Mr. H. Belloc, in his sumptuous volume, _The Old Road_, insists on the inevitable importance of these cities, each a fixed point of repair behind a group of bad ports, for one or other of which the seafarer must make as wind and tide served him to come to land about the Isle of Thanet or in the Solent. Each of the two cities stands up a river, where the tide formerly flowed higher than it does now, and anyhow is within easy reach of the open sea, while not too open to piratical attack, a situation paralleled in the case of Exeter and Norwich, Rouen and Caen, Lima and New York, Canton and Calcutta, not to mention a hundred other instances. The curved road passing along the Downs between these prosperous cities would have no lack of traffic; then, when Winchester ceased to be a royal abode, the murder of [Illustration: A STREAM NEAR SHALFORD.] Thomas à Becket consecrated Canterbury as a famous shrine, that for centuries drew devotees and idlers from the Continent, as well as from all over England. Many of these would be our erstwhile fellow-subjects in Western France, who conveniently landed at or about Southampton. By their feet was beaten hard the track now broken to the eye, but well preserved in memory as the "Pilgrims' Way." There would also be a stream of pilgrimage in the other direction, to the watery halo of Winchester's older St. Swithin; and foreigners who had trusted themselves in our island might well make assurance doubly sure by visiting two "ferne hallowes" whilst in the way with them, all such spiritual spas being held good for the soul's health.