passing through the heart of fair Kent? and where in the whole wide world can a more lovely country be found? As we drove through Harrietsham, a pretty little village with some picturesque timbered houses, we noticed again that the name of the place was painted upon a board and placed on the outside. of one of the cottages.

A pleasant stretch of sunlit country, and we came upon a wooded bit of road: here a tree-clad height to our right, crowned with Scotch firs, reminded us of the North Countrie.' It was as though we had been by some magic suddenly transported to Scotland, a startling change from the welltilled fields and green daisy-dotted meadows that make beautiful this homelike land of Kent. Looking downwards through the red-stemmed trees to our left, a surprise peep was revealed to us; and this is what we saw a grey old castle, set on three islands in the midst of a little lake, as romantic a picture as could be found within the four seas that gird our 'tight little island'--or out of them, for that matter. We involuntarily pulled up, so enchanted were we with the prospect, which charmed us all the more because of its unexpectedness. I know of no other English castle like this, thus picturesquely placed in the centre of a lake; and Kent is about the least likely of any county, one would have thought, to possess such an uncommon sight.

A little farther on we came upon a small roadside inn, and as this had stabling attached we at once decided to bait our horses and rest a while there, and take the fortunate opportunity thus offered

A MIGHTY MOAT.

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to view at our leisure the picturesque and rambling old stronghold. The landlord told us that we could reach the park in which the castle is situated through his garden, so, getting our sketching materials and photographic apparatus out of the phaeton, we started off thither.

Leeds Castle possesses a long history, and has had many owners; it was, moreover, an important fortress in its day, commanding as it did the road to Canterbury and the sea-coast. Placed in the centre of a large and deep sheet of water, built upon three islands, each portion of the stronghold being separately defended, having connection with each other merely by drawbridges, the whole being further protected by advance works, this castle in the precannon age must have been almost impregnable from assault. The grand lake-like moat that surrounds it is formed by damming up the little river Len-or rivulet, rather, should I say. Wandering round this mighty moat, we came to the oldest part of the structure, the hoary old gateway, with its grey bastion walls, the drawbridge being now replaced by a two-arched one of stone. We at once got our sketch-book and paint-box out and made a water-colour drawing of this, which for the benefit of my readers I have had engraved.

During the whole of our journey we had not come upon a more picturesque subject for the brush, and, besides making a pleasing sketch, we exposed two of our photographic plates upon the time-worn edifice. A worthy memorial this of the masterbuilders who raised these glorious structures, massive,

stern, and grand. Stern erst, but beautified now by age, weather-stained, with its mighty walls lichenpainted many tints, crumbling and broken even in places; all the better and more interesting for these brunts and bruises' showing plainly its chequered long life's history. Would the photographic plate could give us the wonderful blended tints that time has painted these old walls! Who knows the hidden possibilities of photography, the future that is before it?

Leeds Castle is both an extensive and a magnificent pile of building. A considerable portion of it was erected in the reign of Henry VIII., but it comprises various other periods, from the stern, warlike Edwardian to that of the present peaceful century— a happy blending of the ancient and modern, neither, fortunately, spoiling the other, the old and the new mingled in a rare harmony. With many alterations and additions, the once famous stronghold has been converted into a palatial residence, romantically pleasant to live in during the sunny summer time, but damp and cold and dreary, one would imagine, in the winter, owing to its low situation and the surrounding water. It seemed to us as though it would keep a whole colliery going to maintain the great rambling pile at all warm in the latter season of the year. As we sat sketching this hoary relic of the feudal past, visions of steel-clad knights and the romantic days of chivalry came up before us. More or less, it is time that gives us the picturesque ideal of a bygone age-the present only affords prosaic facts.