slips in the upper stratum of clay, and, as I proceeded, climbing
always, I encountered some rather formidable gullies in the chalk, down
and then up which I had to scramble, till I came to a great mound or
barrier, stretching right across the great promontory, and backed by a
natural ravine, this, no doubt, having been raised as a rampart by some
of those old invading pirate-peoples, who had their hot life-scuffle,
and are done now, like the rest. Going on, I came to a bay in the cliff,
with a great number of boats lodged on the slopes, some quite high,
though the declivities are steep; toward the inner slopes is a lime-kiln
which I explored, but found no one there. When I came out on the other
side, I saw the village, with an old tower at one end, on a bare stretch
of land; and thence, after an hour's rest in the kitchen of a little
inn, went out to the coast-guard station, and the lighthouse.

Looking across the sea eastward, the light-keepers here must have seen
that thick cloud of convolving browns and purples, perhaps mixed with
small tongues of fire, slowly walking the water, its roof in the clouds,
upon them: for this headland is in precisely the same longitude as
London; and, reckoning from the hour when, as recorded in the _Times_,
the cloud was seen from Dover over Calais, London and Flambro' must have
been overtaken soon after three o'clock on the Sunday afternoon, the
25th July. At sight in open daylight of a doom so gloomy--prophesied,
but perhaps hoped against to the last, and now come--the light-keepers
must have fled howling, supposing them to have so long remained faithful
to duty: for here was no one, and in the village very few. In this
lighthouse, which is a circular white tower, eighty feet high, on the
edge of the cliff, is a book for visitors to sign their names: and I
will write something down here in black and white: for the secret is
between God only, and me: After reading a few of the names, I took my
pencil, and I wrote my name there.