Through East Anglia in a Motor Car

This same Dunwich is without exception the most depressing scene on which the eye could rest. Down the hill we swept into a bleak hamlet of some twenty houses and to an inn, where tea was ordered. What time the ladies thawed themselves over a new-lit fire it seemed good to the men to restore circulation, and perhaps stimulate the mind a little, by a tour of inspection, and to ask for guidance beforehand. It was given in grim language. "If you want only to see the ruins you can go by the road; if you want to see the bones you must follow the cliff." So desiring to see everything as quickly as might be, we took the path to the cliff, through a sandy cutting, and soon were close to the evidence of a recent fall into the sea of land, rising perhaps a hundred feet above high-water mark, of which the most reckless speculator would hardly buy the fee simple for any tangible sum. It has been falling—sometimes in large pieces, sometimes in small—since the reign of Edward III; it is falling still, and it will continue to fall. It is of the kind of substance that has no more cohesion, or very little more, than a child's castle of sand, which, having been a broad-based cone in the beginning, has been cut till it opposes a sheer and perpendicular and crumbling obstacle to the advancing tides. Waves and rains—the latter far more destructive than is commonly imagined—are destroying this part of England, even while others are being added to, with remarkable celerity, nor is it easy to see how any protecting works could, even if the enterprise were worth undertaking, be constructed with any reasonable hope of success. The last fall—of part of the churchyard of the derelict All Saint's—was clearly quite recent. The bones, mixed with crumbling débris of the rotten cliff, were being washed by muddy wavelets a hundred feet below the perilous verge of the cliff, a grisly and a saddening sight. The church itself—its west end still standing—hung on the edge of the cliff; it cannot last long. "Murray" writes in 1875: "It might have served till the present day, but was abandoned in the middle of the last century that the townsfolk might sell the bells and lead." He would be a bold man who should say now that the townsfolk were not justly prudent, for it is as plain as a pikestaff that All Saint's is liable at any moment, hurtling down into the insatiable sea, to join St. Peter's and the other five churches, once the glory of Dunwich; it has already sent down half its burial ground, and the rest, although burials continued after the church was abandoned, is sure to follow soon. Opposite my seat of a Sunday in Winchester Cathedral when I was a boy, was a sepulchral chest on top of a screen bearing the legend "In hâc et alterâ e regione cistâ reliquiæ sunt ossium," and then a handful of kings beginning with Canute were mentioned. It used to seem reasonably grim. But this shallow and relentless sea round the last relics of Dunwich, with its bottom strewn by the contents of six churchyards and a half, is to the chest at Winchester as the earthquakes at San Francisco and Valparaiso are to the slipping of an Irish bog. The scene is depressing, unspeakably sad; but it is necessary to visit it in order to realize that Dunwich was once great and to understand its fall, for it is falling still, and it will go on falling; and you cannot help seeing how it all happened.

Hardly anywhere else, perhaps nowhere, is it possible at once to localize and to realize so long and unvarying a story of progressive ruin. Felix, whom we have met before on these wanderings, landed at Dunwich (another legend lands him shipwrecked at Hunstanton) in the seventh century, on his evangelizing mission; doubtless because King Sigeberht of East Anglia prescribed a landing at the principal port of his kingdom. He found there a flourishing community, a port which, for the seventh century, was large, and, says "Murray," remains of a considerable Roman settlement. (But, for reasons already given and of universal application in East Anglia, I am shy of accepting Roman remains unless they be supported by definite and satisfactory evidence.) At any rate the King built himself a palace, and the saint built a church, the cathedral church of the new diocese of East Anglia; and whether both or either used the Roman ruins no man may tell with certainty, for the sea has devoured palace and cathedral church alike. Perhaps, after all, it does not much matter now of what material they were constructed, or what its origin was. Fifteen successive bishops, at any rate, ruled East Anglia ecclesiastically from Dunwich. So early as Domesday there are records of falls; there is even a legend of an extensive forest, flourishing east of the town that way, covering miles of land over which now the "waves wap and the waters wan." Still Dunwich found forty ships for Henry III, and though "rage and surgies of the sea" ravaged it in the time of Edward III, it occurs in a quaint list of East Anglia's contribution to the fleet raised against the Armada, a list which may be given here once and for all:

In the time of Leland the bitter cry of the people of Dunwich was heard in the land and the legend of the submerged forest of Eastwood is found on his pages: "George Ferras told me that the men of Dunewich desiring Sucour for their Town againe Rages of the Se, adfirme that a great Peace of a Foreste sumtyme therby ys devourid up and turnid to the use of the Se." Who George Ferras was, this deponent knoweth not, but by way of exemplifying the difficulty of reading Leland, it may be mentioned that other places named on the same folio are New-Windelesore (Windsor), Saresbyri (Salisbury), Dovar, to say nothing of Edward III, Egidius, Walterus de la Ville, Nicholas de S. Quintius, and "Mr. Balthazar," all in the space of twenty-five lines of print. Leland's volumes, through no fault of his, as has been pointed out before, are like conglomerate or puddingstone, with here and there a gem, which takes a great deal of finding. Indeed that this particular gem was found may be attributed to fortune. It shows us Dunwich, before the untiring sea had reduced the inhabitants to absolute despair, crying out for help, and crying to deaf ears. Its destruction, in truth, was very gradual, very certain; and, while the nation would not help, it was not worth while for the people to show the indomitable spirit of those in San Francisco to-day, or to set about the task of rebuilding, for in destroying Dunwich the sea wiped out its excuse for existence, making the land that was left unapproachable by reason of its girdle of shallow water. So there is nothing left but memories, a handful of mean houses of no interest by the sea, the ruins of the Grey Friars monastery on the hill, and the church of All Saints tottering on the crumbling verge of the disappearing cliff. How any man or woman can consent to live in this environment of desolation is a thing difficult to understand; but there they are, apparently quite cheerful, a living testimony to the elasticity of human spirits. A stranger, having seen the sights, having mused a little as his eyes wander over that dreary expanse of monotonous sea, leaves Dunwich gladly, without the slightest intention of returning, and convinced that a not very prolonged residence there would assuredly produce melancholia in one not to the manner born.

