The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 4Whymper, Frederick
History
The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 4
Whymper, Frederick
Adventure and adventurers; Arctic regions; Ocean; Voyages around the world
From the heights about Dover the views are magnificent. Seaward is the
beautiful bay, the Straits and the Downs, with its ever‐changing fleets,
the ships of all nations. Stretching one’s vision a little farther are
seen the lofty white cliffs of the French coast; Cape Grisnez, near Calais
(which itself lies on low land, and is therefore undiscernible), and the
heights of Boulogne.
The antiquity of Dover is undeniable. Julius Cæsar here made his first
descent on Britain, in August, B.C. 55. Picts and Scots, Danes and
Normans, successively attacked it; while at the period of the Conquest,
1066, the town suffered fearfully, the whole place being reduced to ashes
except twenty‐nine houses. But when it became one of the Cinque Ports it
soon rose in importance, and Dover men largely helped that brilliant
attack on Philip IV.’s fleet, by which France lost 240 vessels. That
enraged monarch retaliated on Dover by burning the larger part of the
town; but before the year 1296 the British navy had not merely swept the
enemy from the Channel, but had made several reprisals on the coast of
France. At the period of the Armada, Dover, with the other Cinque Ports,
fitted out, at a cost of £43,000, six large ships for the Queen’s service,
which were the means of decoying the great _Galleas_ of Spain on a shoal,
afterwards engaging and burning her.
Riding or walking over the Downs some interesting places may be seen on or
near the coast. At St. Margaret’s Bay, seven miles north from Dover—to the
merits of the lobsters of which the present writer can testify, having
both caught and eaten them—there is a pretty little fishing‐village, with
“Fisherman’s Inn” embowered in trees, at the base of lofty cliffs. Here
the preliminary borings for the possible Channel Tunnel of the future were
made. Farther on is Kingsdown, a fishing village and lifeboat station, the
men and boat of which have done specially good service in saving life.
Visible from thence is Walmer Castle and quaint old Deal, so often
mentioned in these pages in connection with lifeboat work on the Goodwin
Sands, themselves also plainly in sight. Riding at anchor in Deal Roads,
or outward bound, or on the homeward tack, are seen ships, great and
little, flying the colours of every maritime nation under the sun. The
trip from Dover to Deal and back can be made by any tolerable pedestrian
in a day, allowing time for visits to all the points just named. That part
of the trip from Dover to St. Margaret’s Bay can be made over the Downs
only, but thence to Deal the coast can be easily followed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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