Part 32

Proceeding westward along the coast of the jutting peninsula formed by South Wales, another grand bay indents the shore, and on the bold banks of the Towy is Caermarthen, which gives the bay its name. Here there was a Roman station, on the site of which the castle was built, but by whom is not accurately known. The Parliamentarians captured and dismantled it, and it has since fallen into almost complete decay, though part was occupied as a jail till the last century. In Caermarthen Church, Richard Steele the essayist is buried, while from the parade is a beautiful view up the Vale of Towy towards Merlin's Hill and Abergwili, which was the home of that renowned sage. Around the sweeping shores of Caermarthen Bay, about fifteen miles to the westward, is Tenby Castle, the town, now a watering-place, being singularly situated on the eastern and southern sides of a narrow rocky peninsula entirely surrounded by the sea, excepting to the northward. This was the Welsh "Precipice of Fishes," and its castle was strongly fortified. It stood a five days' siege from Cromwell, and its shattered ruins, with the keep on the summit of the hill, show a strong fortress. From the top there is a magnificent view of the neighboring shores and far across the sea to the lofty coasts of Devonshire. Manorbeer Castle, belonging to Lord Milford, is near Tenby, and is considered the best structure of its class in Wales. It is the carefully-preserved home of an old Norman baron, with its church, mill, dove-house, pond, park, and grove, and "the houses of his vassals at such distance as to be within call." The buildings have stone roofs, most of which are perfect, and it has been tenantless, yet carefully preserved, since the Middle Ages. Parts of it have stood for six centuries. In the upper portion of the Vale of Towy is the Golden Grove, a seat of the Earl of Cawdor, a modern Elizabethan structure. Here lived Jeremy Taylor, having taken refuge there in the Civil War, and he here wrote some of his greatest works.

Beyond Caermarthenshire is Pembrokeshire, forming the western extremity of the Welsh peninsula. The river Cleddan, flowing south-westward, broadens at its mouth into the estuary known as Milford Haven. It receives a western branch, on the side of which is the county-town, Haverfordwest, placed on a hill where the De Clares founded a castle, of which little now remains but the keep, used (as so many of them now are) as the county-jail. Cromwell demolished this castle after it fell into his hands. The great promontory of St. David's Head juts out into the sea sixteen miles to the westward. The Cleddan flows down between the towns of Pembroke and Milford. The ruins of Pembroke Castle upon a high rock disclose an enormous circular keep, seventy-five feet high and one hundred and sixty-three feet in circumference. It was begun in the eleventh century, and was the birthplace of Henry VII. in 1456. Here Cromwell was repulsed in 1648, but the fortress was secured for the Parliament after six weeks' siege. The garrison were reduced to great straits, but were only subdued by the skilful use of artillery in battering down the stairway leading to the well where they got their water: the spring that supplied them is still there. Pembroke has extensive trade, and its shipbuilding dockyard covers eighty acres. Opposite this dockyard is Milford, the harbor being a mile and a half wide. The railway from London runs down to the pier, and passengers are transferred to steamers for Ireland, this being the terminus of the Great Western Railway route, two hundred and eighty-five miles from the metropolis. Milford Haven, at which we close this descriptive journey, stretches for ten miles inland from the sea, varying from one to two miles in breadth, affords ample anchorage, and is strongly fortified. The ancient Pictou Castle guards the junction of the two branches of the Cleddan above Milford, while Carew Castle stands on a creek entering Milford Haven on the south-eastern shore, and is an august though ruined relic of the baronial splendors of the Middle Ages. It well represents the condition of most of the seacoast castles in this part of Wales, of one of which Dyer has written.

"His sides are clothed with waving wood, And ancient towers crown his brow. That cast an awful look below; Whose rugged sides the ivy creeps, And with her arms from falling keeps. 'Tis now the raven's bleak abode; 'Tis now th' apartment of the toad; And there the fox securely feeds. And there the poisonous adder breeds, Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds; While ever and anon there fall Huge heaps of hoary, mouldered wall. Yet time has seen, that lifts the low And level lays the lofty brow,-- Has seen this broken pile complete, Big with the vanity of state;-- But transient is the smile of fate."

