The Earliest Passengers

I. THE EARLIEST PASSENGERS. 

When mankind began to spread themselves over the face of the earth, crossuig the seas from one land to another, they would naturally select crossing places where the sea was the narrowest ; therefore, it may be assumed that the first passengers who came from the Continent into Britain navigated the Straits of Dover. Twyne, and other old writers, dispose of the qucsti(jn of navigation by saying that " long since there was an isthmus, or bridge of land, by which there was a passage on foot between France and us, although the sea hath long since fretted the same in sunder." But, although geologists accept the theory of the isthmus, they are of opinion that the land passage was " fretted asunder " before the human race arrived upon the scene. We must conclude, therefore, that those adventurous emigrants who originally colonized this island were the first passengers of the Dover Passage. 

There has been speculation as to who those emigrants were. Lambard, " discarding dreams and fables," says it has been " collected out of Herodotus, Berosus and other most grave and ancient authors that one Samothes, the sixth son of Japhet, about 250 years after the general inundation of the world, did take upon hun the dominion of these countries now known as France and Britain, and that England was called after him by the name of Samothaj for the space of 300 years, after which it was called Albion.'' According to that theory, the landing of Saniothes must have been 2,043 years before the landnig of JuHus Caisar, and the Dover Passage, on that reckoning, may now claim an antiquity of four thousand years. 

The Passage from Dover to the little P'rench port of Wissant was well known before the Roman Invasion. Caesar's Commentaries state that, " Csesar determined to proceed into Britain because he was told that in almost all the Gallic wars succour had been supplied from thence to our enemies." The war between the Romans and the Gauls had been in progress 300 years before the Roman Invasion of Britain, so that for more than three centuries before the Christian Era the Passage had been regularly used by the islanders. Ancient writers say that the intercommunication across the Straits of Dover was for the purposes of trade, religious culture obtained from the Druids of this island, and for securing the aid of skilful warriors to assist in repelling the advances of the Romans on the Continent. Between Gaul and Britain there was even then an " entente cordiale," cau.sing a constant neighl)ourly intercourse across this narrow sea ; while travellers from much greater distances occasionally crossed to buy the precious metals which Britain yielded. For such traftic the Passage was used long before the Roman Invasion, and when the Romans were settled here the traffic, probably, was greater. 

From the crossing of the Romans down to the days of the Saxon Heptarchy it would be vain to seek details as to the Passage business, for the records of that dark period are very scanty. The Britons who navigated the Passage appear to have been able to find their way across without fixed lights on the coast ; but the Romans, not so well acfjuainted with the tides and currents, built two lighthouses at Dover — the one still remains on the Castle hill, and the foundations of the other underlie the Western Heights, constituting interesting memorials of the early days of the Dover Passage. 

In the Saxon times the Passage across the Straits of Dover was a regularly established route secured to the Dover mariners by Royal Decrees and patronised by Kings. This Passage as it was used by the authority of the last of the Saxon Kings is sijecially mentioned in the Domesday Book. Referring to Dover, it says: "The burgesses gave the King twenty ships once a year for fifteen days, and in every ship twenty men." Those were the ships built by Dover men, and used on the Passage; and the mariners who manned them gained their experience in seamanship in working the Passage. The entry continues: " This they did in return for his having endowed them with sac and soc," i.e., free courts and free local government; hence, it appears that it was from the services to the King rendered by the Dover mariners of this Passage that Dover secured its Municipal privileges. 

Further details of the regulations as to the charges for carrying King's Messengers across are also given; thus " when the King's Messenger came there he gave for the passage of a horse three pence in winter and two pence in summer, but the burgess found the pilot and one other to assist him ; and if the Messenger wanted more it was hired at his own cost." It is difficult to form an accurate estimate of how much the three pence charged for carrying a King's horseman across the Straits would represent in our present money, but it seemed then to be a valuable consideration.