush of the sea and keep the waves in bounds. [Illustration: IN AN ENGLISH VILLAGE] A great feature of the county of Norfolk is the Broads--wide stretches of water connected by rivers and streams, large and small--a district beloved by yachtsmen and fishermen. All who love to sail a boat find the Broads a summer paradise. They can go by innumerable waterways from lake to lake, from pool to pool, from mere to mere, through a wide district. A summer journey by boat through this land of streams and pools is a very pleasant excursion. The traveller must fit out his yacht with plenty of food, for the region is lonely, and houses and inns few and far between. Very particular people carry fresh water as well, for the drinking water drawn from the marshy soil is a very doubtful liquid; the watermen who live on the Broads just dip up what they want from the river, and there are those who say that the plan is as good as any. Even better than a yacht for a trip through the Broads is the local barge, a Norfolk wherry. The Norfolk wherry is a true descendant of the Viking longship, once so well known along this coast. It is a long, low boat, broad and roomy, drawing very little water, and sailing very fast. It has one huge brown sail, which is hoisted forward, right in the bow; and to see a big wherry cracking at full speed across a great broad with a favouring wind is to see a very fine sight indeed. Stranger still is it to look across an open stretch of grassy country and see brown sails dotting, as it seems, the surface of the fields. They belong to wherries slipping along some hidden waterway.