The opinion has been expressed already that it is not worth while at this time of day, and it would probably be hopeless to endeavour, to cope against the untiring sea in its work of demolishing the glacial cliffs south of Dunwich. As they are demolished they go, by virtue of the southerly drift given to the débris, to alter the coastline southward. Attention has been called, for example, to the childish course pursued by the River Alde. The fault does not lie with the river but with the crumbling cliffs of the north, and they are responsible for closing up the natural mouth it once had at Slaugden, barely half a mile from Aldeburgh. At Southwold and Lowestoft defensive works are praiseworthy, because they are feasible and the land is worth protecting, and this is even more true of the vicinity of Felixstowe. Here much land was lost early in the last century, owing to the fact that huge quantities of stones, forming a natural protection, were removed for manufacture into cement, with the result that the shore was denuded, and the loose pebbles were heaped up by the drift into a totally undesirable shingle bank at Landguard Fort. This bank in its turn threatened Harwich Harbour, and a groyne of concrete had to be set up to arrest its progress. These facts, in detail, came to my knowledge through the Engineer in 1906, together with the somewhat appalling estimate of land lost in East Anglia to the extent of 160 square miles in ten centuries. Land has been gained elsewhere, at Bawdsey, where we shall find ourselves very shortly, for example. At Bawdsey it has been gained through human agency to the advantage of humanity, but on the whole the sea, left to its own devices, works destruction at both ends of its operation. It removes the earth from places where it is needed, as at Dunwich for example, and so wipes one flourishing port out of existence: it does its best to deposit that which it has taken away where it is not needed, and to block up one port with the ruins of another. At Harwich it has, we all hope, been stopped, but all the world knows the mischief which has been wrought south of the estuary of the Thames by the gradual process of accretion converting thriving ports into meaningless inland places. What all the world does not realize, and what our most practised engineers in this kind apprehend, without pretending to comprehend fully, is the unforetellable character of the results that will follow from every attempt to interfere with these mysterious processes of nature which takes the form of opposing an obstacle to the sweep of the tide. Thus to build a groyne or a sea wall, to say to the sea in effect, "Thou hast taken so much, but thou shalt take no more," is hardly likely to produce any injurious result. On the other hand, to stretch a solid pier across the drift, and to divert a current, may be to affect the coast line for hundreds of miles along the coast affected by the drift. As an engineer versed in these matters once said to me, "When you interfere with the tides you must wait for the effect; you cannot predict it."

So back to Felixstowe, varying the cross-country route to the main road a little by following the sense of direction without consulting any maps, and seeing nothing worthy of notice except a belated heron, its long legs stretched behind its slow-flapping wings, making its way from the sea to some distant heronry and croaking sadly as it went, as though to say, "The moon will give no light to-night, so I must perforce go fasting." That is a Welsh version of the heron's melancholy call—please note that the heron always wears half mourning—but the marsh men doubtless express the same thought in some way, for it is sound ornithology, and they know their birds passing well.

CHAPTER VI—(continued)

FELIXSTOWE, BAWDSEY, WOODBRIDGE, IPSWICH, DUNMOW AND LONDON

Next morning, in a tearing wind, full of the promise of rain, we took a road running as nearly N.N.E. as might be, making for the steam ferry which crosses the mouth of the river Deben, a river whose banks are rich in memories of the late Mr. C. J. Cornish, one of the brightest open-air writers of our generation. Golf-links we passed, having plenty of natural bunkers and hazards, having also that close turf, whereon the ball "carries" well, which appears to be in better harmony than any inland turf with the spirit of the royal and ancient game. Martello towers there were too, on the flat and lonely beach, towers probably more useful now as affording shelter and concealment to the wild fowler than for any purpose of defence; and beyond them the shallow sea whipped by the wind into angry little wavelets. Then the ferry hove in sight, the boat, or floating bridge, being on the far side of a fretting strath from a quarter to half a mile in width. On the far side also was the curious house of Sir Cuthbert Quilter, and around it a considerable area of cultivated land, doing infinite credit to the enterprise of that most ardent agriculturist; for has he not converted a wilderness into fairly fruitful land, and is not the man who does that a benefactor of humanity? Crossing seemed at first likely to be no easy matter. The boat was on the far side, out of hearing in such a wind as was blowing; a witless boy of the district, himself desirous of crossing apparently, thought it came at fixed times, and had no idea when those times were. It seemed that we might wait for hours; but prowling round I found a signal post, and thereon directions how to raise the signal for the ferry, and soon the boat was making for us. Entering it with the car was no trouble; Avernus has always been easy of descent; but when the craft had creaked to the far side we were faced with the stiffest task I have ever seen offered to any motor-car in the shape of a sharply sloping bank of soft gravel to be ascended without any preliminary run of any kind. The steam car, however, ploughed slowly through the gravel and up the hill, and I look back upon those ten or twelve yards of hill-climbing as the finest exhibition of sheer strength in a motor-car it has ever been my fortune to witness. So we went by devious and very bad roads, through Alderton and Hollesley to Woodbridge, through a country not particularly interesting, I imagine, at the best of times, and rendered less interesting than ever by the angry curtain of clouds which hung over our path. Rain had been an open question when we started; it was certainly coming now with a will; and it was a case of up cape hood and down with the front screen, in which a large piece of transparent talc, or celluloid, gave something of a view to him who drove. It was better than getting wet through, that is all that can be said. The rain for a short time was simply torrential, and as it poured in waving streams down the transparent surface, one could see as much as, but not very much more than, one can see with eyes opened six or eight feet down in fairly clear river water. Outlines of objects were blurred in the same fashion as they are to the diver (without a diving dress of course), and one felt as doubtful of the distance of this or that as one has often felt under water when catching sight of the saucer, the white stone, or what you will, thrown in beforehand that it might be searched for afterwards. So there is nothing to be said of this run from Woodbridge to Ipswich, along the road followed in my first journey but in the opposite direction, save that it was taken in "demmed, moist, unpleasant weather," to quote Mr. Mantalini.

However, the rain abated before we reached Ipswich and halted, by previous arrangement, at Mr. Cobbold's Bank, as a preliminary to receiving open-handed hospitality from yet another member of that most hospitable of Suffolk families. It is not suggested that all motorists should do likewise, although, upon my word, judging by Mr. Cobbold's kindness to a party upon two of whom he had never set eyes until that day, it seems probable that a call at the Bank would be a promising venture for any strangers. But into the secrets of comfort in Ipswich which he revealed to us others may be admitted without his personal guidance. He showed the old-world glove shop already mentioned. The oyster shop he showed us also, almost next door to the glovers, both in a narrow street running parallel to the main street on the far side from the "Crown and Anchor," and the "Great White Horse," and better oysters were never eaten by man or woman. Then he took us to luncheon at the "Crown and Anchor" which, sooth to say, was more to my taste than the "Great White Horse"—of its charges it is manifestly impossible for me to speak, but its fare was of the simplest and best. Last, but not least of the kindnesses shown to me by Mr. Cobbold was to invite to meet me Mr. Corder, architect and antiquarian—would that the combination were universal—profoundly versed in the old-time legends of the district. Mr. Corder it was who gave me a most fascinating print of the back of the "Crown and Anchor" when it was the "Rampant Horse," and quoted a jingled prophecy of days gone by, concerning the fate of the various inns of Ipswich, which appears to have come true—

Again, as our talk wandered over matters ancient and men of the past, the name of the famous Abbot Sampson, much noted in his day as a preacher, was mentioned, and Mr. Corder had a humorous story of his disinterment in modern times. With the bones of the clarion-voiced preacher, in the same coffin, was found the skull of a woman, a grim jest perhaps of those who were left behind him in this world. The bones, pending reinterment in decent form, were placed in the first convenient receptacle and, only some time later was it observed, the relics of the preacher had, by the irony of fate, been placed in a champagne case labelled "extra dry." Chance, very likely, supplied an epitaph more truthful than is usual.

