I 894] Stonehenge 151 



" After Savernake we came down into the Avon valley at Pewsey, 

 and followed the river on to Amesbury where we baited, and so later 

 to Stonehenge where we camped about half a mile from the stones 

 under lee of a small plantation. The stones I found in possession when 

 I arrived of American tourists, but even these could do little to injure 

 the fine calm of the place, and they were soon gone, and about midnight 

 I returned and went again in full solitude to the stones and spent an 

 hour there alone, making incantations in the hope of raising some ghost 

 of ancient times, but in vain, and though I repeated the Lord's Prayer 

 backwards, nothing would come. Perhaps it was the fact that in order 

 to do so without a book I had first to repeat each sentence in its natural 

 sequence, and this may have neutralized the spell. Then I lay down 

 under one of the fallen blocks and dozed off for an hour or two, but 

 still nothing. Stonehenge has much in common with primitive Egypt. 



" ic^/i Aug. (Sunday). — Moved eight miles on to Quarly Hill, and 

 camped to the west of it. All this plain must once have been heath 

 with scattered juniper bushes, for every here and there on the poorer 

 land, as here and at Stonehenge, there are heath and juniper patches 

 left. It is the modern sheep grazing that has brought the grass. 



" Called on Major Poore who lives at Middlecote, close by, and dined 

 with him. He is Urquhart's last disciple and still preaches his doc- 

 trines. They have elected him a County Councillor, and he is organiz- 

 ing his district on a system of his own, and teaching the villagers to live 

 according to the Chinese idea of domestic socialism. He is doing 

 good, or at any rate is very happy in the thought that he is doing so. 

 He talked much of Urquhart and his personal charm. We passed to- 

 day close by Wilbury, which is sacred in my recollection on account 

 of Percy and Madeline Wyndham, whose home it was for so many 

 years. 



" 20th Aug. — I am running homewards now, a long day's march, by 

 a grass road to Stockbridge, and thence to Winchester. I was deter- 

 mined to re-visit the scene of my old slave days at Twyford School." 

 This I accomplished, but the account of it in my diary is too long and 

 too personal for insertion here. Another two days, 22nd August, 

 brought me home to Crabbet, making up 345 miles by road in the fifteen 

 days and a half of my pilgrimage. 



Visits to Saighton and Cumloden occupy the rest of my diary of this 

 summer of 1894, but it contains nothing of any political consequence. 

 On 2C)ih September I write : 



" I am preparing for a long departure from England, which may be 

 for years and may be for ever, for I am in the mood for farewells. In 

 public matters there has been the war between Japan and China. My 

 sympathies are with Japan, because her victory will mean a check put 

 to European expansion in that quarter of the globe, and an encourage- 



