Canterbury, and not some port, is the terminus of the Old Road, on account of the effect of the tide in the Straits of Dover. The bastion of Kent, jutting out into the sharpest current of the narrow seas, distorts and confuses the violent tides of the Channel. Now complexity of tides involves a multiplicity of harbours, and many neighbouring harbours among which seamen choose as necessity may drive them, involve a common centre inland. That is the whole of my argument. We have already seen how necessarily this corner of England will attract exit and entry. The most powerful emotion connected with that attraction was the sight of land. There is but one small section of the continental coast whence England, the sun shining on the chalk cliffs, can be clearly seen; and it can be so seen but upon certain days, say one day out of three. The little section lies between Sangatte and Ambleteuse. Here a great hill, whose seaward projection is the cape of Gris Nez, affords a good look-out, and hence I say that at least 120 days out of the year the further shore is visible. On rarer occasions it may be got beyond Calais on the east, and as far as the high sandhills near Etaples on the south and west. [Illustration] Similarly there is but a small section of the Kentish coast whence the further shore can be seen. It extends from the South Foreland, you may say, to the hill above Folkestone; half a day's walk. There are days when you can see it as far north as Ramsgate Hill, but those days are rare; further west than Folkestone it is hardly ever seen (for the country is flat) save under conditions of mirage, such as startled the people of Hastings at the beginning of the nineteenth century.