syringing with tobacco or quassia water
and soap, "Hop-wash," as it is called. Sometimes the lady-bird
(_Coccinella septempunctata_) is present in sufficient numbers to
consume the green fly. Very little can be done to obviate the effects of
the wind, but a protective fence of the wild hop--called a "lee" or
"loo"--is sometimes put up round very choice plantations.

The hop-poles, the preparation of which constitutes a distinct industry,
are either of larch, Spanish chestnut, ash, willow, birch, or
beech--larch or chestnut being preferred. Women clear the poles of the
bark, and men sharpen them at one end, which is dipped in creosote
before being used. The ground is cleared, and the poles are stuck in
against the old plants in February or March.

We are informed that the hop-picking is much looked forward to by the
villagers with pleasure as the means of supplying them with a little
purse for clothing, etc., against winter-time. Each family or
companionship earns from thirty shillings to two pounds per week during
the season.

We proceed on our excursion, and pass Faversham, which stands in a
rather picturesque bit of country some way up Faversham Creek, and is
sheltered on the west by a ridge of wooded hills where the hop country
ceases, as the railway bends north-easterly for Margate and Ramsgate.
Whitstable, the next station passed, is famous for the most delicate
oysters in the market, the fishery of which is regulated by an annual
court; and it is said that one grower alone sends fifty thousand barrels
a year to London from this district. We speculate whether these
delicious molluscs were supplied at that famous supper described in the
thirty-ninth chapter of _The Old Curiosity Shop_, at which were present
Kit, his mother, the baby, little Jacob, and Barbara, after the night at
the play, when Kit told the waiter "to bring three dozen of his
largest-sized oysters, and to look sharp about it," and fulfilled his
promise "to let little Jacob know what oysters meant." All along, as the
railway winds from Whitstable to Margate, glimpses of the sea are
visible, and vary our excursion pleasantly.

The next noteworthy place we pass is Reculver--the ancient
Regulbium--which, according to Mr. Phillips Bevan, is "mentioned in the
Itinerary of Antoninus as being garrisoned by the first cohort of
Brabantois Belgians. After the Romans, it was occupied by the Saxon
Ethelbert, who is said to have occupied it as a palace, and t