VII.

LONDON, SOUTH-WEST TO LAND'S END.

Virginia Water--Sunninghill--Ascot--Wokingham--Bearwood--The London _Times_--White Horse Hill--Box Tunnel--Salisbury--Salisbury Plain--Old Sarum--Stonehenge--Amesbury--Wilton House--The Earls of Pembroke--Carpet-making--Bath--William Beckford--Fonthill--Bristol--William Canynge--Chatterton--Clifton--Brandon Hill--Wells--The Mendips--Jocelyn--Beckington--Ralph of Shrewsbury--Thomas Ken--The Cheddar Cliffs--The Wookey Hole--The Black Down--The Isle of Avelon-Glastonbury--Weary-all Hill--Sedgemoor--The Isle of Athelney--Bridgewater--Oldmixon--Monmouth's Rebellion--Weston Zoyland--King Alfred--Sherborne--Sir Walter Raleigh--The Coast of Dorset--Poole--Wareham--Isle of Purbeck--Corfe Castle--The Foreland--Swanage--St. Aldhelm's Head--Weymouth--Portland Isle and Bill--The Channel Islands--Jersey--Corbière Promontory--Mount Orgueil--Alderney--Guernsey--Castle Cornet--The Southern Coast of Devon--Abbotsbury--Lyme Regis--Axminster--Sidmouth--Exmouth--Exeter--William, Prince of Orange--Exeter Cathedral--Bishop Trelawney--Dawlish--Teignmouth--Hope's Nose--Babbicombe Bay--Anstis Cove--Torbay--Torquay--Brixham--Dartmoor--The River Dart--Totnes--Berry Pomeroy Castle--Dartmouth--The River Plym--The Dewerstone--Plympton Priory--Sir Joshua Reynolds--Catwater Haven--Plymouth--Stonehouse--Devonport--Eddystone Lighthouse--Tavistock Abbey--Buckland Abbey--Lydford Castle--The Northern Coast of Devon--Exmoor--Minehead--Dunster--Dunkery Beacon--Porlock Bay--The River Lyn--Oare--Lorna Doone--Jan Ridd--Lynton--Lynmouth--Castle Rock--The Devil's Cheese-Ring--Combe Martin--Ilfracombe--Morte Point--Morthoe--Barnstaple--Bideford--Clovelly--Lundy Island--Cornwall--Tintagel--Launceston--Liskeard--Fowey--Lizard Peninsula--Falmouth--Pendennis Castle--Helston--Mullyon Cove--Smuggling--Kynance Cove--The Post-Office--Old Lizard Head--Polpeor--St. Michael's Mount--Penzance--Pilchard Fishery--Penwith--Land's End.

ASCOT AND BEARWOOD.

Leaving London by the South-western Railway, and skirting along the edge of Windsor Park, we pass Virginia Water, the largest artificial lake in England. Upon its bosom float miniature frigates, and its banks are bordered by a Chinese fishing temple, and a colonnade which was brought from the African coast near Tunis. Here also are a hermitage overlooking the lake, and the triangular turreted building known as the Belvedere, where a battery of guns is kept that was used in the wars of the last century. Not far beyond is Sunninghill, near which was Pope's early home, and in the garden of the vicarage are three trees planted by Burke, Chesterfield, and Bolingbroke. Farther westward is the famous Ascot race-course on Ascot Heath, where the races are run in June upon a circular course of about two miles, the neighborhood containing many handsome villas. Still journeying westward, the route passes Wokingham, where Gay, Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot were on one occasion detained at the Rose Inn in wet weather, and whiled away the time by composing the song of "Molly Mog."

