No one who visits Salisbury will forget Stonehenge, the most remarkable
relic of prehistoric man to be found in Britain. Nearly everyone is
familiar with pictures of this solitary circle of stones standing on an
eminence of Salisbury Plain, but one who has not stood in the shadow of
these gigantic monoliths can have no idea of their rugged grandeur.
Their mystery is deeper than that of Egypt's sphynx, for we know
something of early Egyptian history, but the very memory of the men who
reared the stones on Salisbury Plain is forgotten. Who they were, why
they built this strange temple, or how they brought for long distances
these massive rocks that would tax modern resources to transport, we
have scarcely a hint. The stones stand in two concentric circles, those
of the inner ring being about half the height of the outer ones. Some of
the stones are more than twenty feet high and extend several feet into
the ground. There are certain signs which seem to indicate that
Stonehenge was the temple of some early sun-worshiping race, and Sir
Norman Lockyer, who has made a special study of the subject, places the
date of construction about 1680 B.C. No similar stone is found in the
vicinity; hence it is proof positive that the builders of Stonehenge
must have transported the enormous monoliths for many miles. The place
lies about eight miles north of Salisbury. We went over a rather lonely
and uninteresting road by the way of Amesbury, which is two miles from
Stonehenge. We returned by a more picturesque route, following the River
Avon to Salisbury and passing through Millston, a quaint little village
where Joseph Addison was born in 1672.
A few miles south of Salisbury we entered New Forest, an ancient royal
hunting domain covering nearly three hundred square miles and containing
much of the most pleasing woodland scenery in England. This is extremely
diversified but always beautiful. Glades and reaches of gentle park and
meadow and open, heathlike stretches contrast wonderfully with the dark
masses of huge oaks and beeches, under some of which daylight never
penetrates. We stopped for the night at Lyndhurst, directly in the
center of the forest and sometimes called the capital of New Forest. It
looks strangely new for an English town, and the large church, built of
red brick and white stone, shows its recent origin. In this church is
a remarkable altar fresco which was executed by the late Lord Leighton.
The fine roads and splendid scenery might occupy at least a day if time
permitted; but if, like us, one must hasten onward, a run over the main
roads of New Forest will give opportunity to see much of its sylvan
beauty.
[Illustration: A GLADE IN NEW FOREST.]
Our route next day through the narrow byways of Dorsetshire was a
meandering one. From Lyndhurst we passed through Christchurch, Blandford
and Dorchester and came for the night to Yeovil. We passed through no
place of especial note, but no day of our tour afforded us a better idea
of the more retired rural sections of England. By the roadside
everywhere were the thatched roof cottages with their flower gardens,
and here and there was an ancient village which to all appearances might
have been standing quite the same when the Conqueror landed in Britain.
Oftentimes the byways were wide enough for only one vehicle, but were
slightly broadened in places to afford opportunity for passing. Many of
the crossings lacked the familiar sign-boards, and the winding byways,
with nothing but the map for a guide, were often confusing, and sharp
turns between high hedges made careful driving necessary. At times we
passed between avenues of tall trees and again unexpectedly dropped into
some quiet village nestling in the Dorset hills. One of the quaintest of
these, not even mentioned in Baedeker, is Cerne Abbas, a straggling
village through which the road twisted along--a little old-world
community, seemingly severed from modern conditions by centuries. It
rather lacked the cozy picturesqueness of many English villages. It
seemed to us that it wanted much of the bloom and shrubbery. Everywhere
were the gray stone houses with thatched roofs, sagging walls and odd
little windows with square or diamond-shaped panes set in iron
casements. Nowhere was there a structure that had the slightest taint of
newness. The place is quite unique. I do not recall another village that
impressed us in just the same way. Our car seemed strangely out of place
as it cautiously followed the crooked main street of the town, and the
attention bestowed on it by the smaller natives indicated that a motor
was not a common sight in Cerne Abbas. Indeed, we should have missed it
ourselves had we not wandered from the main road into a narrow lane that
led to the village. While we much enjoyed our day in the Dorset byways,
our progress had necessarily been slow.
In Yeovil, we found an old English town apparently without any important
history, but a prosperous center for a rich farming country. The place
is neat and clean and has a beautifully kept public park--a feature of
which the average English town appears more appreciative than the small
American city.
From Yeovil to Torquay, through Exeter, with a stop at the latter place,
was an unusually good day's run. The road was more hilly than any we had
passed over heretofore, not a few of the grades being styled
"dangerous," and we had been warned by an English friend that we should
find difficult roads and steep hills in Devon and Cornwall. However, to
one who had driven over some of our worst American roads, even the "bad"
roads of England looked good, and the "dangerous" hills, with their
smooth surface and generally uniform grade, were easy for our
moderate-powered motor.
Exeter enjoys the distinction of having continuously been the site of a
town or city for a longer period than is recorded of any other place in
England. During the Roman occupation it was known as a city, and it is
believed that the streets, which are more regular than usual and which
generally cross each other at right angles, were first laid out by the
Romans. It is an important town of about fifty thousand inhabitants,
with thriving trade and manufactures, and modern improvements are in
evidence everywhere.
The cathedral, though not one of the largest or most imposing, is
remarkable for the elaborate carving of the exterior. The west front is
literally covered with life-sized statues set in niches in the wall, but
the figures are all sadly time-worn, many of them having almost
crumbled away. Evidently the Roundheads were considerate of Exeter
Cathedral that such a host of effigies escaped destruction at their
hands; and they were not very well disposed towards Exeter, either, as
it was always a Royalist stronghold. Possibly it was spared because the
Cromwellians found it useful as a place of worship, and in order to
obtain peace and harmony between the two factions of the army the
cathedral was divided into two portions by a high brick wall through the
center, the Independents holding forth on one side and the Presbyterians
on the other.