At Ipswich too my host and friend had prepared a surprise. Not entirely satisfied with the behaviour of the car which had covered us, as well as carried us, hitherto, he had telegraphed to London for another, and it awaited us in the inn yard. It was uncovered, but the sky was now clear, so we sped in it merrily along the already familiar route to Colchester, entering Essex, "ful of good hoswyves," as Leland quotes, as we crossed the river at Stratford St. Mary. Had we turned to the right a little before this point we should have made ourselves familiar with the beautiful and very characteristic scenery of those Stourside places Stoke-by-Nayland, Sudbury, and Long Melford—all interesting places concerning which something is said later. But all these matters and places come more fittingly into the chapter describing a series of short day's drives from Colchester as head-quarters. So do Marks Tey and Braintree through which, as a matter of fact, we passed that day to Dunmow. In fact the only fact about this little run which can be mentioned without impoverishing the mine to be dug from later is an incident. We had the misfortune to meet a man who was no horseman mounted on a half-broken colt which had the strongest apparent objection to a motor-car. The man held up his hand. We stopped. The horse, more frightened than ever, turned and bolted in the other direction; but then the rider turning on to the grass beside the road, dismounted hurriedly and we passed on. It was almost a solitary instance in which, during much motoring of late, I have seen a horse thoroughly frightened by a car, all the more alarmed probably because, by that curious intuition which horses possess, it knew its rider to be incompetent. The incident exemplified the folly of the existing law requiring a car to be stopped completely whenever a person in charge of a horse, or with a horse in charge of him, holds up his hand. Almost every petrol-car brought suddenly to a stop makes far more noise and is far more alarming to a horse than when it moves at a reasonable pace, and the car-driver, in a voice at once audible and soothing, cries "Woa, my lad," or something of that kind, thus convincing the animal that motor-cars are connected with human beings, with whom he is familiar. In nine cases out of ten, however, the man is more frightened than the horse, so that, tugging suddenly at the reins, after being half asleep before, he compels the animal to start. In any event the complete stopping is an error from the point of view of horseman and motorist. It annoys the latter without being of the slightest use to the former. Moreover, it gives irascible squires an opportunity of exasperating the motorist, whom they detest. "My horses don't mind a car at all," said one such to me not long since, "but I always hold up my hand when I meet the beastly things; I hear they hate stopping." These are the ipsissima verba of one who, in every other relation of life, is exceptionally kind and genial.

Passing through pleasant Braintree, and going at a spanking pace along an open road, we left Little Dunmow, which is the real Dunmow of story, unnoticed on the left through sheer ignorance, and went on to Great Dunmow. Our ignorance was in some measure to be excused, because the custom of Dunmow, although in old times it was established in connection with the Priory of Little Dunmow, was revived in connection with Great Dunmow. And, after all, in this case it would probably have been folly to be wise. We should have found little, if anything, remaining of the Priory of Little Dunmow, and we were quite happy, in our ignorance, over our tea in a picturesque inn at Great Dunmow, believing all the time that we were at the classic spot itself. Of the various accounts of a quaint custom, mentioned in Piers Plowman and by Chaucer, I prefer that given by Leland, for its brevity. Writing of "the bacon at Dunmow," and referring to "Robert Fitzwalter, Lord of Woodham and famous in the time of King Henry the Thyrd," he continues, "In which Priory arose a custome, begun or instituted either by him or some of his successors, that he that repenteth him not of his marriage sleeping or waking in a yeere and a day may lawfully goe to Dunmow and fetch a Gammon of Bacon." The quotations from Chaucer and Piers Plowman have been used too often in "seasonable articles" to be repeated here. It is easy to agree with the curiously learned Dr. Samuel Brewer that "the attempt to revive this 'premium for humbug' is a mere get up for the benefit of the town"; but his quotation from Prior is distinctly apt and unfamiliar:

Also we may hope that the eight successful pairs of claimants from 1445 to 1772, Essex folk all, took the matter more seriously than those of later time. One pair, Thomas Shakeshaft, Woolcomber of Weathersfield, and his wife, are said to have made their successful claim in 1751 in the presence of Hogarth. The most recent fame of Dunmow arises from its violent resistance to uninvited Socialist propagandists. It is just the sort of quiet place in which one would expect a rustic to describe the Socialist ranters as "a passel o' fools"; and this is precisely what occurred.

Perhaps after all it is well to repeat the oath in verse as preserved by Fuller, since to do so may save the trouble of reference for the curious:

There is a like custom of Wicknor in Staffordshire, but the ultra-learned seem to me to have overstrained their fancies in imagining a common origin for these flitches of bacon, and the "sow and pigs" which, according to "Murray," are frequently seen on the carved bosses of church roofs in Devonshire, and in suggesting a connection between the Dunmow flitch, which after all was but a gammon, and the flitch which according to Dion Halicarnassus, was kept at the Temple of Alba Longa until the time of Augustus, because Æneas found there the white sow and pigs. It may be true that it was the custom of the Prussians of old time to offer a flitch of bacon to the thunder-god whenever a thunderstorm came. As for the sow and pigs on the roofs of Devonshire churches, they seem to me to have no more direct connection with the Dunmow flitch than "the sow and pigs" as an inn sign (which may be seen in Oxfordshire and perhaps elsewhere), or than the Gadarene swine. Surely, when there is an obvious and historical explanation there is no sort of need for plunging into the troubled waters of comparative folk-lore. Robert Fitz-Walter desired to establish a reward for conjugal fidelity. That is plain, and there was nothing out of the way about such a desire in times when foundations similar in character, rewards for constancy in servants and the like, were by no means uncommon. It probably never occurred to him that the claimants would be other than peasants. The recorded claimants in fact were in 1445, a labourer and his wife; in 1510, a fuller; in 1701, a butcher; in 1751, a woolcomber; the three last with their wives of course; and in the other cases the callings of the claimants are not recorded.

Fitz-Walter's domain was situate in the heart of the forest country, a land of innumerable oak trees, whereon herds of swine were fed upon the acorns in autumn, under the care of the successors in title of Gurth the Swineherd. To the peasantry the pig was, economically speaking, everything; for that matter he is a great deal to them still since, take him for all in all, he is the most profitable of domestic animals. What could be more natural than that the great landowner should establish as the reward of fidelity among peasants a part of the familiar beast whom they knew best, and whom, to this day, they like best on the table. Those who have seen the excitement of pig-killing at a cottage home, who know how it spells plenty of fresh meat for a while, and how large a part fat bacon plays in the meals which the agricultural labourer eats under the lee of a hedge, will not desire to go to Alba Longa for an explanation of the Dunmow flitch; nor, in a country where "chaw-bacon" was once synonymous with farm labourer—unhappily they now consume tinned meat instead—need we think in their connection of the sacrifices of the ancient Prussians. Robert Fitz-Walter could not have devised a benefaction more to the taste of the intended recipients.

Yes, we were some way from the spot truly sacred to the custom at Great Dunmow; but we were uncommonly near to relics of the ancient forest, in which the swine, the Dunmow flitches in process of formation, grew fat upon the abundant acorns.

We were, indeed, in the very heart of the forest land, its principal products timber, game, which was sacred to the king, and swine growing fat, as obesity of pigs was reckoned in early days, on the acorns of autumn. Hard by in Hertfordshire the country folk to this day collect acorns in great quantity, feeding thereon the swine which, cribbed, cabined, and confined, no doubt grow fatter than their predecessors roaming in the woods. A perambulation was made in the twelfth year of Henry III (1228 and Fitz-Walter's time), which showed nearly the whole of the county to be part of a Royal Forest. From the Thames on the south to Stane Street, the road between Colchester and Bishop Stortford, to the north, was a great forest running right up to the walls of London. It was known as the Forest of Waltham; it included Epping Forest, part of which has happily been preserved, to the enduring credit of the City of London, Hainault Forest, the relics of which have been reafforested of late, and Hatfield Forest, along the margin of which we were shortly to pass on our way to London. Hainault Forest once lay, and now again lies, south of Epping Forest, being to the south of the river Roding. It once consisted of four thousand acres, but was disafforested by Act of Parliament in 1851, the Crown receiving an allotment of two thousand acres which, at an expenditure of more than £40,000, were converted into arable farms. Of the whole six thousand acres only a small tract retained its character of primitive woodland. This, through the exertions of the Commons Preservation Society and of Mr. E. N. Buxton, has now again been dedicated to the public, being vested in the London County Council. In addition, thanks to Mr. Buxton and also to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, five hundred acres of tilled land, formerly known as the "King's Woods" and later as Fox Burrows Farm, have been reafforested after being forty years under the plough. For three years Mr. Buxton, with the aid of the County Council, has been engaged in the effort to make the tame land wild again. Grass has been sown, acorn and beechmast have been inserted, seeds of bramble, briar, holly, blackthorn and whitethorn have been introduced, and some saplings have been planted. Bracken, perhaps the most essential feature of wild woodland, has come of itself. So the tame is on its way to become wild and natural again. It will be a long process which few living men can hope to see fully accomplished; but that the experiment was well worth trying cannot be doubted.

Nothing, perhaps, illustrates more forcibly the difference between the conditions of modern life and those of the thirteenth or even the seventeenth century than our present attitude towards forests by comparison with that of our forefathers. When, in the time of Charles I, an attempt was made to declare the boundaries of the Forest of Waltham to be identical with those prescribed in the perambulation of Henry III, it was regarded as, and in fact it was, an outrage. It meant the effort to revive the harsh Forest Law and to expropriate private owners who had acquired rights by a prescription more than adequate from our modern standpoint. It meant a determination to extend the rights of the Crown, to deny the rights of the public. In the days of Edward VII all men rejoice over the patches of forest which have been preserved, all England congratulates itself when that which has been disafforested, as Hainault was in 1851, becomes forest again. This is because the meaning of words as applied to things is changed when the country passes from an unsettled to a settled state, just as, according to one of the Greeks, it is changed in revolutionary times. "Forest" in old times denoted a district and, in respect of that district, connoted a wicked restriction of public rights, or of rights which, to our mind, ought to have been public. "Forest" now means a district in which the public have abundant liberty, limited only by consideration for the rights of all, and the rights of the Crown in relation to it hardly come into account. Every remaining forest, whatsoever its governance may be, is a treasure-house for the naturalist, a sanctuary for wild birds and beasts, a place to be prized above measure since, in it, the dwellers in our congested islands may walk face to face with wild nature in pure air.

Of the relics of such a forest we were soon to have a pleasing view. From Dunmow to Bishop Stortford, as one of the guide-books has it, there is nothing of interest. We followed this high road along the railway, which did not make for beauty, for some four miles until, climbing a slight acclivity, we were at Takeley, where the church is said to possess a very fine Perpendicular font-cover. Such minutiæ, however, are not for the motorist. There we turned sharply to the left and, passing along the brow of a gentle hill for three miles, we were at Hatfield Broad Oak, amid true forest scenery of wide stretches of turf bordered by wild woodland. Whether the storied oak, carefully fenced around, still stands, this deponent is not absolutely prepared to avouch; but his eye was arrested by a tree which would certainly serve well to represent it. It was good going hence, among charming sylvan scenery, through Hatfield Heath to Harlow, for five miles, and at Harlow, as at Hatfield Heath or at Takeley for that matter, we might have run to the right a little and so have struck the most eastern of the two main roads from Cambridge to London. But we were out to see the country; so we stuck to the byways, well worthy of following for their own sakes and for ours, and we had our reward in a pretty picture. Passing along an unfenced road, having broad stretches of turf backed by woodlands on either side, we saw in the distance the pink coats of three or four riders, and soon we were going slowly and gingerly past a staunch pack of hounds returning to kennel under the charge of huntsman and whips after their day's sport. They were good horses, workmanlike hounds, a thoroughly characteristic English sight and one which, somehow or other, one never sees from a train, partly perhaps because masters of hounds are prone, for obvious reasons, to avoid the vicinity of railways as much as possible. This little spectacle was secured by making a detour from Harlow almost to Chipping Ongar, and High Ongar and thence back to Epping, from which we returned to London as nearly as might be by the route taken on our outward journey. This involved a few more miles of travelling than by the main road, but it produced a very good general impression of the character of the forest country. It is an impression well worth treasuring in remembrance. It also produced an abiding respect for Mrs. Coleman's topographical memory. Not once or twice but many times was this lady able to point out the right turning and to save us from going astray. Once only did she fail, and that was after we had entered the continuous houses of London. The failure was but the exception proving the rule; indeed it may not even have been that; for the din of the streets may have drowned her warning voice. Be that as it may the return to London was not quite so artistic in point of route as the exit had been.

How far had we travelled that day? An estimate is given in the practical observations earlier, but in truth distance really hardly counts within limits which grow wider every year, when one is motoring for pleasure. The essential things were that we took breakfast at a reasonable time and at leisure in Felixstowe, went by characteristic cross-country routes to Woodbridge and to Ipswich, strolled through Ipswich and shopped and lingered over luncheon, took tea at ease in Great Dunmow, explored many pleasant byways between it and London, and were back in London in plenty of time to dine and to go to a first night at the theatre, and not in the least too tired to do both with enjoyment. That is the new kind of pleasure which the motor-car has rendered possible, and it is a very real and genuine one.

CHAPTER VII

Late Summer. COLCHESTER AND EASTWARDS

This little book has been absolutely candid and truthful so far, if it had not been it might have been more fertile in accidents and incidents; but the truth of the matter is that the modern motor-car in good hands goes so well that accidents and incidents are rare. One reads of accidents in the papers of course, because it is unnecessary to chronicle safe journeys; but it would be a libel on the motor-car to invent mishaps for the sake of literary variety. After motoring some tens of thousands of miles, I can lay my hand on my heart, metaphorically, and say that of the many cars in which I have driven none has ever touched a human being on the road, or a horse, or a carriage, or vehicle of any kind. My entire butcher's bill, extending over a good many years, amounts to one cat (which jumped from a wall in front of the car), three fowls, and ten sparrows. Therefore, since I am devotedly attached to Automobilism, and at the same time convinced that, for many years to come, it will be the pastime of the minority and will only exist on sufferance, fancy and imagination are ridden strictly on the curb, throttled down, if the phrase pleases better, and truth is encouraged to prevail.