Just beyond Wokingham is the fine estate of Bearwood, the seat of John Walter, Esq., the proprietor of the London _Times_, one of the stately rural homes of England. Here, in a large and beautiful park which retains much of its original forest character, and standing upon the terraced bank of a lovely lake, Bearwood House has within a few years been entirely rebuilt, its feature being the central picture-gallery containing a fine collection of paintings, around which clusters a suite of grand apartments. The estate includes several thousand acres, and in the many pleasant cottages scattered over it and the homes at Bearwood village many of the aged and infirm employés of the _Times_ pass their declining years. The _Times_, which was founded January 1, 1788, by the grandfather of the present proprietor, has steadily grown in commanding influence until it occupies the front rank in English journalism and is the leading newspaper of the kingdom. Its proprietor has recently entirely rebuilt its publication-offices in Printing-House Square and on Queen Victoria Street in London, adapting all the modern appliances of improved machinery and methods to its publication. It is at Bearwood, however, that his philanthropic ideas also find a broad field of usefulness in caring for those who have grown gray in the service of the _Times_, and thither every year go the entire corps of employés to enjoy an annual picnic under the spreading foliage of the park, while no home in England is more frequented by Americans or extends to kin from across sea a more generous hospitality.

KING ALFRED'S WHITE HORSE.

In the chalk hills of Berkshire, beyond Reading and north of Hungerford, there rises an eminence over nine hundred feet high, known as the White Horse Hill. It is a famous place; upon the summit, covering a dozen acres, and from which eleven counties can be seen, there is a magnificent Roman camp, with gates, ditch, and mound as complete as when the legions left it. To the westward of the hill, and under its shadow, was the battlefield of Ashdown, where Alfred defeated the Danes and broke their power in 871. He fought eight other battles against the Danes that year, but they were mere skirmishes compared with the decisive victory of Ashdown, and in memory of it he ordered his army to carve the White Horse on the hillside as the emblem of the standard of Hengist. It is cut out of the turf, and can be seen to a great distance, being three hundred and seventy-four feet long. After a spell of bad weather it gets out of condition, and can only be restored to proper form by being scoured, this ceremony bringing a large concourse of people from all the neighboring villages. The festival was held in 1857, and the old White Horse was then brought back into proper form with much pomp and great rejoicing. The ancient balladist thus quaintly describes the festivity on these memorable occasions:

"The owld White Harse wants zettin to rights, and the squire hev promised good cheer, Zo we'll gee un a scrape to kip un in zhape, and a'll last for many a year. A was made a lang, lang time ago, wi a good dale o' labor and pains. By King Alferd the Great, when he spwiled their consate and caddled[B] thay wosbirds[C] the Danes. The Bleawin Stwun in days gone by wur King Alferd's bugle harn, And the tharnin tree you med plainly zee as is called King Alferd's tharn. There'll be backsword play, and climmin the powl, and a race for a peg, and a cheese. And us thenks as hisn's a dummell[D] zowl as dwont care for zich spwoorts as theze."

Leaving London by the Great Western Railway, and passing beyond Berkshire, we cross the boundary into Wiltshire, and go through the longest railway-tunnel in England, the noted Box Tunnel, which is a mile and three-quarters in length and cost over $2,500,000 to construct. It goes through a ridge of great-oolite, from which the valuable bath-stone is quarried, and the railway ultimately brings us to the cathedral city that boasts the tallest church-spire in England--Salisbury, the county-town of Wiltshire, standing in the valley formed by the confluence of three rivers, the Avon, Bourne, and Wiley.

[Footnote B: caddled, worried.]

[Footnote C: wosbirds, birds of evil omen.]

[Footnote D: dummell, stupid.]

SALISBURY.

