That it is not now "good for ships" is quite evident to anyone who takes his stand on the cliff-top and views that fifth quarter of the globe, Romney Marsh, from this most eloquent of all view-points. Full three miles away, as the crow flies, the summer wavelets whisper on the beach, and between the margin of the sea and this crumbling cliff-edge, whose foot once dabbled in the waters of the haven, are pastures that have been the anchorage of ships. Grey buildings of high antiquity rise from the cliff-top and command the mapped-out marshland. The stern tower of Lympne church, forming a beacon for mariners, is next door neighbour to Lympne Castle, once a residence of the Archdeacons of Canterbury. That "castelet embatayled," in the words of Leland is now a farmhouse. Like the church, it was largely built from the stone of the Roman castle down below the cliff; that ancient Portus Lemanis whose feet rested in the waters of the haven and to whose walls the crowding vessels ranged in the grand colonial days of Imperial Rome. Stutsfall Castle the countryfolk call those shattered walls that tell of Roman dominion, rendered "Studfall" on the map. It is from these crumbling, earthy cliffs of Lympne that one obtains the best and most comprehensive view of Romney Marsh, spread out like an isometric drawing, below. From here the eye ranges over the grey-green levels, until lost in the dim haze of Dungeness, ten miles away. There curves the bay, like the arc of a bended bow, going in a magnificent semicircular sweep into the distance, its margin dotted at regular intervals with those pepper-boxes, the Martello towers, which it was hoped would have made it so hot for Napoleon had he ever descended upon these shores. Nearer at hand--almost, indeed, at our feet--goes the Royal Military Canal, its waters hid from this view-point, but its course defined by the double row of luxuriant trees that clothe its banks. Between foreground and far distance, in a welter of foreshortened fields and hedgerows, lie hid the many hamlets and villages of the marsh. From here it can be seen and felt how open this district is to every breeze that blows, but it needs for the traveller to descend into those levels for him to discover how fiercely the winds lurk behind the contorted hedges of the ridiculously-winding roads, leaping forth at the corners and seizing one with the rude grip of a strong man. Save for the direct road that leads from Hythe to Dymchurch and New Romney, and that other from thence to Snargate and Appledore, the marshland ways are mazy and deceptive, impassable ditches and drains rendering likely-looking short cuts impracticable. To approach a place coyly, and as though really going away from it, is the road method of Romney Marsh, and to strike boldly in the direction of any given spot is to make tolerably sure of never reaching it. Thus, when the stranger with dismay perceives the distant village for which he has