In Dover Town
Dover, England, August 22.
One of the strange things in this old world is a boundary line. You are on a railway in Germany, hearing no language but German. The train crosses the imaginary line and you hear an entirely different language, and if you try to use the words which were understood ten minutes before, the people do not understand you. They are French, and they not only speak a different language but they differ in custom, tastes and looks. It would be just like a traveler from Hutchinson to Kansas City being able to speak and understand what people said at Argentine, but on arrival at the union depot in Kansas City finding a different looking and different talking lot, who could not understand a word he said. And arriving in the Kansas City depot neither understanding nor being understood, would be something of an ordeal, especially if you were trying to change trains and make a sharp connection. It is no wonder that an ordinaryKansan traveling in this European land puts in much of his time figuring out his route and a lot more doing it.
Of course it is a joy to arrive in England and be able to talk and to understand everything that is said. Two hours after we left the fish-smelly Boulogne I was quarreling in right fair English with a railroad official because a train was late. In France we would have had to stand around and look pleasant, for the official would not have known whether we were cross about the train or the reciprocity treaty. It often relieves your mind to tell a Frenchman or a German what you think of him or his country in English, but it doesn’t cause him any discomfort.
Dover is a most interesting town, with a castle, a harbor, a garrison, and a history. It is the closest English port to France, and on a clear day with good eyes and a vivid imagination you can see Calais in France, 21 miles away. Ever since William the Conqueror came over and did his conquering, the English have kept Dover fortified in such away that it would be difficult for another conqueror to follow his example. The town lies along the shore and back into a small river valley. The hills, about 300 feet high, begin at the water’s edge and go up very rapidly. The biggest hill is on the east, and rises straight up from the sea 375 feet. The face of the cliff is white, for the rock formation is chalk, and, topped with green trees and a big stone castle, makes a fine appearance from the water or from the beach. There is not only this old castle, which is a fort with a regiment of soldiers, but the cliff is mined and tunneled, and big cannon are at the opening in the earth, ready to shoot the stuffing out of any hostile fleet or army which comes this way. The only time the castle was ever captured was when Cromwell worked some strategem and got it away from the Royalists. After looking it all over I don’t see how any army could possibly capture Dover castle so long as the defenders stayed awake.
The Romans first built a fort here, and the remains of the old Roman walls are still a small part of the present fortifications. The Saxons built some, then the Normans, and after that various generations of English,—so that the castle contains specimens of a lot of different styles of architecture. On the whole it is one of the most imposing castles in Europe, both by location and by construction.
This castle business is peculiar. Sometimes a little runt of a building with a tower and a high fence is famous in history and story because of a great fight, or a brilliant robber who lived there. To the tourist it is a disappointment. I suppose every one gets his idea of what a castle looks like from the reading done in his youth. When I was a boy I thought a castle must be a good deal like the court-house at Cottonwood Falls, which is 80 feet high, with a mansard roof and a jail with barred windows in the rear. Then I got a larger idea, something like the Reformatory at Hutchinson. And when I came to personally see these ancient castles I have frequently had to back up to my early theories. Now I am an expert in castles, and can talk of them without admitting to myself it is all guess-work. When we started up the Rhine from Bonn I occupied an unquestioned place as an authority, for I had been in the great castle country before. But this time my trip was reversed. To an admiring company ofboat acquaintances I pointed out in the distance a magnificent castle we were approaching. I started to tell the legend of the castle, when it became apparent that the structure was a cement plant. Then I was more careful, but soon located another, a really splendid castle standing off a little from the river. I would have gotten through all right if some smart aleck had not butted in with the uncalled for information that the building was a brewery. But that is what a real castle looks like, the Hutchinson Reformatory, a cement plant, or a brewery, whichever comparison comes easiest for you to understand.
Dover was one of the “Cinque Ports.” Five little towns along the coast of the channel had a sort of organization which was given recognition by the government under the early Norman kings. The towns were granted privileges and relieved from burdens of taxation in consideration of furnishing ships in time of war. The principal work of a navy at that time was to capture merchant vessels, slug the crews and keep the cargoes; so the towns prospered under the arrangement. Ithas been only a couple of hundred years since there was a standing army or a royal navy. When the king declared war he issued a call and the lords and knights responded with their men, and the army was formed for the campaign. If any of the nobles got sore on the king, they took their troops and went home. A navy was raised in the same way, only by the towns along the coast instead of by individuals. Such an army and navy was not satisfactory, but the English parliament refused to furnish money for a standing army until after the days of good Queen Anne, about 200 years ago. Now the English army is not near as large as the armies on the continent, but the English navy is kept twice the size of any other navy in the world. Germany is the country that England suspects as a possible enemy. Germany and France are crossways right now over which shall get the most of Morocco, and England is bound to stand by France in case of trouble. Morocco isn’t worth anything to anybody, but it may cause a terrible war between the most highly civilized nations of Europe. And yet some people are opposed to arbitration because of “national honor.” The opponents of arbitration ought to come over to these poor countries laboring under the weight of big armies and navies, and see how people are suffering because of the foolish feudal notion that the way to decide which is right is to fight it out.
We ate our lunch today in a restaurant which proudly boasts that its steps were the place where David Copperfield rested during his search for his aunt, Betsey Trotwood. Little Dorrit lived at Dover, and the men and women of Dickens land often visited or made their homes in this quaint old seaport or in its vicinity. Shut your eyes to the big cliff and its imposing fortress, forget the harbor with its ships and men of war, quit observing the narrow streets and crooked lanes which run up and down the side of the hill, and live with the people that Dickens made so real that to most of us they surely existed. That is Dover, a different Dover from the red-coated, fish-smelling, quaintly architectured place in which people are buying and selling, and a Dover which will live as long as the English language is read.