Newhaven ; these cliffs are about twenty miles from Eastbourne to Brighton, where they terminate ; beyond these the coast of Sussex is comparatively level, and there is a level district extending inland a few miles till it terminates at the foot of the southern slope of the South Downs.
Romney Marsh and Pevensey Level (as well as Pett Level and Bulverhythe Salts, which are not mentioned in -the foregoing description in consequence of their being but of comparatively small extent, but which may hereafter have to be alluded to as the scenes of smuggling transactions), present peculiar features which require description. Their names imply that they are level or nearly so. Instead of hedges separating the different inclosures, ditches, wide, and in wet seasons, full of water, are met with on every side. Here and there a sluggish stream or river finds its way, after many windings, to the sea ; the roads are at places fringed with stunted willows, which in the dark nights look like ghosts, stretching their skinny arms towards the benighted traveller : farms and homesteads are dotted about, here and there, on these levels and marshes, and the paths from one to the other, or from them to the main roads, or vice versa, are, from the little traffic over them, just simply tracks where the grass is not so luxuriant as it is to the right and left of them. For a stranger to find his way, on a dark night, on the -
