526 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



up the seventy-two stone steps that led into the high old ruined 

 keep, and found one of my companions (who is a military man) 

 discoursing to a little group of tourists, who had made a picnic on 

 the ramparts, about the nature of the fortifications breastworks 

 and bastions, which cover some fifteen or twenty acres under the 

 castle walls. While he was demonstrating how easily this ancient 

 stronghold could be taken by a modern besieger, I speculated on 

 the quiet way in which a few types and a printing press are, at the 

 present moment, far more powerful restrainers of wayward sov- 

 ereigns, and more able protectors of the rights of the people, than 

 the fierce battlements, and standing war dogs, of the old castles of 

 two centuries ago. The imagination is so excited by these strong 

 old castles, now fast crumbling into dust, that we wonder what the 

 people of two hundred years hence will have, to be romantic and 

 picturesque about, as emblems of power in a by-gone age. An old 

 printing-press, or galvanic battery, perhaps ! No even they will 

 be melted up for their value, as old metal. 



We drove from Carisbrook, to the extreme end of the Island 

 saw the Needles, the colored sands, and the white cliffs of Albion, 

 and returned by the south side. What pleased me more than even 

 the sea views, and the bold bays, and snowy cliffs (perhaps from 

 novelty), were the Downs those long reaches of gently sloping sur- 

 face, covered with very short grass as close and fine as the finest 

 lawn. They are so smooth and hard, and the air is so pure and 

 exhilarating, the temperature so bracing and delightful, that one is 

 tempted into walking or even running miles and miles, upon 

 them. Here and there, mingled with the grass, on the breeziest 

 parts of the Downs, 1 saw tufts of heather, in full bloom, only two 

 or three inches high their purple bells embroidering, as with the 

 most delicate pattern, the fragrant turf. Herds of sheep graze upon 

 these Downs, and the flavor of the mutton, as you may suppose, is 

 not despised by those who cannot live upon air, however elastic and 

 exhilarating. 



All over the Island, the roads, sometimes broad but often 

 mere narrow lanes are bordered by high hawthorn hedges so 

 that frequently you drive for a mile or more, without getting a peep 

 beyond these leafy walls of verdure. I could imagine that in May, 



