show. It is worth castle, ruin, convict prison,
breakwater, and quarries.

If you would view Portland aright, visit it
by the pale moonlight a day or two after a
heavy gale, when the sea is still running
with all its force upon the Chesil Bank. Go
up to the hill-top, and you will trace a
wizard lizard curve in all its beauty. The
wind is perhaps high, and blows away the
full sound of the sea, but the wide-drawn
line of foam stretching far out along the
distant miles, tell what a deadly force is
fighting in each wave to break the neck of the
good island. There lies the Chesil Bank,
dreamily stretching far away to the north-west,
and forming a natural breakwater from
the west, for Weymouth, and the Roads: lower
down, guarding the splendid Swan-Decoy, of
Abbotsbury, where the abbots used to indulge
in seven thousand head of swans, and where
Lord Ilchester keeps up a goodly number at
this day; still farther down—always kind to
the men on land, but never quite disposed to
join hands with its sister-shore—it melts
away in the dim distance, and we see only
that it is always gently following its own beautiful
curve, still but a little way distant from
the land, but still with the division set
between the shores. If turning southward
the spectator gets out to the Bill, he will not,
except in clear daylight, be able to boast
of having seen Torbay westward, and the
Isle of Wight to the east, but he may do
better. He may fancy himself at the world's
end and think new thoughts. The crags may
talk to him of that by-gone time, when the
Invincible Armada did pass along the Dorset
coast, and the young gentry of England did
incontinently hire ships from all parts at
their own private charges, and therein speed
to their own fleet as volunteers. William
Hatton, a nephew of Sir Christopher Hatton,
then the owner of Corfe Castle, with many
more of the highest rank, became efficient
members of this gallant yacht-club. The old
rocks may ring out the echoes, wakened on a
July day two hundred and seventy years ago,
when, after a dark night and with a heavy sea
running, Howard and Raleigh came to blows
with the Armada, off this very point. Then, a
battle began, which lasted nearly all that
day: they, the English fighting loose and at
large, and avoiding close combat or boarding,
played off their small craft against the galleons
in noble style; keeping separate, and
always in motion, they tacked and played
about the enemy, pouring in their fire; then,
sheering out of range, they would return
before the Spaniard had time to reload, give
him another broadside, and sheer off again.
Sir Henry Wotton, while the work was
a-doing, compared all this in the joy of his
heart, to a merry morris dance upon the
waters.

Danes by descent, with a strong infusion of
Saxon blood, we Portlanders are a stalwart,
muscular race, admirably suited to our
quarry-work, and still keeping a good deal
aloof from our neighbours on the mainland.
Four or five family names, of which Pearce
and Stone are the most common, suffice for
almost the whole of us. There are probably
five hundred Pearces. The old practice of
Gavelkind prevails here still. The Crown
is lord of the manor in chief; but, under the
Crown, there are no fewer than three hundred
and twelve landed proprietors, who lord it
over three thousand acres of titheable Land.
There is no want of boldness among Portlanders.
With fourteen vessels, averaging
seventy tons each, we carried on the "free-trade"
merrily, within the memory of man.
It is commonly reported on the spot, that of
all the owners of those formidable luggers,
not a descendant is now living. In many of
the old houses in the upper villages, may
be seen large holes, which were used as
Smugglers' Caves. But the trade seems to
have died out with the descendants of the
owners of the fourteen vessels.

The wrecking-system, too, is gone. Our
forefathers were mighty men in that
shore-traffic, and used to sing, with a relish, the
local ditty:

"Blow wind, rise say,
Ship shore 'fore day."

Scarcely more than a hundred years ago,
they rifled the Hope of Amsterdam of jewels
and bullion on board, as she lay stranded
a few miles to the north-west of Portland.
For two whole days the shore was an
unbroken scene of barbarity and violence.
When all was over, the owners of the
Hope were poorer by five-and-twenty
thousand pounds. In these days, when a
vessel drives ashore upon the Chesil Bank,
what was done formerly for robbery, is now
done for charity and mercy. When a vessel
has no chance left, a few well-tried men are
always ready, half-stript, with a rope lashed
round the waists, who make their way to
the vessel as soon as she runs aground, or
strike out for any floating goods.

There is a man now living on the spot, who,
when his wife's time was near, and there was
great fear for her life, leaped on a horse, and
galloped along the Chesil Bank (no easy
matter,) to the ferry, then the only way of
communication with the mainland. A high
wind was blowing, and all his efforts failed to
make the boatmen hear. The man thought
of his wife; and, tearing off his clothes, he
swam the strong current of the strait, pulled
the boat back for the horse, dressed, rowed
back again, galloped into Weymouth for the
doctor, and brought him back. This fine
fellow's nickname (the island deals largely in
nicknames) is Ben the Baker. All honour to
gallant Ben, the Deloraine of Portland!

Electioneering was, in former days, another
favourite pastime of the inhabitants, and they
liked it almost as well as wrecking. Men of
all sorts of abilities, and of all sorts of morals