36 BY MEADOW AND STREAM. 



Sandown and Brading a place which no visitor to the 

 island should leave without seeing. It has now been 

 very extensively developed. Curious mosaic pavements 

 of singular mythological designs, black potteiy, old 

 bones, a human skull, iron nails, fragments of glass, a 

 remarkable lock, etc. No less than thirty -six chambers 

 have already been opened up. 



Another day we drove to Alum Bay and walked 

 over the downs to the Needles. A pleasant drive it 

 was, for it was just the time when furze and broom 

 were in fullest bloom. Roadsides were lined with 

 gold, and the patches of golden masses on the hillsides 

 were a pleasant relief to the otherwise brown of the 

 downs, burnt up by the long drought. I never saw 

 furze in such absolute perfection. We passed a small 

 tablet on the edge of the cliff which marked the spot 

 where a hapless wayfarer a year ago had lost his way 

 in the fog and fallen over into the sea. Now a 

 broad chalk path has been cut across the hillside, 

 which can scarcely be missed in the darkest night. 

 It was curious to notice a score of long-horned sheep 

 standing on the highest peak of the cliff. They seemed 

 to be looking out to sea, and longing to get down to 

 the water, as if that would quench the thirst from 

 which they must have been suffering, for certainly no 

 lush herbage was to be found on that bare and burnt- 

 up hill. 



A cuckoo was sitting on a rail not far from our 

 path, and playing such curious pranks, singing and 

 flitting about the bushes, that I thought she must be 

 nesting somewhere thereabouts. She flew away at 

 our approach, but there she was again on the same 



