1936 On the Continent

country—the land’s all mixed up with the rivers, and the rivers with the land.
    Now when you get to I PSWICH , you’re beginning to see town history, and if you love Dickens you will want to spend some time poking about the narrow picturesque streets.
Dickens’ Country
    From Ipswich you
could
sweep on a broad high road to the coast, but if you really want to see the country, go and lose yourself in the small roads that wander east to A LDEBURGH , passing Snape. (They found a very old Viking boat sunk in the mud at Snape.) At Leiston there’s a lovely old priory, and Dunwich is interesting because it isn’t there now. It’s several miles out at sea. Southwold Church is well worth a visit. S OUTHWOLD is one of the places where they keep stocks and pillories in the churchyard. Further along you can get a ferry (yes, it will take cars) to Walberswick, a tiny village inhabited by artists, and then you may keep along the cliff to L OWESTOFT .
    Again you meet Dickens, and “The Scores,” queer little back alleys, are worth seeing; and if you like George Borrow you may want to go to Oulton Broad.
    L OWESTOFT to Great Yarmouth is quickest along the coast road (and if a hot day, and you want a bathe, I should choose it), otherwise make a semi-circle inland around Fritton Decoy and The Yare. The Broads are delightful on a windy, sparkling day, with the white pleasure sails, and the tanned red sails, and the work and laughter.
Yarmouth Bloaters Are Good
    Y ARMOUTH is famous for bloaters. It depends on the season, whether you will find Yarmouth fast asleep or inundated with herrings and Scotch lassies. If it’s the herring season, go along down to the quay, and if there’s room for you among the cinematograph operators you’ll see one of the most picturesquely ghastful industries going on. The Scotch women are, many of them, professional fish-wives (and that amounts to something in the North), and they wear their professional costume; and some of the widest-striped petticoats have got the neatest ankles underneath them, and some of the brightest shawls cover the quickest brains; and if you want back-chat, you’ll get it. They’re darlings!
    Now, if they have delayed you, and you want to speed a bit, there’s a fine stretch: straight as a dyke to Norwich, and as you will have to keep your eye on that extremely fast straight piece of road, it doesn’t matter that it’srather dull either side. N ORWICH has a cathedral. Most of Norwich begins in the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries and works backwards to the twelfth century. There’s so much to see that it’s sensible to get one of the local guide books. The carvings in some of the old churches are great fun.
The Red Poppy Lands
    After Norwich, consult your time. If you can, continue north along any of the smaller ways and over curious barren uplands till you reach Cromer. The red cliffs break down into the sea at each tide. Last time I was there, a gold cornfield flecked with scarlet poppies broke off suddenly, and half of it lay feet below, washing out to sea.
On a Broken Breakwater
    From C ROMER I should advise the coast road. Once past the “seaside” places, it’s pleasant and goes through small green villages, where, towards Cley, white ducks splatter across: and over the marshes on your right, the sea birds sweep and call. It was out on the long breakwater, beyond Cley, I passed the most miserable night of my life. I was walking, and the track-way led along the edge of the sea, shingle and waves on my right, marsh and February flood water on the left. The tide was coming in; I passed a low place where I knew the tide would cross, so there was no going back, but I didn’t worry much, thinking I could get off at the end where the breakwater swept round inland. It didn’t. It left off. And dark night found me sitting miserably at the end of a muddy stone wall, with a mill race of unknown depth and eternal width before me—the tide howling up on my right and the floodwater sobbing and gurgling on my left. The causeway was four feet wide (I found that by crawling and pawing about). It was pitch dark. It rained presently, but that didn’t make me any wetter. And all night long, the sea howled and the flood moaned, and unknown things shrieked at me overhead and sobbed below my feet, which sank slowly, deeper and deeper into mud.
    With the hopeless dawn, the flood water went down, and I saw a ghostly grey figure flopping about over the mud, towards me—he