The celebrated cathedral, which in some respects may be considered the earliest in England, is the chief object at Salisbury, and was founded by Bishop Poore in 1220. It was the first great church built in the Early English style, and its spire is among the most imposing Gothic constructions in existence. The city of Salisbury is unique in having nothing Roman, Saxon, or Norman in its origin, and in being even without the remains of a baronial fortress. It is a purely English city, and, though it was surrounded by walls, they were merely boundaries of the dominions of the ecclesiastics. The see of Salisbury in 1215 was removed from Old Sarum to its present location in consequence of the frequent contests between the clergy and the castellans, and soon afterwards the construction of the cathedral began. King Henry III. granted the church a weekly market and an annual fair lasting eight days, and the symmetrical arrangement of the streets is said to have been caused by the original laying out of the city in spaces "seven perches each in length and three in breadth," as the historian tells us. The cathedral close, which is surrounded by a wall, has four gateways, and the best view of the cathedral is from the north-eastern side of the close, but a more distant view--say from a mile away--brings out the proportions of the universally admired spire to much greater advantage. The chief cathedral entrance is by the north porch, which is a fine and lofty structure, lined with a double arcade and having an upper chamber. The nave is beautiful, though it suffers somewhat in warmth of coloring from lacking stained glass, and the cloisters, which are entered from the south-western transept, are admirable, being of later date and exhibiting a more developed style than the remainder of the cathedral. Their graceful windows and long gray arcades contrast splendidly with the greensward of the cloister-garth. They include an octagonal chapter-house, fifty-eight feet in diameter and fifty-two feet high, which has been restored in memory of a recent bishop at a cost of $260,000. The restoration has enriched the house with magnificent sculptures representing Old-Testament history, and the restoration of the cathedral is also progressing. The adjoining episcopal palace is an irregular but picturesque pile of buildings, with a gateway tower that is a prominent feature.

Salisbury has plenty of old houses, like most English towns, and it also has a large square market-place, containing the Gothic Poultry Cross, a most graceful stone structure, and also the council-house of modern erection, in front of which is a statue of Sidney Herbert. Its ancient banquet-hall, built four hundred years ago by John Halle, and having a lofty timber roof and an elaborately-carved oak screen, is now used as the show-room for a shop.

To the northward of Salisbury is that region filled with prehistoric relics known as Salisbury Plain. Here are ancient fortresses, barrows, and sepulchral mounds, earthworks, dykes, and trenches, roadways of the Roman and the Briton, and the great British stronghold, guarding the southern entrance to the plain, which became the Old Sarum of later times. Until within a century this plain was a solitary and almost abandoned region, but now there are good roads crossing it and much of the land is cultivated. It is a great triangular chalk-measure, each side roughly estimated at twenty miles long. The Bourne, Wiley, and Avon flow through it to meet near Salisbury, and all the bolder heights between their valleys are marked by ancient fortifications. Wiltshire is thus said to be divided between chalk and cheese, for the northern district beyond the plain is a great dairy region. Let us journey northward from Salisbury across the plain, and as we enter its southern border there rises up almost at the edge the conical hill of Old Sarum, crowned by intrenchments. When they were made is not known, but in 552 they were a British defence against the Saxons, who captured them after a bitter fight and overran the plain. Five centuries later William the Norman reviewed his army here, and after the first Domesday survey summoned all the landholders of England to the number of sixty thousand, who here swore fealty to him. The Normans strengthened it with a castle, and soon a cathedral also rose at Old Sarum, while a town grew around them. But all have disappeared, though now there can be traced the outlines of streets and houses and the foundations of the old cathedral. When the clergy removed to Salisbury it is said they determined the new site by an arrow shot from the ramparts of Old Sarum, and moving the cathedral soon attracted the people. Old Sarum for some time remained a strong fortress with many houses, but the cathedral was taken down in 1331 and its materials used for building the famous spire at Salisbury. The castle decayed, the town was gradually deserted, and as long ago as the sixteenth century we are told there was not a single house left there. And such it is to this day. Climbing the steep face of the hill, the summit is found fenced by a vast earthen rampart and ditch enclosing twenty-seven acres with an irregular circle, the height from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the rampart being over one hundred feet. A smaller inner rampart as high as the outer one made the central citadel. Nearly all the stone has long ago been carried off to build Salisbury, and weeds and brushwood have overrun the remarkable fortress that has come down to us from such venerable antiquity. Under the English "rotten-borough" system Old Sarum enjoyed the privilege of sending two members to Parliament for three centuries after it ceased to be inhabited. The old tree under which the election was held still exists, and the elder Pitt, who lived near by, was first sent to Parliament as a representative of Old Sarum's vacant mounds.

STONEHENGE.