In this chapter, and those which follow next, I am going to describe a number of journeys taken by motor-car from Colchester as a centre, and one which might have been made from Colchester by car, but was in fact made from London by train for the sake of its destination. That destination was very well worth reaching, even by train; how to reach it by car from Colchester, and what there is to be seen when it is reached shall be told in due course. This particular chapter involves very little travelling, and has been written because it is felt that the motorists, liking to take a holiday on occasion, will like to hear of the antiquities of Colchester, the social peculiarities of Clacton, some old-time stories of Harwich, and something from Lord Avebury about coast changes.

Three or four years ago, it will be remembered, an expeditionary force of horse and foot and artillery, representing imaginary invaders of this country, embarked in transports at Southampton, under Sir John French, with orders to carry out the operation of invading the east coast of England, the point of dis-embarkation being Clacton-on-Sea, supposed to have been left unwatched. In the course of the business of a special correspondent, I saw the tall ships—they were not a bit tall really, but the old phrase clings—steam out of Southampton, and then hurried across country to Colchester to await events. At Colchester, I found myself a welcome passenger on an official motor-car, a Lanchester, driven by an Army Service Corps driver, and I found myself also, by happy chance, in the company of many soldier friends at the "Old Red Lion," concerning the antiquities and traditions of which it has been found impossible not to make some observations at an earlier stage. There could have been no more delightful task for a conscientious correspondent, for it was his duty to see all he could, and it was sheer pleasure to scour the country to that end; and on the other hand, if he were also an honourable man, his task of writing was of the easiest. There was no censor; but the special correspondents were placed on their honour not to publish anything which could, by any chance, help the other side. Theoretically, I was attached to Sir John French's invading army; in fact, I perambulated the ground occupied by both armies with perfect freedom; and, since it soon became plain that my illuminating remarks would be capable of reaching General Wynne, who was defending England, at the same time as "the rolls and Bohea"—to quote the old Spectator—it became manifest at the same time that the less said about military matters the better. Recognition of this fact and of its consequences gave me much leisure, and the farcical character of the manœuvres on land—for farcical they were universally allowed to be by competent military observers—gave me more. For example, General French, unopposed by previous arrangement, spent some hours of an afternoon in landing his troops, but not much of his stores and baggage, at Clacton, amidst a crowd of trippers and bathers. After resting them for a brief space, and as darkness began to fall, he began a march upon the fat city of Colchester, over ground not too flat, the distance being some seventeen miles. I, not anticipating anything of the sort, since there was no moon, had gone back to Colchester and dinner. Enter, about ten o'clock at night, a breathless comrade to announce that sharp fighting was in progress. Out started a car, not the Lanchester, carrying us both; and within a few miles, but Heaven only knew where, we were in the thick of it. We could see flashes; we could hear the explosion of cordite in all directions; we could hear the tramp of men and horses, and many voices. But, speaking as no warrior at all, I am absolutely convinced that during this engagement, which was one of many, it was beyond the capacity of any man to distinguish friend from foe, to aim his rifle at anything, or even to set his sights. So I went back to bed at the "Red Lion."

With the dawn I was back again, to find the invaders, or some of them, lying close to the city of Colchester, their guns in positions from which they commanded the city and from which, in the meanwhile, they poured imaginary death and destruction upon the flying defenders. Theoretically, General French had captured the rich city of Colchester. If our mimic war had been real, the main difficulty of Sir John French and his officers would have been to check their fierce and hungry soldiery from sacking the town, looting the provision shops, gorging themselves with Colchester "natives"—for it was September and the oysters were very good—and drinking enormous quantities of liquor. But mimic war is sometimes a stern business, for the conquerors. The theoretical victors had to rest, as best they could, in an open field in the rain and, for a long time, without tents. Provisions, sufficient but not sumptuous, were supplied to them by the Army Service Corps, and the high authorities, whosoever they were, agreed that an armistice of thirty-six hours was called for by the exhausted condition of both sides. During those thirty-six hours, which begun about two o'clock in the afternoon, if memory serves accurately, a correspondent had no duties to perform.

So, keeping the "Red Lion" for head-quarters, I was free to ramble over one of the most interesting cities in England, architecturally and historically. The "Cups," a hotel more celebrated, was not available, being occupied by the umpiring staff, military grandees generally, and military and naval attachés of many nations. But there was no cause to regret the necessity for abiding at the ancient "Red Lion"; and it was an admirable centre from which to study the city and its characteristic features. To the front, in the High Street, there is much that is distressingly modern. The Town Hall, for example, is the kind of building men accounted "handsome" in 1841, when it took the place of a Moot Hall which had been standing since the Conquest. Most of the buildings near it on the far side of the road from the "Red Lion," including the "Cups," are modern and the epithet "handsome" has doubtless been applied to them also a hundred times and more. No doubt they serve their purposes adequately, but in the full light of day they offend the eye of him who deems himself cultivated. Only when the light grows dim above and a red sunset lends enchantment to the outlines of buildings seen against it, casting details and crude colouring into shade, does the High Street of Colchester look really picturesque; and that effect is the more impressive if one enters the town by the easternmost of the three bridges across the Colne. Then as the car climbs the sharp hill, the picture is unfolded gradually, and one great block of buildings at the end of the street (it is really, I fancy, something connected with the waterworks, but that is of no moment if it be pleasing) looks distinctly romantic and imposing. In full sun the principal street of Colchester fails to please any eye save that which is satisfied by the evidence of an abundant prosperity.

Once inside the "Red Lion," however, the traveller is in an atmosphere of the old world and, if he pleases to humour his fancy, he may preserve that fancy for quite a long time and over quite a considerable distance. The hotel has a courtyard, as of course. The coffee-room and the bar-parlour, wherein an interesting and characteristic gathering may be found on market days, are on the left hand as one enters from the High Street, and so is the principal entrance. It follows that to reach the main street on emerging from the hotel door, to find commerce, shops, bustle, and activity, a man must turn to the right. If he have no immediate inclination for these things, necessary and valuable as they are in themselves, let him turn to the left instead and pass through the long stable-yard, threading his way among a series of vehicles, ancient and modern, until he reaches the back gate of the yard. Once through that he will soon find himself in old Colchester, among quiet rows of modest houses, in alleys whose names speak of the Middle Ages, face to face with walls which are manifestly and essentially of Roman construction. Such will inevitably be his environment. In such an environment, if in any, will he be willing to hear something of the story of Colchester, that most ancient city standing on the hill that is girt to the north, the north-east, and the east by the sluggish waters of the Colne. If he be unwilling, he had better skip the few pages following.

