Busy, beautiful Rochester, and none the less beautiful because busy. The traveller who first sees the old place, its castle and cathedral and the turbid Medway, from Strood, is fortunate in his approach, and will never forget the grand picture it makes. To his right stretches away for miles the broad valley of the Medway, with bold hills crowned with windmills, above, and the stream, diminishing in long perspective, below; with jutting promontories where the factory-chimneys of Borstal and Wouldham stand up, clustered like the stalks of monstrous vegetables, and the red-sailed barges that drop down with wind and tide. Before him rise the great keep, the cathedral, and the clustered red roofs of the city, with a glimpse of the High Street, the Town Hall and its great vane--a full-rigged ship--at the other end of the bridge. And all the while to his left is the shrieking and the screaming of the trains, rolling in thunder over the two railway bridges that absolutely shut out and ruin the view down the stream. The bustle, roar, and rattle of the trains, the busy, yet silent, traffic of the river, the smoke rising in wreaths from those distant chimneys of Wouldham and Borstal, all bespeak labour and commerce, and all these rumours of a busy community blend finely with the shattered majesty of that ancient Castle, the solemnity of the Cathedral, and the noisy, yet restful, cawing of the raucous rooks who circle round about those lofty battlements, their outcry mingled with the sobbing, moaning voices of the pigeons, and the shrill piping of querulous sea-birds. The bridge over which Mr. Pickwick leaned and meditated while waiting for breakfast has gone the way of many another old building referred to in that book which will presently have a quite unique archaeological value, so changed are the varied haunts of the Pickwickians. Necessity, they say, the call of progress, demanded the removal of the fine stone bridge of eleven arches that had spanned the Medway so efficiently for five centuries, and it _was_ removed in 1856; but how cruel the necessity, and how heavy a toll we pay for our progression perhaps only those who had stood upon the ancient ways can tell. The masonry was so strong that it was found necessary to blow it up. Meanwhile, we must clear our minds from a very reasonable prejudice, and acknowledge that, as an example of modern engineering, the new Rochester Bridge is very fine. It is of iron, broad and graceful as its iron construction will allow, and it spans the river in three great arches. It cost L160,000, exclusive of approaches, to build, and was opened in 1856. The old bridge had a protecting balustrade which more or less effectually saved the lieges from being blown by furious winds into the water. Before the balustrade there were high iron railings, which were fixed according to the French Ambassador, the Duc de Nivernais, "so that drunkards, not uncommon here, may not mix water with their wine."