Page:Reminiscences of Smugglers and Smuggling.pdf/103

From Historical Hastings
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describes, they may, on the whole, be considered to be reliable.

"The coast of Sussex, between Eastbourne and Seaford, exhibits some of the most magnificent cliff scenery in Europe. The noble promontory of Beachy Head, with its stupendous pinnacled outwork, called 'the Charleses,' seven hundred feet high-the long line of undulating Downs extending thence to Cuckmere Haven, comprehending that extraordinary succession of eminences known to seamen under the denomina tion of the Seven Sisters--terminated towards the west by Seaford Head, presenting for miles a preci pice of the purest white, so perfectly perpendicular, that a plummet dropped from its brink would descend without interruption to its base, the whole, as seen from the sea, resembling an enormous curtain, grace fully festooned along its summit, and having its surface horizontally interlaced at intervals by double lines of flints, imbedded with such regularity, that they appear to resemble pencilled lines drawn by a ruler.

" Throughout the extent of this interesting district, and from Cow Gap, at Holywell Quarries, east of Beachy-Head to Cuckmere Haven, near Seaford, a distance of at least five or six miles, the vast rampart of chalk is altogether inaccessible, except at three places ; first, at the Gun Gardens, a frightful fox-track or squirrel-path"-(squirrels live in woods) " running along the face of the precipice in a diagonal direction, -