Not all Old Folkestone survives, nor is even that which remains exactly as it was. The old open stream which dashed down into the harbour has been piped; because, they say, its odour became too strong. That is as may be; but the remark is permissible that the super-smells of Folkestone Harbour at low-water outclass anything possible in streams. Still, enough remains of Old Folkestone to show the inquisitive stranger what the old-time fishermen’s and smugglers’ haunts were like. No one is in the least inquisitive about the new town, because it displays itself most prominently to the view, hiding nothing. Thus viewed, it is seen to be chiefly in that manner of building which prevailed in South Kensington’s early days, before that region became a byword for culture. It is in the greyest of grey stucco, and exceedingly dismal. [Illustration: THE STADE, AND OLD TACKLE-BOXES, FOLKESTONE.] But down by the Harbour, where Old Folkestone sits and partly squatters in the water and for the rest climbs up and slides down amazing acclivities and declivities, a great deal of interest survives; with shy corners and alleys that seem shun observation. Ingoldsby’s description of the Folkestone of his day, early in the nineteenth century, still in part holds good. To him it was “a collection of houses which its maligners call a fishing-town, and its well-wishers a watering-place. A limb of the Cinque Ports, it has (or lately had) a corporation of its own and has been thought considerable enough to give a second title to a noble family. Rome stood on seven hills-- Folkestone seems to have been built upon seventy. Its streets, lanes, and alleys--fanciful distinctions without much real difference--are agreeable enough to persons who do not mind running up and down stairs; and the only inconvenience at all felt by such of its inhabitants as are not asthmatic is when some heedless urchin tumbles down a chimney or an impertinent pedestrian peeps into a garret window.” These remarks about precipitous streets may well be supplemented by the description given by Dickens, who, visiting Folkestone in 1855, wrote to Wilkie Collins and spoke of “a steep, crooked street, like a crippled ladder,” a comparison which well fits the High Street to this day.