A few miles' farther journey to the northward over the hills and valleys, and among the sheep that also wander on Salisbury Plain, brings us to that remarkable relic of earlier ages which is probably the greatest curiosity in England--Stonehenge. When the gigantic stones were put there, and what for, no man knows. Many are the unanswered questions asked about them, for the poet says:

"Thou noblest monument of Albion's isle! Whether by Merlin's aid from Scythia's shore To Amber's fatal plain Pendragon bore, Huge frame of giant hands, the mighty pile, To entomb his Britons slain by Hengist's guile: Or Druid priests, sprinkled with human gore, Taught 'mid thy massy maze their mystic lore; Or Danish chiefs, enriched by savage spoil, To Victory's idol vast, an unhewn shrine, Reared the huge heap; or, in thy hallowed round, Repose the kings of Brutus' genuine line; Or here those kings in solemn state were crowned; Studious to trace thy wondrous origin, We muse on many an ancient tale renowned."

Stonehenge is about nine miles north of Salisbury, near the town of Amesbury, where another ancient camp, known as "The Ramparts," crowns a wooded hill, around which the Avon flows, the camp enclosing nearly forty acres. Stonehenge stands in a bleak, bare situation on Salisbury Plain, and in its original perfection, as nearly as can now be judged, consisted of two concentric circles and two ellipses of upright stones, surrounded by a bank and ditch, outside of which is a single upright stone and traces of a hippodrome. The entrance to the cluster of circles was from the north-east, and the avenue to it is still traceable by the banks of earth. The outer circle at Stonehenge originally consisted of thirty upright stones fixed in the ground at intervals of about three and a half feet. On the top of them thirty other stones formed a continuous ring about sixteen feet above the ground. Within this circle, and leaving a space about nine feet wide between, was another circle of thirty or forty unhewn stones about four to seven feet high. Within this, again, was the grandest part of the structure--a great ellipse formed of five triplets of stones or trilithons, each composed of two uprights and one placed crosswise. Within these was the inner ellipse of nineteen obelisks surrounding the altar-stone. Such was Stonehenge originally, but its ruins now appear very differently, and are only a confused pile of huge stones, for the most part such as are found on the neighboring plain and known as sarsens (a siliceous sandstone), though some of the smaller ones may be boulders brought from a distance. The diameter of the enclosure is three hundred and thirty-six feet. On the outer circle sixteen of the uprights and six of the surmounting stones forming the ring remain in their original positions. Two of the inner trilithons, the highest rising twenty-five feet, remain perfect, and there are two single uprights, which lean considerably. The flat slab or altar-stone is lying on the ground. The avenue of approach opens in front of the inner ellipse and in a line with the altar-stone. In the avenue, outside the enclosure, is a block sixteen feet high in a leaning position, and known as the Friar's Heel. The legend tells us that when the great Enemy of the human race was raising Stonehenge he muttered to himself that no one would ever know how it was done. A passing friar, hearing him, exclaimed, "That's more than thee can tell," and then fled. The Enemy flung this great stone after him, but hit only the friar's heel. The investigators of Stonehenge say that when standing on the altar-stone the midsummer sun is seen to rise to the north-east directly over the "Friar's Heel." The traces of the avenue in which it stands are, however, soon found to divide into two smaller avenues, one running south-east and the other north, and the latter is connected beyond with a long enclosure called the Cursus, and marked by banks of earth stretching east and west for about a mile and a half: there is nothing known of its use. The whole country about Stonehenge is dotted with groups of sepulchral barrows, and at the western end of the Cursus is a cluster of them more prominent than the others, and known as the "Seven Burrows." Stonehenge itself inspires with mystery and awe, the blocks being gray with lichens and worn by centuries of storms. Reference to them is found in the earliest chronicles of Britain, and countless legends are told of their origin and history, they usually being traced to mythical hands. In James I.'s reign Stonehenge was said to be a Roman temple, dedicated to Coelus; subsequently, it was attributed to the Danes, the Phoenicians, the Britons, and the Druids by various writers. Sir Richard Hoare, who has studied the mystery most closely, declines all these theories, and says the monument is grand but "voiceless." Horace Walpole shrewdly observes that whoever examines Stonehenge attributes it to that class of antiquity of which he is himself most fond; and thus it remains an insoluble problem to puzzle the investigator and impress the tourist. Michael Drayton plaintively and quaintly confesses that no one has yet solved the mystery: