The next building, dating from 1792, was, an inscription on it states: “Erected by Thomas William Coke, Esq., in the county of Norfolk, instead of the old lighthouse, which originally stood 540 yards to the northward, and which, by means of the land increasing from the violence of the sea, became useless to navigation.” This old building was but 100 feet from the sea at low water. It is now more than a quarter of a mile distant, and the point of shingle still steadily accumulates, in the strong eastward drift, at the rate of six feet a year. A newer lighthouse was built in 1904, and rises to a height of 130 feet, with a low light, fifty-five feet. The tower is of brick, and is distinguished by being painted chocolate, relieved with a deep white band. The light displayed is a fixed oil-beam, replacing the electric light, whose white glare, installed a good many years ago, was found to be incapable of penetrating fogs so easily as the more yellow rays of oil. The lower light exhibits a flash; and a foghorn, working on a high and a low note, forms an auxiliary warning in thick weather. Dungeness, one of the most remarkable places in England, is like no other place than itself: a waste of shingle, with here and there a sparse patch of gorse stretching as far as the eye can reach, and with a little single-track railway running out from Lydd and expiring close by the Lighthouse, at Dungeness “station”: a primitive hut without booking-office, signals, or any other of the usual appurtenances of ordinary railway management. The guard of trains in-coming or departing collects and issues tickets, and is, in his many other small duties, a host in himself. It is generally a source of surprise among strangers to find the South-Eastern Railway Company has considered it worth while to build a line to Dungeness at all; but the explanation is found in the ballast-trucks frequently despatched with loads of the inexhaustible shingle, for use along the line and elsewhere. [Illustration: DUNGENESS: LIGHTHOUSE AND RAILWAY STATION.] The loose shingle comprising this vast waste of Dungeness is some eight or nine feet deep, and most difficult and exhausting to walk upon. Indeed, the only way to progress for any distance upon it is by wearing upon the feet the contrivances called “backstays,” which are simply boards five inches wide and some nine or ten inches long. They serve exactly the purpose fulfilled by snow-shoes, and prevent or stay one from slipping back. They are sometimes called “beach-pattens.” They are fastened either by straps over the boots, or are worn on the naked feet by passing the straps over the instep and round the big toe. Carts have their wheels cased in wood to a width of eighteen inches.