[Illustration: OLD HOUSES, RYE.]
The unpicturesque coast is thrust out into the sea to the point at
Dungeness where the lighthouse stands a beacon in a region full of peril
to the navigator; and then the coast again recedes to the cove wherein
is found the quaint old town of Rye, formerly an important "limb" of the
Cinque port of Hastings. It has about the narrowest and crookedest
streets in England, and the sea is two miles away from the line of steep
and broken rock along which "Old Rye" stretches. The ancient houses,
however, have a sort of harbor, formed by the junction of the three
rivers, the Rother, Brede, and Tillingham, and thus Rye supports quite a
fleet of fishing-craft. Thackeray has completely reproduced in _Denis
Duval_ the ancient character of this place, with its smuggling
atmosphere varied with French touches given by the neighborhood of the
Continent. Rye stands on one side of a marshy lowland, and Winchelsea
about three miles distant on the other side. The original Winchelsea, we
are told, was on lower ground, and, after frequent floodings, was
finally destroyed by an inundation in 1287. King Edward I. founded the
new town upon the hill above. It enjoyed a lucrative trade until the
fifteenth century, when, like most of the others, its prosperity was
blighted by the sea's retiring. The harbor then became useless, the
inhabitants left, the houses gradually disappeared, and, the historian
says, the more massive buildings remaining "have a strangely spectral
character, like owls seen by daylight." Three old gates remain,
including the Strand Gate, where King Edward nearly lost his life soon
after the town was built. It appears that the horse on which he was
riding, frightened by a windmill, leaped over the town-wall, and all
gave up the king for dead. Luckily, however, he kept his saddle, and the
horse, after slipping some distance down the incline, was checked, and
Edward rode safely back through the gate. There is a fine church in
Winchelsea--St. Thomas of Canterbury--within which are the tombs of
Gervase Alard and his grandson Stephen. They were the most noted sailors
of their time, and Gervase in 1300 was admiral of the fleet of the
Cinque Ports, his grandson Stephen appearing as admiral in 1324. These
were the earliest admirals known in England, the title, derived from the
Arabic _amir_, having been imported from Sicily. Gervase was paid two
shillings a day. At the house in Winchelsea called the "Friars" lived
the noted highwaymen George and Joseph Weston, who during the last
century plundered in all directions, and then atoned for it by the
exercise of extensive charity in that town: one of them actually became
a churchwarden.