And now let us pass from the extreme west to the extreme east of the county. Here, instead of a group of _tons_ with a notable absence of _hams_, we find a most remarkable group of _hams_, absolutely excluding _tons_. To understand the occurrence of this group on the Rother--the eastern Rother--and its tributaries, it is essential to remember the great change that has here taken place in the coast line. Unfortunately Dr. Guest, who first discussed the settlement of Sussex, entirely ignored this important change, and his followers have done the same. The late Mr. Green, for instance, in his map, follows the coast line given by Dr. Guest. Thus they wholly overlooked that great inlet of the sea, which formed in later ages the harbours of Winchelsea and Rye, and which offered a most suitable and tempting haven for the first Saxon settlers. The result of so doing was that they made the earliest invaders pass by the whole coast of Sussex before finding, at Selsea Bill, one of those marshy inlets of the sea, where they could make themselves at home. Therefore, argued Mr. Grant Allen,[13] “the original colony occupied the western half of the modern county; but the eastern portion still remained in the hands of the Welsh.” The orthodox hypothesis seems to be that the settlers then fought their way step by step eastwards, that is, towards Kent, reaching and capturing Pevensey in 491, fourteen years after their first landing.[14] As against this view, I would suggest that the distribution of Sussex place-names is in favour of vertical not lateral progress, of separate settlements up the rivers. And, in any case, I claim for the group of _hams_ at the extreme east of the county the position of an independent settlement, to the character of which I shall return.