sentry, I’m sure; ’Cos the gardeners took ’em in hand, an’ cultivated ’em till they didn’t resemble their own selves no more. Look ahere! Ye see this yer flower what looks like a double-daffodil gone mad:-- Well: _that_ was ’riginally a buttercup, before it was super-cultivated, me lad! They cut down the hedges an’ trees, an’ straightened every one o’ the winding ways That was to be found everywhere in them oncultivated days. For, ye see, they’d got moty-cars of such extryornary power Which ’ud do well up to 80 or 90 miles an hour. An’ when, after coming, sudden-like, round the corners, they’d killed a good proportion of the population, They was looked upon with something near vexation. With a long, straight road, when a motor’s heard, an ’umming in the distance, You can ’op aside like winking, an’ so save your existence; But on a winding road it wasn’t no manner o’ good, I declare, They was onto, an’ over you, before ackshully you knew they was there. An’ now there’s rails, ’stead of hedges, an’ there ain’t now no dust, nor trees; An’ England’s just the same from end to end, an’ never no kind o’ diff’rence you sees. Why, when I wer’ a lad, there were ’ardly two places the same: Each ’ad it’s own character, just as every one its own name. But now they tell me the Orkneys is a’most the same as Pegwell Bay, An’ Paddington an’ Penzance own brothers, an’ Hastings an’ Eastbourne, an’ such places as they, Ain’t got never a pin to choose between:-- Ah! things is very diff’rent to what they used to been.” CHAPTER XII KINGSGATE--THE NORTH FORELAND--BROADSTAIRS--ST. PETER’S The plebeian jollity of the older part of Margate, by the Harbour and the Jetty, the Fort and the Paragon, gives place westward to modern and more select Cliftonville. The walk past Cliftonville the select, along the grassy cliffs, leads round by Foreness Point and discloses a succession of chalky nooks, “gaps,” and “gates,” where little ravines run down to the sea: every one of them pretty well peopled in the summer season. If you want a cloistered holiday, you will not be well advised to repair to the Kentish coast for it. Frankly, such a thing is not to be obtained here. But, at any rate, thus tracing the “ocean’s melancholy marge,” you do at least escape the electric tramways which cut across Thanet inland and help to vulgarise this historic isle. A pretty inlet, called “Botany Bay,” leads to Kingsgate, and is a spot sufficiently desirable, except for the scattering of new villas there and the notice-boards of the Kingsgate Residents’ Association, prescribing what things the wayfarer may not do. These appear to be so numerous that it would seem to be almost better (as it would indeed be shorter) to specify the few things that are still allowed. [Illustration: KINGSGATE]