No part of the south coast formerly required more vigilant guarding than that for many miles on either side of Beachy Head. The coastguardsman had his hands full then; his lot is better now. “Amongst the most agreeable objects that enliven the shores of our island,” writes the _Saturday Review_, “are the groups of cottages occupied by the coastguard. Picturesque one can scarcely call them, for the architecture is simple to baldness, and suggestive of Government contracts kept down by close competition, and yet they have generally the picturesqueness of comfortable contrast with surroundings that are often bleak and inhospitable. Dating from the days when our coasts were regularly picketed, and a blockade was methodically established against the enterprise of the free‐traders, we come upon them in every variety of situation. Now they are arranged bastion‐wise on a commanding eminence, in the suburb of some seaport or watering place, in a snug, compact, little square, with a tall flagstaff in the centre. Again we stumble on them unexpectedly, sheltered in the recess of some ‘gap’ or ‘chine’ where a little stream comes trickling down to the sands through the deep cleft that time seems to have worn in the chalk cliffs. Most frequently they are perched on the crest of the line of sand‐hills, with a broad look‐out in all directions over ‘promontory, cape, and bay.’ And often they form a conspicuous landmark on some flat stretch of grass‐grown sand, where the slow‐shelving shore is intersected by a labyrinth of changing channels, and where mud‐banks submerged by the rising tides are a perfect paradise for the clamorous sea‐fowl. But whatever the situation, the general effect is almost invariably the same. They are substantial and watertight; suggestive of cheery shelter in bright interiors when the wind is howling through the shrouds of the flagstaff, driving the sand and gravel in flying scud along the beach, and churning and grinding the pebbles in the surf with dull, monotonous roar. There are low flat roofs with projecting eaves, and small, strongly‐secured casements, and the gleam of their spotless whitewash catches any sunlight that may be going. In the neatly‐ palisaded little gardens that stretch before the door, a hard and not‐ unsuccessful struggle is always going on with the unfriendly elements, while the shell‐strewn walks are invariably kept in the most perfect order. As you approach them of a warm summer afternoon you are conscious of the briny breeze just tainted with a faint amphibious smell of tar. It may not be so balmy or romantic as the resinous odours that breathe from the pine‐woods of Bayonne or Arcachon, under the fiercer rays of the sun of Gascony; but it is decidedly wholesome, and rather savoury than otherwise. The promiscuous use of pitch and tar gratifies the nautical affections of the inmates. Everything is paid, caulked, and seamed, from the keels of the white‐painted boats that are hauled up bottom upwards, to