[Illustration: THE BARBICAN, SANDWICH.]
This silting up began at a remote era, closing one port after another,
and Sandwich rose upon their decline. It is the most ancient of the
Cinque Ports, and existed as a great harbor until about the year 1500,
when it too began to silt up. In a century it was quite closed, traffic
had passed away, and the town had assumed the fossilized appearance
which is now chiefly remarked about it. Sandwich lingers as it existed
in the Plantagenet days, time having mouldered it into quaint condition.
Trees grow from the tops of the old walls, and also intrude upon the
deep ditch with its round towers at the angles. Large open spaces,
gardens, and orchards lie between the houses within the walls of the
city. Going through the old gateway leading to the bridge crossing the
Stour, a little church is found, with its roof tinted with yellowish
lichens, and a bunch of houses below it covered with red, time-worn
tiles, and the still and sleepy river near by. This was the very gate of
that busy harbor which four centuries ago was the greatest in England
and the resort of ships from all parts of the then known world. Its
customs dues yielded $100,000 annually at the small rates imposed, and
the great change that has been wrought can be imagined, as the visitor
looks out over the once famous harbor to find it a mass of green meadows
with venerable trees growing here and there. Sandwich has no main
street, its winding, narrow and irregular passage-ways being left
apparently to chance to seek out their routes, while a mass of houses is
crushed together within the ancient walls, with church-towers as the
only landmarks. These churches give the best testimony to the former
wealth and importance of the town, the oldest being that of St. Clement,
who was the patron of the seafarers. This church is rather large, with a
central tower, while the pavement contains many memorials of the rich
Sandwich merchants in times long agone. St. Peter's Church remains only
as a fragment; its tower has fallen and destroyed the south aisle. It
contains a beautiful tomb erected to one of the former wardens of the
Cinque Ports. The old code of laws of Sandwich, which still survives,
shows close pattern after the Baltic towns of the Hanseatic League.
Female criminals were drowned in the Guestling Brook, which falls into
the Stour; others were buried alive in the "thief duns" near that
stream. Close by the old water-gate of Sandwich is the Barbican, and
from it a short view across the marshes discloses the ancient Roman town
of Rutupiae and the closed-up port of Ebbsfleet, where Hengist and Horsa
are said to have first landed. Here was the oyster-ground of the Romans,
who loved the bivalves as well as their successors of to-day. Of the
walls of the Roman town there still remain extensive traces, disclosing
solid masonry of great thickness, composed of layers of rough boulders
encased externally with regular courses of squared Portland stone. There
are square towers at intervals along these walls, with loopholed
apartments for the sentinels. Vast numbers of Roman coins have been
found in and around this ancient city, over one hundred and forty
thousand, it is said, having come to light, belonging to the decade
between 287 and 297, when Britain was an independent Roman island.
Passing southward along the coast, we skirt the natural harbor of the
Downs, a haven of refuge embracing about twenty square miles of safe
anchorage, and bounded on the east by the treacherous Goodwin Sands,
where Shakespeare tells us "the carcase of many a tall ship lies
buried." It is possible at low water to visit and walk over portions of
these shoals. They are quicksands of such character that if a ship
strikes upon them she will in a few days be completely swallowed up.
Modern precautions, however, have rendered them less formidable than
formerly. The great storm of 1703, that destroyed the Eddystone
Lighthouse, wrecked thirteen war-ships on the Goodwins, nearly all their
crews perishing. As we look out over them from the low shores at Deal
and Walmer below Sandwich, or the chalk-cliffs of Dover beyond, a fringe
of breakers marks their line, while nearer the coast merchant-ships at
anchor usually crowd the Downs. In Walmer Castle was the official
residence of the lord warden of the Cinque Ports, an office that is soon
to be abolished, and which many famous men have held. Here lived Pitt,
and here died the Duke of Wellington, closing his great career.