lace. Mudbank, mist, swamp and
work; work, swamp, mist, and mudbank."--_Great
Expectations._

* * * * *

"They were now in the open country; the houses
were very few and scattered at long intervals,
often miles apart. Occasionally they came upon a
cluster of poor cottages, some with a chair or low
board put across the open door, to keep the
scrambling children from the road; others shut up
close, while all the family were working in the
fields. These were often the commencement of a
little village; and after an interval came a
wheelwright's shed, or perhaps a blacksmith's
forge; then a thriving farm, with sleepy cows
lying about the yard, and horses peering over the
low wall, and scampering away when harnessed
horses passed upon the road, as though in triumph
at their freedom."--_The Old Curiosity Shop._

NOW for a long tramp in the country of the Marshes--the famous "Meshes"
of _Great Expectations_. The air is sultry on this Thursday afternoon,
and there is thunder in the distance. The storm, however, does not pass
over Rochester, but further on we find traces of it where the roadways
have been washed up. Afterwards the air becomes deliciously cool, and
that hum of all Nature which succeeds the quiet preceding the storm is
distinctly perceptible. Crossing Rochester Bridge, keeping to the right
along Strood and Frindsbury--the churchyard of which affords a splendid
view of Rochester, Chatham, and the Medway--passing up Four Elms Hill
and through the little village of Wainscot, nothing of interest calls
for notice until we have travelled some miles from Strood. After
crossing a tramway belonging to Government, and utilized by the Royal
Engineers as a means of communication between the powder-magazine and
Chatham Barracks, we observe that vegetation, which is so rich in other
parts of Kent, here appears to be dwarfed and stunted. A hop-garden
presents a very miserable contrast, in its struggle for existence, to
others we have seen in the more central parts of the county, and even
some of these were far from being luxuriant, owing to such a peculiarly
wet and cold season. The hedges in places are diversified with the small
gold and violet star-like flowers and the green and scarlet berries of
the climbing woody nightshad