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"How fearful

And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!

The crows and choughs, that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half-way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head :
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice . . . . . the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high :-I'll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong."

Shakspere.

CLIMB up Shakspere's Cliff is a source of much
pleasure to the visitor at Dover. Here he can obtain
another splendid view of the town, harbour, and forti-
fications, and, looking seaward, has before him mile
upon mile of what Washington Irving described as
"blue distance." Leaning against the flag-staff of the

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Preventive Station at the top of the Cliff, and lazily puffing at his calumet whilst he enjoys the extensive prospect, the visitor can listen with attention to the interesting conversation of the apparently antediluvian coastguardsman, who, in picturesque seaman's costume, and with battered telescope of huge dimensions, either pronounces oracular prognostications as to the weather, or else, if one is inclined to encourage him, speaks of his adventures whilst in the navy, or furnishes in his rough way much local information. The listener at last becomes thoughtful, and his reverie is probably interrupted by a distant low rumbling, which, as it approaches nearer and nearer, becomes more loud, until it suddenly ceases with a shrill shriek. There is, however, no great cause for alarm or surprise. It is the mail-express from London that has darted out of one of the long tunnels between Folkestone and Dover, and, after a brief but swift run into the open-air, plunged with a snort into the Cimmerian darkness of the lengthy tunnel through Shakspere's Cliff. This tunnel, and the two others which precede it on the Folkestone side, were constructed by the South Eastern Railway Company, when they extended their line from the place mentioned to Dover. The difficulties that were encountered in the laying of those six miles of rails, the manner in which they were one by one met, and triumphantly removed, by engineering skill and ingenuity, would take hours to relate; but the gigantic nature of the work may be estimated when we say that it is alleged that Dover did not enjoy railway communication with Folkestone until about £60,000 a mile had been spent. At any rate the tunnels now exist to indicate that railway enter

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prise is not to be baulked by some of Nature's most imposing and
gigantic works. The labour of piercing through even the chalk
must have been considerable, and in blasting one cliff on the
route described—that of the Round Down-nearly a million tons
of chalk were removed. Although the tunnels are as dark as
Erebus, they are yet well ventilated by means of shafts at regular
distances, and the swiftness with which the trains traverse them
helps to maintain an excellent current of air. On emerging from
the tunnel under Shakspere's Cliff the train passes over the long
viaduct which is shown in the photograph, and then enters the
Dover station, the terminus of the railway. This viaduct is very
strongly built, and its foundations are covered with shingle,
which in turn is at high tide covered by the sea. It is
here that, every morning during the summer, companies of
soldiers are marched, in charge of an officer, for their daily
bathing exercise.

Like the Monument in London, Shakspere's Cliff has connected
with it some stories-happily few-of suicide; and certainly its
culminating point, 350 feet above the sea, must afford facilities
for a "header" much more sensational and thrilling than that of
Mr. Boucicault in the "Colleen Bawn." Accidents, too, have
occured here; and our friend the coastguardsman will grow
almost eloquent in the touching way in which he tells how one
poor fellow, during his watch on a foggy night, fell over the edge
of the cliff, and was found next day dreadfully mangled on the
beach below. It is there that the sea sometimes washes up the
corpse of some poor mariner, whose ship has gone down out in

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the Channel-the body, after having been a plaything of the waves for days, now a repulsive mass of clay.

"The eyes, close them!

Staring so blindly.

Dreadfully staring

Through muddy impurity,
As when with the daring
Last look of despairing,
Fix'd on futurity!"

From the vantage-ground on which we now stand it may possibly occur that we have a view of the commotion attendant on some distinguished arrival at Dover. The Admiralty Pier, perhaps, is crowded with spectators, who swarm the upper promenade until it stands out in positive blackness. Away from the Pier are three stately iron-clads,and alongside the landing stage is one of Her Majesty's steam yachts. We can just see the volumes of steam from the engine of a special train, as it is run on to the Pier, and at the same moment you chance to look towards the Castle. A puff of smoke from one of the batteries is followed by the dull report of a heavy gun-the first of a salute of twenty-one. Then there is a crashing boom from the squadron out at sea, speedily followed by another and another, which, reechoed by the hills, seem to die away like distant thunder. As the smoke lazily rolls away from the iron-clads, we find them, as if by magic, gaily dressed out in hundreds of flags, and their yards