A little of that story has been told before what time it became necessary, or so seemed, to define early in this volume our sceptical attitude towards so-called Roman remains and Roman roads. These are very often of doubtful authenticity, and this very scepticism, this proved scarcity of Roman remains in East Anglia, render the certain truth concerning Colchester the more valuable. The situation, the commanding hill, half-girt by the river, renders it more than probable that our rude forefathers (who really knew a good deal more than the world gave them credit for having known) had a settlement in pre-Roman times on the spot now known as Colchester. No time has been spent in research into that matter for the purposes of this book, for the simple reason that at least enough must needs be said concerning the place after the Romans first knew it. Cæsar came, saw, and conquered as usual; and having conquered he went away. For nearly a century after that the Romans were too much engaged over those troubles at home, about which every schoolboy really knows a good deal, to concern themselves over an outlying and unimportant province, and almost everything is uncertain concerning the British history of the period. This is really a pity, because it is clear that King Cunobelin, who then ruled at Colchester, already apparently named as Camulodunum, was a progressive prince, and the coins of his period show positively that the Britons under him were by no means ignorant of the peaceful arts. That, very likely, was why they became poor warriors.

In a.d. 43 came the second and most effectual Roman invasion. That extraordinary person the Emperor Claudius, persuaded by a British exile named Berre, who had got the worst of one of the petty quarrels in which the Britons then, like the Welsh later, were constantly engaged, dispatched Aulus Plautius with four legions and some Gallic auxiliaries to reconquer Britain. So much is certain, and there is no doubt that a year sufficed to quell the resistance of south-eastern Britain, although Caradoc, Cunobelin's son, held out in the west for a long time. In the next year Claudius himself crossed the Channel—one authority says he brought elephants in his train—and joined Plautius on the north of the Thames. Shortly afterwards he entered Camulodunum, or Colchester. Did he enter it as having himself conquered, or as an Emperor taking the credit of his general's victories? It is really almost impossible to say. Merivale, having previously mentioned the elephants, says, "At Gessoriacum he embarked for the opposite shores of Cantium (Kent), and speedily reached the legions in their encampment beyond the Thames. The soldiers, long held in leash in expectation of his arrival, were eager to spring upon the foe. With the Emperor himself at their head, a spectacle not beheld since the days of the valiant Julius, they traversed the level plains of the Trinobantes, which afforded no defensible position, till the natives were compelled to stand at bay before the stockades which encircled their capital, Camulodunum. It is not perhaps too bold a conjecture that the lines which can still be traced from the Colne to a little wooded stream called the Roman river, drawn across the approach to a tract of twenty or thirty square miles, surrounded on every other side by water, indicate the ramparts of this British oppidum. Within this enclosed space there was ample room, not only for the palace of the chief and the cabins of her people, but for the grazing ground of their flocks and herds in seasons of foreign attack; while, resting on the sea in its rear, it commanded the means of reinforcement and, if necessary, of flight. But the fate of the capital was decided by the issue of the encounter which took place before it. The Trinobantes were routed. They surrendered their city and, with it, their national freedom and independence. The victory was complete; the subjection of the enemy assured. Within sixteen days from his landing in Britain, Claudius had broken a powerful kingdom and accomplished a substantial conquest."

Exactly so, but is not the story a little too complete to gain absolute credit? Is not the historian, justly indignant at the injustice done by Suetonius and others to Claudius, inclined to press down the balance too heavily in his favour? After all, Suetonius says there was no resistance or bloodshed, and that really is much the more probable story. We all know that Claudius, the deformed child who was regarded as an imbecile, the coward who hardly dared to accept power when it was thrust upon him by the Prætorians, showed a remarkable genius for administration, and had the ambition to imitate Augustus. He might easily have been a great general in spite of his gluttony, his vice, and his cruelty. For all that, this rapid entry into Colchester, combined with what we know of his delight in shows, and with the suspicious fact that he brought his elephants with him, gives the whole affair an air of pre-arrangement The chances are that Aulus Plautius did the work and that Claudius took the credit. Certainly he returned to Rome and celebrated a triumph in great style; and on his arch of triumph is an inscription (largely conjectural now) which, says Merivale, shows the estimation in which his exploits were held. It is much more likely to show the view which Claudius wished to be taken, for the incestuous, gluttonous, cowardly, and yet politically sagacious Emperor, had a pretty style in prose. Of course it is just possible that Plautius was doing but ill over his campaign, and that the Emperor with his elephants—tradition says that the Britons were very much afraid of them—turned the scale; but the probability is that the whole affair was what they call a "put-up thing" on the far side of the Atlantic, and that the elephants were brought over simply for the sake of pomp and circumstance.

Now comes a confusing passage in the usually sinless "Murray," wherein the author is himself quoting in part from the Quarterly Review, No. 108: "Sixteen years later, 'to overawe the disaffected, and to show to the more submissive an image of Roman civilization,' a Roman Colony was founded in the capital of the conquered Trinobantes. 'It was dignified with the name of Claudian, from the Emperor himself, or Victricensis, from the conquest of which it was the symbol, which was also typified by a statue of Victory, erected in its principal place.' The place received indiscriminately the name of Colonia, Camulodunum,—or sometimes Colonia Camulodunum. It was the first Roman Colony founded in Britain. 'Claudius determined to inform the minds of his remotest subjects on the article of his own divinity—and accordingly directed the Colonists of Camulodunum to consecrate to him a temple, and appoint from among themselves an order of priests to minister therein.'" Nothing could be more in this picture, nothing more thoroughly in harmony with the character of Claudius; but the words "sixteen years later" give pause. Sixteen years would bring us to a.d. 60, when Nero wore the purple and misbehaved himself generally; and six years before that Agrippina, who was already more than wife to Claudius, since she was his niece also, became his murderess by the aid of the physician Xenophon. But it is only the date that is wrong. It was in the year 50, six years later, not sixteen, that the successor of Plautius, having been many times worsted by the hard-fighting Silures of South Wales, was ordered to found a colony at Camulodunum.

If Claudius had a political hobby it was the foundation of colonies, which he usually permitted to be known as Colonia, "the Colony," simply. Such was Colchester; such was Cologne, founded by him a year later at the asking of Agrippina, who had been born there. But the English Colonia did not quite come up to expectations, for the image of Roman civilization shown by it was not attractive, and its military organization was non-existent. The worn-out veterans, who were the colonists, did not build for themselves a concentrated city, a sort of stationary camp. On the contrary, they settled themselves in the scattered houses of the Britons. "The houses even of the Britons," says Merivale, "were to the rude inmates of the Tent not inconvenient." The Dean of Ely, as he afterwards became, wrote these words somewhere between 1850 and 1860, and had not the chances open to us of knowing that the families of the Britons of this epoch, the period of Cunobelin's coinage be it remarked, most likely enjoyed quite comfortable houses. A theatre, too, these colonists constructed, for their own amusement. To the question of defences they gave no heed. Caradoc and his fighting Welshmen were far away in South Wales. The Trinobantes around them were quite subdued. The Iceni, to the eastward, owed and paid tribute to Rome through their Prince Prasutagus. The luxury of Neronian Rome was repeated no doubt, on a small scale, in the distant and careless colony.

