As for the history that lies in the landings and embarkations, all along the coast of Kent, why, there was never such another coast as these storied shores. The fame of them begins at Gravesend, to which those foreigners who did not by any chance land at Dover generally came in the dangerous old days of the road between Dover and London. At Faversham a king who sought secretly to leave his kingdom was detained; at Ebbsfleet landed the Saxons under Hengist and Horsa, and a hundred and fifty-seven years later came to that same spot a Christian missioner who came missionising very much against his own inclinations. At Deal, 1970 years ago--a tolerably long stretch of time--a great personage set the fashion in these numerous landings. I name Julius Cæsar, the noblest Roman of them all, who, as far as history tells us, was the first of any importance who ever burst into these unknown seas. Great personages have been doing the like ever since. The reason for this exceptional honour shown the Kentish coast, which has thus from the earliest times been the Front Door of England, is quite easily glimpsed on any sunny day anywhere between Deal and Folkestone, in the gleaming coast of France, which reminds us that most of those world-famous characters, in common with modern voyagers across the Channel, disliked the sea, and crossed by the “shortest route.” For the rest, Dover has been the scene of comings and goings uncountable, and to attempt recounting them would be wearisome indeed. Charles the Second, who had lively experiences in a hunted embarkation from our shores, experienced a welcome change in 1660, being received on his “glorious restoration” by his loyal subjects on Dover beach, and in 1683 came ashore at what was at that time “Bartholomew’s Gate,” in Thanet, which, in honour of that act of kingly condescension, has ever since been called “Kingsgate.” Kent, the _Cantium_, or country of the _Cantii_, mentioned by Julius Cæsar B.C. 54, and by other ancient writers, is thought to take its name from the peculiarity of its geographical position, jutting boldly out (or, in other words, “canted out”) in an easterly direction, beyond the estuary of the Thames. There is another view taken of the origin of the word, a view which derives it from _caint_, the “open country,” as distinguished from the woodland character of Sussex, the ancient “Andredswald”; but, against this, it does not seem to be sufficiently established that Kent ever was such an open country, while the evidence of maps shows us that it does indeed project most markedly.