tides being north and south, or nearly so, the soft material of the cliff is easily worn and carried away. When a great fall of cliffs occurs, geological specimens are often found in abundance. Remains of gigantic creatures that existed before the flood turn up again in these later days, to teach us something of the wonderful past. If there were men in those prehistoric times, they must have had an extremely uncomfortable time of it, with creatures of such devouring capacity as then existed in numbers around them. Perhaps the reason that we find no fossil skeletons of man of so ancient a date, is that they were "chawed up" by the mammoths, &c., and never allowed to die a natural death. It is a wonder the flint implements were not swallowed and digested too, instead of being allowed to remain on or in the earth, and set otherwise rational men by the ears.

Wooden breakwaters project out at intervals to break the force of the current, and the part of the cliff upon the very verge of which the village stands is faced with flint masonry-armour-plated, in fact, with stone armour. Access to the beach and jetty is gained by means of zigzag paths and steps of uncomfortable steepness. The jetty is not a very imposing structure, but it answers all the purposes for which it is intended. As Cromer has no quay, the coal vessels

take the ground at high tide, and are unloaded as rapidly as possible, several horses, however, being required to drag a cart-load up the soft beach.

Pleasant as Cromer is in the summer, it is not at all a bad place in the winter, when the days are fine enough to go out sea-fishing. I had a few days there one November, and one morning I enjoyed capital sport amongst the codlings.

The wind blew fresh the night before, and it was doubtful whether the boats would set out in the morning. I had arranged to go out with two of the fishermen, provided they started early enough to enable me to leave Cromer by midday. The morning broke with little wind and a slight smurr of rain, but the distant horizon looked soft and mellow, and there was nothing of the harshness which precedes heavy rain. We had two sets of lines for our boat. Each set was thirteen hundred yards in length, so that when the two lines. were out they extended about a mile and a half. At short intervals were hooks attached to lengths of snooding. These are baited over night with, in the present instance, and indeed generally, mussels. Baiting them is not by any means a pleasant or enviable job, especially when it has to be done, as is too often the case, in the kitchen, where all the family are collected. The mussels, by the way, are caught in Lynn

deeps, and then taken to Cley and Blakeney harbour, where they are deposited in troughs to fatten and grow. From thence they are supplied to the fishermen on the coast. The lines being baited and coiled, so as to be paid out freely, are conveyed to the boats, and then you may notice a curious custom. They, and also the nets, are put in at the right-hand side of the boat, then the nets are also cast from the right-hand side of the boat, or as nearly so as practicable. A doggrel form of prayer is also said by the fishermen before the latter are cast. This faint echo of Galilee has become a superstitious observance, kept as much by the graceless blackguard as the honest man who may see a meaning in it.

The Cromer and Sherringham crab-boats are of a class which is unlike any other boat on the British coast. They are, for all the world, like the half of a walnut shell in shape. Stem and stern are pointed alike, and the shell form is further contributed to by the absence of rowlocks, instead of which are holes pierced in the top straikes. The oars are thrust through these, and when not in use the holes are stopped by corks. The oars are weighted with lead on the looms, in order to give greater leverage power. To launch a boat, an oar is passed through two opposite rowlock holes, and two men half lift half drag it down

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to the water. The average length of the boat over all is about fifteen feet. They mount a large lug sail, which has to be dipped every tack, but with which they can sail very close to the wind, and at a spanking pace. A friend of mine in one of these little boats, rigged cutter fashion, has sailed around England. For sea work I cannot imagine any boat better fitted for the purpose of sailing and rowing, and also standing rough weather.

was full of the

In my dream I

I went to bed betimes (people go to bed early in Cromer), and, as I suppose my head subject, I must needs dream about it. foregathered with an ancient fisherman, who gave me the most copious and marvellous information upon marine matters, of which I took full notes, congratulating myself upon meeting with him. At last, however, he told me that the average length of a Cromer crab-boat was forty-three feet. This was too much, and by way of proving him wrong I used myself in default of a sixfoot measure, and, turning myself over as a draper does his yard, and with the utmost gravity, measured a boat near us as two lengths and two-thirds of a length (equal to sixteen feet), and triumphed.

To return to our codlings. "Which way, skipper?" said one of the men to me. "To the southward," answered I, at a guess, seeing several boats making off

in that direction. No, no, sir, that won't do," he replied. We pulled a mile and a half straight out to the eastward, and dropped the anchor, with the buoy rope and the end of the line attached, in seven fathoms of water, and then began the tedious work of paying out the line.

"There's a foul," I cried, seeing that a snooding was entangled round the line. "Yes, sir; but we dare not pull it in again, or it would raise the whole of the line that is already out, and foul the other snoodings." We paid half the line out, and then, making a turn, laid the rest in the opposite direction. The buoy and anchor were then let go. The other line was laid in a similar manner, and then we rowed about for an hour, to give the fish time to bite. was hauling in her line. We kept her company for awhile, and watched the glittering fish being swung out of the water in rapid succession.

Another boat not far off

'Do you never get in a mess with other fellow's lines?" I asked.

"Oh yes; one boat often lays her lines over others, and then there's a lot of trouble before they can be got free."

While tossing aimlessly about, the two men began to relate for my edification unpleasant anecdotes of seasickness, and at length I asked,