It seems, then, that when Caesar came off here, the site upon which almost half the present town of Dover is built was under water. The peculiar site of Dover can perhaps most readily be noted by one who climbs the bare chalk hills that bear on their summits the defences known as the Western Heights. Keeping to rearward of the Citadel, and walking round the shoulders of these hills, one sees that a deep and narrow valley runs down to the sea-beach, contracting almost to the likeness of a narrow gorge where the old town commences, and widening again where it meets the sea. Here, where the site broadens, and where steep streets give place to flatness, rolled the tides up the little estuary of the River Dour when Caesar's triremes anchored off the primitive port, and antiquaries point out the place, near the present Round Tower Street, where, so late as 1509, a tower was raised, to which vessels lying in the harbour were moored by iron rings. This is almost the only natural feature of Dover that has changed during nineteen centuries. Walk to the outmost verge of the Admiralty Pier and look back upon the town, and you will see it lying in the hollow, with the gaunt and horrid stucco houses of its "front" hiding the old streets that crouch behind in narrow ways. You will see the Castle Hill and the Western Heights, twin eminences guarding the land and the open roadstead of the Downs; and, although the grey Castle crowns one cliff and the modern fortifications crest the other, yet, for all the ages during which man has been burrowing galleries here and piling up stonework and masonry there, if Caesar could revisit the scene of his ineffectual descent upon Britain, he would find no difficulty in recognizing it. Only, the estuary where he beached his vessels is long since silted up and is buried beneath many feet of the rubble and refuse, the shards and potsherds that mark the passing of many busy generations. Here, on these ancient dust-heaps and kitchen-middens stands the chief business street of Dover, Snargate Street, running parallel with the sea, but now separated from it by the breadth of the Harbour and many intermediate alleys, smelling vehemently of tar and stale reminiscences of ocean. Snargate Street is long and narrow, a model neither of cleanliness nor of convenience, and it crouches humbly beneath the towering cliffs which rise on its landward side, cut, carved, and tunnelled; honeycombed with stores, forts, and galleries, and grimed with the smoke from the clustered chimneys of the houses below. Other short and frowzy alleys run against the soiled chalk, and end there with a whimsical abruptness. Elbow room here is none, and to find it, one ventures upon the Harbour quays, toward the Docks and the Basins, where little gangways and iron swing-bridges lead to _culs-de-sac_, or end in sudden and precipitous descents into the water, causing the unwonted stranger frequently to retrace his steps and to swear freely.