_Finally_, it is not extravagant to note how the megalithic monument (now fallen) near Trottescliffe, corresponds to Kit's Coty House on the opposite shoulder beyond the valley. The crossing at Snodland would be the natural road between the two. [Illustration: ROCHESTER] These seven converging lines of proof, or rather of suggestion--seven points which ingenuity or research might easily develop into a greater number--seem to me to settle the discussion in favour of Snodland.[36] By that ferry then we crossed. We noted the muddy river, suggestive of the sea, the Medway, which so few miles above suggests, when it brims at high tide, a great inland river. It has hidden reaches whose fields and trees have quite forgotten the sea. We passed by the old church at Burham. We were in a very field of antiquity[37] as we went our way, and apart from the stones and fragments it has left, we were surrounded by that great legend which made this place the funeral of the first barbarians. It was already nearly dark when we came to the place where that old sphinx of three poised monoliths, Kit's Coty House, stands in a field just north of the lane; the old circle of stones, now overthrown, lay below us to the south. We would not pass Kit's Coty House without going near it to touch it, and to look at it curiously with our own eyes. Though we were very weary, and though it was now all but dark, we trudged over the plough to where it stood; the overwhelming age of the way we had come was gathered up in that hackneyed place. Whether the name be, or be not, a relic of some Gaelic phrase that should mean 'the grave in the wood,' no one can tell. The wood has at any rate receded, and only covers in patches the height of the hill above; but that repeated suggestion of the immense antiquity of the trail we were pursuing came to us from it again as we hesitated near it, filled us with a permanent interest, and for a moment overcame our fatigue. When we had struck the high-road some yards beyond, just at the place where the Pilgrims Way leaves it to reach the site where Boxley Abbey once stood, our weakness returned. Not that the distance we had traversed was very great, but that this kind of walking, interrupted by doubts and careful search, and much of it of necessity taken over rough land, had exhausted us more than we knew. With difficulty, though it was by a fine, great falling road, we made the town of Maidstone, and having dined there in the principal inn to the accompaniment of wine, we determined to complete the journey, if possible, in the course of the next day. FOOTNOTES: [35] Not quite half a mile of it. Snodland itself stands on gravel, which just touches the river at the site of the church and ferry.