the east bank of the river for about a mile, and at the foot of a steep hill, on the sides of which are perched the barracks, hospital, military church, and other buildings of Brompton; and that it is along the crest of this hill that the “lines” run (E) dipping to the water on each side; and few who have passed into the lines from the Chatham side, will have forgotten that perilous drawbridge over the deep yawning fosse, and the unpleasant-looking guns pointing out of ominous embrasures, and ready to make a clean sweep of every or anything which might come within their range.
It will also be remembered that, just above the dockyard, the Medway begins writhing about in its course like an eel in convulsions, taking a sudden sweep to N.W., and then an equally sharp one, S.W., and again a third, S., and thus forming the peninsula on which Rochester stands; and some may go on so far as to recollect that the heights occupied by the lines sink very abruptly to the Dover Road, and rise with equal abruptness on the other side, leaving a chasm which is filled by the straggling dirty town of Chatham. A strong fort (Fort Pitt) overhangs this last town, and a chain of works in an unfinished condition stretches thence down to the river, south of Rochester, with the intention of isolating the peninsula on which that city stands.
Chatham lines proper are about a mile and a quarter in length; but a direct line drawn from the northern commencement of these lines to the western termination of those behind Rochester measures quite two miles and a half,—formidable lines one would think—but not, it appears, judged sufficient for the protection of Chatham dockyard in these days, and for the reasons to be mentioned immediately.
No mention has been made, by the way, of certain ancient and decrepit works lying a little further down the river than the dockyard, because they are formally condemned as “obsolete and in a state of decay,” and one of them only, Upnor Castle, possesses any interest, and that historical. It appears there are three directions in which an advance may be made on Chatham. The first from the east, by an enemy advancing from the direction of Dover, along the ridge on the left of our illustration, and on which Gillingham Church stands. On this side the celebrated lines are seen to be open to easy capture by escalade; a discovery which has not improbably been gradually forced on the attention of the authorities by the numerous sham attacks which have taken place here during the last few years. Nature, however, has on this side placed the site of the dockyard out of danger of bombardment, by hiding it behind the heights we have before alluded to. This seems reasonably comprehensible, for though a boy may throw one ball over a high wall—or a hundred for that matter—the chances are strong that not one in fifty hits what it is aimed at. Military engineers in like manner, it appears, never bombard what they cannot see, though it be a dockyard a mile long and a quarter wide, and the distance of which, from the mortar-batteries could be accurately measured on the maps—however, far be it from us civilians to quarrel with military wisdom. A little further on, through the chasm of which we spoke, as the bed of dirty Chatham, a clear view of the dockyard is obtained.
The second attack might be made from the opposite bank of the Medway, and would come from an enemy advancing from the direction of London or the south-coast. On this side the dockyard is completely open, with nothing but the river in front of it.
The third attack would be made by an enemy coming from the northward, who had contrived to land somewhere on the south-coast of the Thames, between the fortifications in Lower Hope and those on the Isle of Grain.
A bold system of defences has been devised for protection against the two first attacks,—it is nothing less than a fresh set of lines altogether,—we are speaking as civilians, and not using the word in its military acceptation.
It is shown in our engraving (FF, &c.), and will be observed to consist of a string of no less than ten new forts, to be connected, as we gather, by other works, beginning near Gillingham Church, a mile outside the Chatham lines, enclosing these as well as those behind Rochester, descending to the Medway half a mile higher up than the present lines, resuming on the opposite bank, and stretching right across the neck of the peninsula, between the Thames and Medway, until they join the works at Shornemead.
For defence against the northern attack, reliance is principally placed upon the natural difficulties of the spot referred to for the necessary landing. One scarcely ever meets with any one who has been there, and our engraving is inevitably on too small a scale to convey any idea of it beyond that it is a tract of very flat marshy country, with plenty of mud between its shore and the navigable channel of the Thames. A more dreary or difficult place for the landing of an army with siege-artillery can be hardly conceived. The engravings of the disastrous attack on the Peiho forts will furnish some notion of the acres upon acres of oozy slimy mud, bare, except for a short period of each tide, and intersected by a few streams and creeks, with contents like pea-soup, which form its natural boundary riverward. The river wall surmounted, a vast extent of perfectly flat marshy country is found intersected by a few dykes and a net-work of drains. Osier-beds and sluices;—here and there a shed for the cattle, which are seen roving about by thousands as on a prairie, are almost the only objects which relieve the monotony, with the exception perhaps of the coast guard station, which looks like a Cayenne for the transportation of refractory coast-guardsmen; or of an occasional farm-house, equally like a place of voluntary exile chosen by a man disgusted with life and strongly bent on justifiable suicide.
When it is added that the whole of this expanse can be laid under water at short notice, it is not surprising to find that a fort—a self-defensible one—perched on a species of hillock at Slough (K), where the land begins to rise out of the marsh, will be sufficient to allay all fears in this quarter. We should add, that it was to this Slough fort we alluded when speaking of the