Proceeding down the Medway, it flows past the city of Rochester, the
river being crowded with vessels and crossed here by a bridge with a
swinging draw. Rochester has a fine old cathedral, rather dilapidated,
and in part restored, but its chief attraction is the castle towering
above the river, its Norman keep forming a tower over seventy feet
square and rising one hundred feet high, its masonry disclosing vast
strength and impressive massiveness. Cobham Hall, the residence of Earl
Darnley, is near Rochester, standing in a nobly wooded park seven miles
in circumference. Just north of Cobham Park is Gad's Hill, where Charles
Dickens lived. Beyond Rochester the powerful modern defensive work of
Fort Pitt rises over Chatham to defend the Medway entrance and that
important dockyard. The town is chiefly a bustling street about two
miles long. The dockyard is one of the largest in England, and its
defensive works, as yet incomplete, will when finished make it a
powerful fortress, there being several outlying batteries and works
still to complete. The Gun Wharf contains a large park of artillery, and
there are barracks for three thousand men extending along the river.
There is also an extensive convict-prison with two thousand inmates, who
work upon the dock extension and at making bricks for its construction.
Chatham has several military and naval hospitals. Opposite the dockyard
is Upnor Castle, used as a powder-magazine and torpedo-school. This
castle, the original defensive work of Chatham, was bombarded by Van
Tromp when he came up the Medway in Charles II.'s reign--an audacity for
which he was afterwards punished. The suburb of Brompton is completely
enveloped by the forts and buildings of the post, contains barracks and
hospitals for five thousand men, and is also the head-quarters of the
Royal Engineers.
[Illustration: ROCHESTER CASTLE.]