We now approach Swanage, a delightful little town, well known and much appreciated by those of the minority who prefer a restful and modest resort to the glitter and crowds of Bournemouth.  That it will never attain the dimensions of its great neighbour to the north is fairly certain.  Swanage is in a comparatively inaccessible position.  Barely eight miles from Bournemouth as the crow flies, it is twenty-four miles by rail and about the same by road.  So that during the five years of war, when the steamer service was suspended, Swanage had no day trippers and the quietness of the town was accentuated, and the camp on the southern slopes of Ballard Down did not interfere to any great extent with this somnolence.  But now the steamers pant across to Swanage pier again and unload the curious crowd who make straight for the Great Globe and Tilly Whim and pause to “rest and admire” as they breast the steep slopes of Durlston.

[Illustration:  OLD SWANAGE.]

The tutelary genius of Swanage is of stone and the two high priests of the idol were Mowlein and Burt.  Some undeserved fun has been poked at the shade of the junior partner, who conceived the enormous open-air kindergarten that has been formed out of the wild cliff at Durlston.  For the writer’s part, while venturing to deplore certain incongruities such as the startling inscription that faces the visitor as he turns to survey the Tilly Whim cavern from the platform of rock outside, a feeling of respect for the wholehearted enthusiasm and industry of the remarkable man who was responsible for these marvels is predominant.  Every guide to Swanage enumerates in exhaustive detail the objects which make the town a sort of “marine store” of stony odds and ends.  The best of these cast-offs is the entrance to the Town Hall, once in Cheapside as the Wren frontage to Mercer’s Hall.  The “gothic” tower at Peveril Point at one time graced the southern approach to London Bridge as a Wellington memorial.  The clock at the Town Hall is said to be from a “scrapped” city church and the gilt vane on the turret of Purbeck House on the other side of the way is from Billingsgate.  Not the least surprising of these relics are the lamp-and-corner-posts bearing the names of familiar London parishes.

When Swanage was Danish Swanic (it was called Swanwick in the early nineteenth century) it witnessed the defeat of its colonizers in a sea fight with Alfred.  The irresponsible partners commemorated this by erecting a stone column surmounted by four cannon balls.  A queer way of perpetuating a pre-conquest naval victory, but possibly the projectiles were less in the way here than at Millbank.  Not far away, attached to the wall of the Moslem Institute, is a coloured geological map of the district, another effort at the higher education of “the man on the beach.”  It is certainly a good idea, and may lead many to a further study of a fascinating science, for nowhere may the practical study of scenery be made to greater advantage than near Swanage.