out to you the principal places of interest as we proceed. Beginning on the eastern side and at the north you will see marked the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. This town possesses a very curious history. It stands on the very border between England and Scotland, though on the Scottish side of the Tweed. It was, in former days, the scene of many a bloody battle between the English and the Scotch, as both nations considered it a fortress of great importance. By a treaty made between Edward VI. of England and Mary, Queen of Scots, it was made free and independent of both kingdoms. On this account, when any Act of Parliament was passed, which applied to England and Scotland, it was always customary to intimate that the Act applied to Berwick-upon-Tweed. No other town in England possessed this peculiar privilege, because no other town was placed exactly in the same circumstances. This privilege was abolished in 1832, when Berwick was attached to Northumberland.

As we travel southwards, the coast you will observe bends to the east, and until we reach Flamborough Head there are no bays of any consequence, the coast being bleak and unbroken. A little to the south of Berwick you will see an island, called the Holy Island. It is an island only at high water. When it is low water, or, as we say, when the tide is out, a person can reach the island on dry ground. It was called the Holy Island because, in the old Saxon days, there was a famous monastery upon it, from which many preachers went to all parts of England to preach the Gospel to our heathen forefathers.

Sir Walter Scott, in his poem of Marmion, thus describes the island :

:

"Then from the coast they bore away,
And reach'd the Holy Island's bay.
The tide did now its flood-mark gain,

And girdled in the saint's domain ;
For, with flow and ebb, its style
Varies from continent to isle;
Dry-shod, o'er sands, twice every day,
The pilgrims to the shrine find way;
Twice every day the waves efface

Of staves and sandall'd feet the trace.
As to the port the galley flew,
Higher and higher rose to view
The castle with its battled walls,
The ancient monastery's halls,
A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile,
Placed on the margin of the isle.

LESSON III.

Holy Isle to Hull.

AT no great distance south of the Holy Island lies a group of rocky islands, called the Farne Isles, on the most distant of which stands the Longstone Lighthouse, so needful to warn vessels off that dangerous coast. It was here that Grace Darling, the daughter of the lighthouse-keeper, on the morning of the 7th September, 1838, along with her father, succeeded, at the risk of their own lives, in saving nine of the crew of the steamship Forfarshire, which had struck on the rocks during the previous night. Grace Darling was a weak, delicate girl; yet she had a brave and courageous heart, and her conduct on this occasion has given her a name that will live so long as the English language is spoken.

As we pass along, we see, at a considerable distance up the river Tyne, the town of Newcastle, commonly called, to distinguish it from another town of the same name, Newcastle-on-Tyne. The town has a great trade in

coals, so much so that, when we wish to express that it is no great benefit to give a man a thing which he already has, we say, "It is like sending coals to Newcastle." It was while working in connection with coal mines in the neighbourhood of Newcastle that George Stephenson, the poor collier boy, acquired such a knowledge of steam-engines as made him the inventor of the Locomotive and the originator of English railways.

At the mouth of the Tyne, and on opposite sides of its banks, are the towns of North and South Shields, largely engaged in the coal trade. Farther south, at the mouth of the Wear, in the county of Durham, is Sunderland, a busy manufacturing town, and doing, like so many towns on this part of the coast, a large trade in the export of coal. In the same county, shortly before we reach the river Tees, we have the town of Hartlepool, a rising seaport, having a very considerable trade with the Baltic, and the northern coasts of Europe. From the Tees to Flamborough Head the coast is unbroken, and the only towns of consequence in this part of Yorkshire are Whitby, near which was born the celebrated navigator Captain Cook, and Scarborough, famous as a watering place. Flamborough Head is the grandest headland or promontory, on the east coast of England. It obtains its name from the lighthouse which is placed upon it, the lantern of which is 214 feet above the level of the sea, sending its light far out into the troubled waters of the stormy sea that beats upon this shore. Flamborough Head consists of chalk, and on its northern side the sea has hollowed out huge caverns, which are tenanted by countless multitudes of sea fowl which breed there.

If

you look at the map, you will see that the coast line, after passing Flamborough Head, bends away to the southeast until it reaches Spurn Head. Between these two,

there lies Bridlington Bay, the coast of which is being continually washed away by the ravages of the sea. There was a harbour here called Ravenspur, at which Bolingbroke, who had been banished by King Richard II. landed, when he returned from the Continent to claim his lands, of which he thought he had been unjustly deprived. Shakespeare, in his play of "King Richard the Second,"

says:

"The banished Bolingbroke repeals himself,

And with uplifted arms is safe arrived

At Ravenspur."

No trace of Ravenspur now exists. The sea has washed it all away; and Hornsea, which in Shakespeare's age was six miles inland, is now on the coast.

Take a good look at Spurn Head. See how it stretches. away far out into the sea, protecting the northern side of the Humber. The Humber formerly washed away considerable portions of the low land in the neighbourhood of Spurn Head, but of late it has receded so much as to leave large tracts of marsh land. One of these tracts began to appear as an island as early as the reign of Charles I. (1625-1649), and as it increased from year to year, it was embanked and turned into pasture land. This tract of land, though it is now separated from the mainland only by a ditch, is called Sunk Island, and in 1851 contained 310 inhabitants. Whilst the Humber is thus gradually receding from the land, the sea is slowly eating away the promontory, which ends in Spurn Head, and there is reason to fear that ere long it may carry it all away. Two lighthouses have been erected at Spurn Head.

At Spurn Head we reach the mouth of the Humber, which is a firth rather than a river. It is formed by the union of two large rivers-the Trent and the Ouse, regarding which you will learn more afterwards. The dis

tance from the point where the two rivers meet to the sea is about forty miles, and at Spurn Head, the Humber is five miles broad. On the north side of the Humber, and in the angle formed by the Humber and the river Hull, lies the town of Hull-one of the most important seaports in England. It is situated on a level plain about twenty miles from the mouth of the Humber, and is in some places protected by embankments from the inroads of the sea. Hull has a large coasting trade; and for many years there has been extensive intercourse between Hull and the ports in the Baltic Sea.

LESSON IV.

Hull to the Wash.

CROSSING the Humber we reach the county of Lincoln. The Romans called the ancient capital of this district Lindum, where they established a colony. The Roman word for a colony was colonia, and so by combining the two words Lin(dum) and colonia, we get the modern name Lincoln. The coast of Lincoln all round to the Wash is low and marshy. A belt of sand of varying breadth skirts the land; and the forest, which once occupied the fen country, where the trunks of trees are still found under the soil, extended over a considerable space now covered by the sea. A considerable portion of the coast is so low as to require to be protected by a sea-wall or a bank. There is an old or Roman bank, but the present bank is more advanced towards the ocean than the Roman one, and a considerable extent of land is thus gained.

The Wash, which separates Lincoln from Norfolk, is occupied for the most part by sand-banks, which are dry at low water. Between these banks, the streams which flow into the Wash have their channels. So numerous and so treacherous are these sand-banks, that the navigation of