PLUMSTEAD CHURCH-EAST WICKHAM.

roadway, and just before we cross the meadow leading to Plumstead Church, we come up with a lazy group of cattle, being driven home by some lazier cowherd to the neighbouring farm. The tasteless exterior of Plumstead Church does not tempt us to any detailed examination; nevertheless, the reader will think it worth while to turn a few yards to the right to obtain the same view we have sketched of it from between yonder noble trees. The churchyard contains some choice epitaphs, one of which, on Master James Darling, is extravagantly absurd. This young gentleman speaking from his tombstone exclaims,

"The hammer of Death was give to me

For eating the Cherris off the tree."

May his example teach a lesson of moderation, during the fruit season, to the youth of Plumstead.

East Wickham, a mile or so distant up yonder hill, is an unimportant hamlet, having a small church. The discovery, upon its walls, of the very slight remains of some most uninteresting fresco will be recollected to have agitated to its very centre the recently formed Archæological Association, at the Canterbury meeting; and it was not till it had stirred up a bishop and one or two deans to take cognizance of a proposed obliteration of this production, that the matter was suffered to rest. The bishop and deans, however, thought with the churchwardens, that the fresco, as it stood in the way of improvements, was not worth preserving; and in this view the Association itself, from its silence, seems to have afterwards coincided.

On the stream's banks, and everywhere, appears
Fair dwellings, single, or in social knots;

Some scattered o'er the level, others perched

On the hill-sides-a cheerful, quiet scene."-WORDSWORTH.

HE walk across the marshes, from Erith to Greenhithe, offers little to interest us, save the river view and its herd of ships, and, perhaps, a few scarce plants, which, if given to botanical pursuits, we may gather along its banks.* We therefore prefer to make the excursion direct from London, following the same plan as that adopted in our journey to Erith,-the railway to Blackwall, and thence by the river steamer. The first sweep

of the river between Erith and Greenhithe is known as the Rands, and only loses that name as we pass a point of land distinguished by a small house, called Cold Harbour, which, in the ancient British language, implies a military station, or resting-place.

Long Reach succeeds the Rands, and here the river Darent

* Specimens may be found of Tragopogon porrifolius-Statice Limonium -Arenaria media-Triglochin maritimum-Plantago maritima, and Atriplex portulacoides.

PURFLEET AND ITS POWDER MAGAZINES.

The

blends its waters with the Thames. Opposite its embouchure, on the Essex bank, we now see PURFLEET. Those low roofed greylooking buildings contain many tons of gunpowder, there stowed by government for the use of the army and navy. The magazine was formerly at Greenwich, and was removed here in 1762. Greenwich people had petitioned parliament, some fifty years previous, pointing out the danger of allowing so dangerous a dépôt to exist within a few yards of the magnificent hospital, and near enough to the metropolis to have endangered it, in the event of an explosion, which caused the Board of Ordnance to be directed to take measures for its removal. Nevertheless so tardy were they in their proceedings that nearly half a century was allowed to elapse before the Purfleet establishment was commenced.

The appearance of the village from the river is very picturesque, and its historical associations are interesting. It was at Purfleet that Queen Elizabeth planted the standard of England, when the Spanish Armada threatened our shores. Those cliffs, half chalk, half clay, which add so much to the beauty of

the spot, were chosen as most suitable for a signal beacon, to warn the citizens of London of the appearance of the enemy. A silly story is told, that Purfleet got its name from Elizabeth having exclaimed, when the small navy weighed anchor, "Oh, my poor fleet!" whereas the real derivation of the name is from Port Fleet, the old appellation of the place. The first newspaper printed in this country, owed its existence to the threatened invasion by the "Invincible Armada." The curious may see a copy of it in the

GREENHITHE-THE EREBUS AND TERROR.

British Museum. Its title is the "English Mercury;" its date, the 23rd of July, 1588; and its object, an invocation to Englishmen to repel the threatened attack upon their nationality and religion.

The appearance of GREENHITHE, from the river, is eminently picturesque. Its red brick cottages, and tall chalk cliffs, project boldly forward from the dark woods of Swanscombe, which, stretching far away inland, bound the distant horizon. The pier is much after the same fashion as that of Erith: the village may claim precedence for cleanliness, and the neighbouring country is not a whit less beautiful or interesting. We are not, in fact, familiar with any spot within a like distance of the metropolis, and so easy of approach, where a quiet holiday could be more agreeably spent than amidst its rural and sylvan scenes. These, however, possess not a scrap of historical, or even local, interest, as our painstaking researches through multitudes of heavy quartos and dull octavos testify. The one fact connected with Greenhithe that is worth preserving is of recent date.

From here, on June 19th, 1845, sailed the fifty-eighth exploring expedition from England to the Polar Seas. The vessels composing it, named the Erebus and Terror, under the command of Sir John Franklin and Captain Crozier, were fitted out with all the advantages that scientific or practical men could suggest: Archimedean screw propellors of most efficient construction, steam machinery for working them, and other apparatus for warming the vessels. Ingenious precautions, too, against damage from the floating masses of ice they will have to encounter in the progress of their dangerous expedition were not lost sight of. Each vessel was also furnished with two hundred tin cylinders; in which papers could be thrown overboard, containing the statement of longitude, and other interesting particulars, written in six different languages, that, when picked up, the information they contained might be sent to the Board of Admiralty.

After making a brief survey of Mr. Harmer's Gothic mansion, Ingress Abbey (built from the stone of the old London Bridge), from without the iron fence-that impassable barrier which skirts the grounds-we purpose winding round the hill to the left of the house, pausing awhile before the extensive view we obtain of the chalkpits beneath us, whose sides exhibit a precipitous surface nearly

CHALK PITS AT GREENHITHE.

two hundred feet in height; above which may be seen towering a group of noble timber trees. Tram-roads connect these pits with the shore, along

which are several wharfs, whence the

chalk is being continually shipped off; and even the flints found amongst it have become a profitable article of commerce.

Seve

ral thousand tons are used annually in the Staffordshire potteries, in the manufacture of the famed Staffordshire

ware, and immense quantities are sent to
China for similar purposes. From here
we may ramble off to Swanscombe, which
is barely two miles distant. The walk
is mostly across hill and
dale, through corn-fields,
meadows, orchards, and
hop-gardens.

Sweyn, King of Denmark, at one of his period

ical descents upon the En