includes the whole sweep of the
bay, cut off sharply by the Brig on the left hand, and ending about
eight miles away in the lofty range of white cliffs extending from
Speeton to Flamborough Head.

The headland itself is lower by more than a 100 feet than the cliffs in
the neighbourhood of Bempton and Speeton, which for a distance of over
two miles exceed 300 feet. A road from Bempton village stops short a
few fields from the margin of the cliffs, and a path keeps close to the
precipitous wall of gleaming white chalk.

We come over the dry, sweet-smelling grass to the cliff edge on a fresh
morning, with a deep blue sky overhead and a sea below of ultramarine
broken up with an infinitude of surfaces reflecting scraps of the
cliffs and the few white clouds. Falling on our knees, we look straight
downwards into a cove full of blue shade; but so bright is the
surrounding light that every detail is microscopically clear. The
crumpling and distortion of the successive layers of chalk can be seen
with such ease that we might be looking at a geological textbook. On
the ledges, too, can be seen rows of little whitebreasted puffins;
razor-bills are perched here and there, as well as countless
guillemots. The ringed or bridled guillemot also breeds on the cliffs,
and a number of other types of northern sea-birds are periodically
noticed along these inaccessible Bempton Cliffs. The guillemot makes no
nest, merely laying a single egg on a ledge. If it is taken away by
those who plunder the cliffs at the risk of their lives, the bird lays
another egg, and if that disappears, perhaps even a third.

Coming to Flamborough Head along the road from the station, the first
noticeable feature is at the point where the road makes a sharp turn
into a deep wooded hollow. It is here that we cross the line of the
remarkable entrenchment known as the Danes' Dyke. At this point it
appears to follow the bed of a stream, but northwards, right across the
promontory--that is, for two-thirds of its length--the huge trench is
purely artificial. No doubt the _vallum_ on the seaward side has
been worn down very considerably, and the _fosse_ would have been
deeper, making in its youth, a barrier which must have given the
dwellers on the headland a very complete security.

Like most popular names, the association of the Danes with the digging
of this enormous trench has been proved to be inaccurate, and it would
have been less misleading and far more pop