In a.d. 61 came the ill-treatment of Boadicea, the widow of Prasutagus, already recorded, and the revolt of the Iceni under her leadership. Then, the moment being well chosen, for the Governor was away as before stated, the colonists had bitter cause to rue their previous indolence, for the colony was quite defenceless. As we have seen before, Boadicea and her Britons enjoyed a short-lived but very complete revenge. Dion, indeed, goes into details, making out the Britons to have been, if possible, rather worse than Bashi Bazouks, as painted by the atrocity-monger. The ultimate result, of course, was that the Iceni were wiped out of existence, and the chances are that the Trinobantes also felt the strong wrath of Suetonius. The steed having been stolen and recaptured, the stable door was locked, so to speak, once and for ever. That is to say, the walls of Colchester were built with such strength that no rising of the kind was likely to succeed again; and that is why in Colchester we have the finest and most complete Roman walls to be found in the kingdom.

Colchester is rich in Roman relics also, to be found stored in museums, and in the form of Roman bricks and tiles built into the walls of the Norman keep to the north of the High Street, and into the ruined walls of St. Botolph's Priory Church, to the south-east of the town. This same keep, the largest in England, was probably built by Eudo, high steward to William the Conqueror, possibly on the site of the temple of Claudius, but as to that there can be no assurance. What is certain is that much Roman material was incorporated in the rubble of which the very solid walls are made; and this is natural enough when we reflect that Colchester was a real Roman colony for nearly 350 years. The most interesting objects in the Museum, which is housed in the ancient chapel of the castle, are a curious sphinx, two feet high, with the wings of a bird, the breasts of a bitch, the head of a woman, and the paws of a lion, squatting over the lacerated carcase of its human prey; the famous Colchester vase and a bust of Caligula, and there have been a number of smaller "finds." Colchester is no doubt derived from Colonia and castrum, but it has a legendary connection with King Cole of happy memory, and the principal bastion in Balcon Lane is still known as Colking's Castle. The theory of the Britons, to summarize first and to quote later a Quarterly Reviewer, was that the descendants of Cunobelin continued in Colchester under the Romans, and that one of them was Coilus, alias Cole, the same music and liquor-loving potentate who called for his pipe a good many centuries before the uses of the soothing herb were known in this country; of course, his pipe may have been an instrument of so-called music. After the usurpation of Carausius and his successor, Cole or Coel, Duke of Kaer-Coloin (Colchester), surrendered the island to the Romans, "in return for which service he was allowed to retain the nominal sovereignty in Britain, and has become renowned as the 'Old King Cole' of popular song. On his dying soon afterwards, the British legends went on to declare that Constantius the Senator, the representative of the Roman power on the island, received the crown of Coel, but only in virtue of marriage with his daughter Helena; and Colchester has hence enjoyed the reputation of giving birth to Constantine, the first Christian Emperor. There is no trace, however, of Constantius having been in Britain at all before the year 296, at which time his son was twenty-four years old; and the most credible writers assert that his consort was not a Briton, but a Bithynian. We leave the good citizens of Colchester in possession of their arms 'a cross intagled between four crowns,' in token of Helena's invention of the Cross of Christ; but we cannot allow that they have any historical title to them."

How others may feel in a matter of this kind it is not for me to say, but in me the serene air of superiority with which the ultra-learned brush away a tradition usually excites a suspicion, not wholly dissociated from a desire, that they may be wrong. "The most credible writers" of the Quarterly Reviewer produce no impression on me. It is the kind of expression one would expect of a writer who did not feel inclined to be at the pains of research. Equally, when a presumably learned writer in the Encyclopædia Britannica says, under the heading "Constantine," "a later tradition, adopted with characteristic credulity by Geoffrey of Monmouth, that Helena was the daughter of a British king, is a pure invention," I reflect that assertion is not argument, although it often passes for such. After all, this same contemptuous writer can but tell us that Constantine was born in 274 to Constantius and Helena, "the wife of obscure origin (daughter of a stabularia, or innkeeper, according to St. Ambrose), whom her husband was compelled to repudiate on attaining the dignity of Cæsar." And when "Helena" is referred to, we find another learned author saying that of her nationality nothing certain is known. Again, the statement that there is no trace of Constantius ever having been in Britain before 296 (at which time, by the way, Constantine was twenty-two, not twenty-four), does not satisfy the court. In 273, the year in which the wanderings of the father of Constantine would be material, Constantius Flavius Valerius was but a young soldier, of Dalmatian origin, in whom nobody yet recognized the future Emperor. He was twenty-three years of age, or thereabouts, for so little is known of his early life that the exact year even of his birth is unknown. It was not until nearly twenty years later that, having distinguished himself in Dalmatia, he was adopted and appointed Cæsar by Maximian. There was no reason in life why he should not have gone to Britain without attracting notice at the age of twenty-three, every reason why, if he did so, he should visit the flourishing, comfortable, and very accessible colony on the banks of the Colne. There he certainly did not find Coel, or Cole, a reigning sovereign, but he might very possibly have found a "merry old soul" of an innkeeper, who vowed that he was descended from Cunobelin, and possessed a charming daughter.

It is not suggested that these things actually happened, but it is most distinctly suggested that, unless the learned can trace the wanderings of the father of Constantine all through 273 and show that he was not in Britain, to say there is no trace of his having been in Britain before 296 is entirely beside the question. Here we have an example of a frequent kind of historical incapacity, that of failing to realize the life of the past. The dashing young officer might, in fact, have been in Colchester very easily, and if he succumbed to the charms of the inn-keeper's daughter, the event was not of a kind contrary to human experience. It is for the sceptic to prove an alibi if he desires to upset tradition. Helena may, then, have been the daughter of a Colchester innkeeper, she was certainly the mother of Constantine. Equally certainly, when her son became Emperor, she took a great interest in Britain, which tends to show that she may have been British by birth. It is true that cities in Syria and Bithynia were named Helenopolis after her, and this might be cited in favour of her Bithynian origin, only it could not be more in favour of one than the other, since she could not have been born in two places.

Here let a little confession and explanation be made. The Quarterly Reviewer's statement that the arms of Colchester might be left to it "in token of Helena's invention of the cross of Christ," left me quite in the dark; and the darkness was dispelled in the most commonplace way by reference to books. Helena did not invent the cross of Christ, in one sense of the word, because the Romans had done so before her time. But, according to tradition, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and found there the Holy Sepulchre and the true cross of Christ. That is a tradition which I do not attempt to justify, or to criticize beyond saying that the pilgrimage would really be an easy one for the mother of a powerful Emperor who was absolute in Jerusalem, and that the fabric might easily have been sound in Helena's time.