The road from Exeter to Torquay follows the coast for some distance,
affording many fine views of the ocean. We were now in the "limestone
country," and the roads are exceedingly dusty in dry weather. The dust,
in the form of a fine white powder, covers the trees and vegetation,
giving the country here and there an almost ghostly appearance. No
wonder that in this particular section there is considerable prejudice
against the motor on account of its great propensity to stir up the
dust. So far as we ourselves were concerned, we usually left it behind
us, and it troubled us only when some other car got in ahead of us.
Torquay is England's Palm Beach--a seacoast-resort town where the
temperature rarely falls below forty degrees, thanks to the warm current
of the Gulf Stream; and where the sea breezes keep down the summer
heat, which seldom rises above sixty degrees. It is especially a winter
resort, although the hotels keep open during the year. Most of the town
is finely situated on a high promontory overlooking a beautiful harbor,
studded with islands and detached rocks that half remind one of Capri.
From our hotel window we had a glorious ocean view, made the more
interesting for the time being by a dozen of King Edward's men-of-war,
supposed to be defending Torquay against "the enemy" of a mimic naval
warfare.
On the opposite side of Tor Bay is the quiet little fishing village of
Brixham, the landing-place of Prince William of Orange. We reached here
early on a fine June day when everything was fresh after heavy showers
during the night. The houses rise in terraces up the sharp hillside
fronting the harbor, which was literally a forest of fishing-boat masts.
A rather crude stone statue of William stands on the quay and a brass
foot-print on the shore marks the exact spot where the Dutch prince
first set foot in England, accompanied by an army of thirteen thousand
men. Our car attracted a number of urchins, who crowded around it and,
though we left it unguarded for an hour or more to go out on the
sea-wall and look about the town, not one of the fisher lads ventured to
touch it or to molest anything--an instance of the law-abiding spirit
which we found everywhere in England.
From Brixham, an hour's drive over bad roads brought us to Dartmouth,
whither we had been attracted by the enthusiastic language of an English
writer who asserts that "There is scarcely a more romantic spot in the
whole of England than Dartmouth. Spread out on one of the steep slopes
of the Dart, it overlooks the deep-set river toward the sea. Steep
wooded banks rising out of the water's edge give the winding of the
estuaries a solemn mystery which is wanting in meadows and plough-land.
In the midst of scenery of this character--and it must have been richer
still a few centuries back--the inhabitants of Dartmouth made its
history."
As we approached the town, the road continually grew worse until it was
little better than the average unimproved country highway in America,
and the sharp loose stones everywhere were ruinous on tires. It finally
plunged sharply down to a steamboat ferry, over which we crossed the
Dart and landed directly in the town. There are few towns in England
more charmingly located than old Dartmouth, and a hundred years ago it
was an important seaport, dividing honors about equally with Plymouth.
The road to Dartmouth was unusually trying; the route which we took to
Plymouth was by odds the worst of equal distance we found anywhere. We
began with a precipitous climb out of the town, up a very steep hill
over a mile long, with many sharp turns that made the ascent all the
more difficult. We were speedily lost in a network of unmarked byways
running through a distressingly poor-looking and apparently quite thinly
inhabited country. After a deal of studying the map and the infrequent
sign-boards we brought up in a desolate-looking little village, merely a
row of gray stone, slate-roofed houses on either side of the way, and
devoid of a single touch of the picturesque which so often atones for
the poverty of the English cottages. No plot of shrubbery or
flower-garden broke the gray monotony of the place. We had seen nothing
just like it in England, though some of the Scotch villages which we saw
later, matched it very well.
Here a native gave us the cheerful information that we had come over the
very road we should not have taken; that just ahead of us was a hill
where the infrequent motor cars generally stalled, but he thought that a
good strong car could make it all right. Our car tackled the hill
bravely enough, but slowed to a stop before reaching the summit; but by
unloading everybody except the driver, and with more or less coaxing and
adjusting, it was induced to try it again, with a rush that carried it
through. The grade, though very steep, was not so much of an obstacle
as the deep sand, with which the road was covered. We encountered many
steep hills and passed villages nearly as unprepossessing as the first
one before we came to the main Plymouth-Exeter road, as excellent a
highway as one could wish. It was over this that our route had
originally been outlined, but our spirit of adventure led us into the
digression I have tried to describe. It was trying at the time, but we
saw a phase of England that we otherwise would have missed and have no
regrets for the strenuous day in the Devonshire byways.
Plymouth, with the adjoining towns of Devonport and Stonehouse, is one
of the most important seaports in the Kingdom, the combined population
being about two hundred thousand. The harbor is one of the best and
affords safe anchorage for the largest ocean-going vessels. It is
protected by a stupendous granite breakwater, costing many millions and
affording a delightful promenade on a fine day. Plymouth is the
principal government naval port and its ocean commerce is gaining
rapidly on that of Liverpool. To Americans it appeals chiefly on account
of its connection with the Pilgrim Fathers, who sailed from its harbor
on the Mayflower in 1620. A granite block set in the pier near the
oldest part of the city is supposed to mark the exact spot of
departure of the gallant little ship on the hazardous voyage, whose
momentous outcome was not then dreamed of. I could not help thinking
what a fine opportunity is offered here for some patriotic American
millionaire to erect a suitable memorial to commemorate the sailing of
the little ship, fraught with its wonderful destiny. The half day spent
about the old city was full of interest; but the places which we missed
would make a most discouraging list. It made us feel that one ought to
have two or three years to explore Britain instead of a single summer's
vacation.
[Illustration: ROCKS OFF CORNWALL.