the cliffs of England, perhaps two miles away, and showing very faintly
indeed, a bare outline upon the white weather. A thought ran into my
mind with violence, how, one behind the other, beyond known things,
beyond history, the men from whom I came had greeted this sight after
winds like these and danger and the crossing of the narrow seas. I
looked at my watch; it was ten o'clock, so that this crossing had taken
three hours, and to see the land again like that was better than any
harbour, and I knew that all those hours my mind had been at strain. I
looked again at the vague cliffs narrowly, thinking them the South
Foreland, but as they cleared I saw to my astonishment that I had blown
all down the Straits, and that Folkestone and the last walls of the
chalk were before me.'

The wind dropped; the sea went on uneasily, tumbling and rolling, but
within a very little while--before eleven, I think--there was no breeze
at all; and there I lay, with Folkestone harbour not a mile away, but
never any chance of getting there; and I whistled, but no wind came. I
sat idle and admired the loneliness of the sea. Till, towards one, a
little draught of air blew slantwise from the land, and under it I crept
to the smooth water within the stone arm of the breakwater, and here I
let the anchor go, and settling everything, I slept.

It is pleasant to remember these things.

THE VALLEY OF THE ROTHER

There is in that part of England which is very properly called her Eden
(that centre of all good things and home of happy men, the county of
Sussex), there is, I say, in that exalted county a valley which I shall
praise for your greater pleasure, because I know that it is too
jealously guarded for any run of strangers to make it common, and
because I am very sure that you may go and only make it the more
delightful by your presence. It is the valley of the River Rother; the
sacred and fruitful river between the downs and the weald.

Now, here many travelling men, bicyclists even and some who visit for a
livelihood, will think I mean the famous River Rother that almost
reaches the sea. The Rother into which the foreigners sailed for so many
hundred years, the River of the Marshes, the river on which stands Rye;
the easy Rother along whose deep meadows are the sloping kilns, the
bright-tilted towns and the steep roads; the red Rother that is fed by
streams from the ironstone. This Rother also all good men know and love,
both th