Of the siege of Colchester during the Rebellion, and of the cruel vengeance exacted by Fairfax, under the relentless influence of Ireton, on Lucas and Lisle, mention has been made at an earlier point, but at the moment of mention I was not aware that the populace of Colchester, like that of most of East Anglia, was essentially in sympathy with the Parliament, and had helped its cause over and over again. It was the necessity of war that drove the Royalists—"undaunted Capel" was of their number too—into Colchester, and it may well be that through familiarity with the place Lucas was enabled to make exceptionally capable use of the outlines of the town for purposes of defence. For the Lucases were tenants in fee of the Abbey of St. John, the gate of which still remains, restored it is true. "The last abbot," says Murray, "was hanged at his own gate for contumacy in refusing to acknowledge the Royal Supremacy." The last owner, whose ancestors had come in by purchase and not by force, faced death hard by with equal resolution and cheerfulness for the cause which he held dear. The defence had been a gallant but a hopeless enterprise. Reduced to the last extremity for lack of provisions, "after feeding on the vilest aliment," worn out by hunger and desperate sallies, surrounded by a hostile population, the leaders must indeed have been weary of life. How they lost it we know; but Ireton was not satisfied with the blood of the leaders. The common soldiers were dispatched to the American plantations, were in fact converted into white slaves by the champions of freedom and of religion; and the unhappy townsfolk, who certainly had no wish to take the Royalist side, although it is probable that many of them felt personal regard for Lucas and his family, were mulcted in the sum of £12,000, a very large sum in those days. "Soon after, a gentleman appearing in the King's presence, clothed in mourning for Sir Charles Lucas; that humane Prince, suddenly recollecting the hard fate of his friends, paid them a tribute, which none of his own unparalleled misfortunes ever extorted from him; He dissolved into a flood of tears." These words, with their peculiar punctuation and their copious capitals, are those not of the stately and partisan Clarendon but of David Hume, whom Adam Smith considered "as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit."

Leviore plectro. No wise man will go to Colchester without sampling the oysters, for which Colchester has been famous since it was Camulodunum. They are traditionally the best in the world, although perhaps something may be urged in favour of the Marennes of France (but the green colour is somewhat against them), or of the giant oysters of New Zealand, which were unknown, as New Zealand was, when the tradition of Colchester natives was already ancient.

Our Ipswich oysters most likely came from the celebrated layings in the Colne, so there was no heresy in singing their praises. Many another place, and Whitstable above all others, is famous for its oysters, but only at Colchester are the layings the property of the Corporate body, only on the Colne is the development of our old friend the "succulent bivalve" officially watched from the time when it is no bigger than "a drop from a tallow candle" to that at which it conforms to the dimensions of the municipal model in silver. Only at Colchester is it eaten, or are they eaten, with a just combination of civic ceremony and appreciative abandon. Colchester oysters, indeed, have but one drawback. They are not, in these days of rapid transport, so cheap as some epicures of scanty purse might desire. For that matter good oysters are seldom to be found at a moderate price in the old world. Australia is the oyster-lover's paradise. There, in any little bay, rock-oysters may be broken off in blocks, opened, and eaten out of hand; and one orders them not by the dozen, but by the plate, which holds eighteen or twenty, at the modest price of one shilling.

Oysters were a distinct consolation during these manœuvres—be it hoped the military character of the starting point has not passed out of mind—to those officers who mourned the futility and the cost of the operations by land: they were a sheer joy to those who were indifferent on the military question. But there were manœuvres all the same, and they involved many journeys by motor-car and by bicycle to all parts of the surrounding district. The first journey I took by bicycle, fairly early in the morning, to Clacton. A broiling sun poured down upon roads of yielding surface, soaked by a night's rain, and one gained a respect for the little hills which was completely lost in the Lanchester later. They are hills, though, without doubt, and a car of low power would feel them. The descent from the centre of Colchester is sharp, the ascent in returning necessarily the same, and the termination of Wivenhoe spells hill as plainly as Plymouth "Hoe" does, and for the same etymological reason. It is, in fact, a country of pretty little hills, abundantly wooded, until the flat land by the sea-coast is reached. It is to be feared that no halt was made on this or any other occasion to notice the Roman tiles built into the wall of the church at Wivenhoe. In the roadside scenery, however, an eye fresh from Berkshire observed one pleasing characteristic appearing to be singular. The hedgerow trees were, for the most part, elms, not very tall, for no tree grows to a stately height near the sea in our islands, but very much more beautiful than the loftier elms of Berkshire, save those planted for ornament, in Windsor Park for example. These low elms spread their welcome shade—true, it keeps the surface damp and renders road-preservation difficult—well over the way from either side. There was no doubt they looked better than the ordinary Berkshire elm that, newly mutilated, is bare as a ship's mast for thirty or forty or fifty feet, and has a mere tuft at the top like birch broom, or, clipped a year or two ago, supports the same birch broom upon an apparently solid and most disproportionately thick column of opaque green. The patulous elms, too, exercised their little influence on the manœuvres, but before explaining it, let the word "patulous," suggested by memory of the first line of Virgil, and incontinently looked for in a dictionary, be justified. It is not merely a botanical term, nor of my coinage. No less a poet than P. Robinson, in no less famous a poem than "Under the Sun," wrote, "The patulous teak, with its great leathern leaves." Perhaps P. Robinson was not famous; it may be noticed that courage is wanting to dub him Peter, Paul, or even Percival; and "Under the Sun" may have been a very minor poem by a quite insignificant writer; but P. Robinson at least knew where to go for a word expressing his exact meaning, and mine, better than any other in the English language. The patulous elms, then, exercised their influence on the manœuvres. How? Some days later, when General French, not having burned his ships, was in full retreat for them his enemy, General Wynne, sent up a balloon to spy out his movements and those of his troops. Espying that balloon at a distance of some ten miles, we gave chase in the Lanchester and came up to it, just after it had been brought down to earth in the centre of one of the strange crops to be found in this part of Essex. (It was a crop, as it turned out, of bird-seed, and marked as out of bounds, but balloons as they descend know no law.) The officer of Royal Engineers had been up 1000 feet or more in the balloon; he had scanned the whole country with field-glasses from a bird's-eye point of view. The country between him and the sea, Layer de la Haye, Layer Breton and the vicinity—he was at Tiptree of jam fame—was full of French's soldiery. They were marching in column of route within half a mile of him. Yet, by reason of the patulous elms, he had seen nothing of them. We had; but we were non-combatants and neutral, and therefore silent.

After Wivenhoe, the route to Clacton-on-Sea chosen that day, through Thorrington and Great Clacton, seemed dull and was very flat. But Clacton-on-Sea was a remarkable sight then, and is always, during the season, a sight quite sui generis. Some of the things witnessed that day will probably never be seen again. The long line of transports and cruisers lying a couple of miles out and extending from Great Holland to Clacton, the horse-boats being towed ashore, were both quite exceptional. Indeed, the horse-boats will certainly never reappear at Clacton or anywhere else, for a storm broke most of them up a day or two later, and the wreckage was sold by auction on the spot. Nor again, most likely, shall we see the Duke of Connaught and his General Staff, and a brilliant group of foreign attachés, naval and military, standing on Clacton beach amidst a seething crowd of East End trippers, and mountebanks, and nigger minstrels, and shell-fish vendors. But Clacton-on-Sea and its casual visitors were true to themselves none the less, and between them they made a quite wonderful spectacle, needing to be seen by the uninitiated before it could be realized, and certainly worth realizing by any easy-going student of human nature.