Certain portions of old Weymouth are very picturesque, with steep streets and comfortable old bow-windowed lodging-houses patronized almost exclusively by the better class of seafarer; merchant captains, pilots and the like.  A few of the lanes at the upper end of the harbour may be termed “slums” by the more fastidious, but it is only to their outward appearance that the word is applicable.  Some of these cottages are of great age and a number have been allowed to fall to ruin.  In Melcombe Regis at the corner of Edmund and Maiden Streets may be seen, still embedded in the wall high above the pavement, a cannon ball shot at the unfortunate town during the Civil War, in which unhappy period much damage was done, the contending parties successively occupying the wretched port to the great discomfort of the burgesses.

Radipole Lake is the name given to the large sheet of water at the back of Melcombe, formed by the mouth of the Wey before it becomes Weymouth Harbour.  The name is actually “Reedy Pool,” so that “lake” is a tautology reminding one of a similar blunder, often made by folks who should know better, in speaking of “Lake” Winder_mere_.  Radipole is spoilt by an ugly railway bridge and some sidings belonging to the joint railways that lie along the eastern bank for some distance.  The water is enlivened by a large colony of swans and also in the summer by boating parties, who prefer the quietude of the pool to the possible discomforts of the bay.  But the bay is the reason for holiday Weymouth, not only for the beauty of its wide sweep and the remarkable colouring of the water, but for the firm sands with occasional patches of shingle that lie between shore and sea from the harbour mouth almost to Redcliff Point.

The chief excursion from Weymouth is to Portland, and of course every one must take it, but there are other and finer ways out of the town, most of which show the “island” at its best—­as an imposing mass of rock in the middle distance.

[Illustration:  PORTLAND.]

A ferry plies between the steamer quay, just beyond Alexandra Gardens and the Nothe, the headland extremity of the peninsula upon which old Weymouth is built.  This is one of the best points from which to view the bay.  Portland is also well seen “lying on the sea like a great crouching anumal” (Hardy).  The commanding parts of the Nothe are heavily fortified and the permanent barracks are always occupied by a strong force.  On the south are Portland Roads, usually interesting for the number of warships congregated there.  There are exceedingly powerful defences at the ends of the breakwaters and the openings can be protected from under-water attack by enormous booms.  The first wall took twenty-three years to build by convict labour and it explains the origin of the prison at Portland, which was not established as some think, because of the difficulty of escape, but solely for the convenience of “free labour.”  It is said that the amount of stone used in the oldest of the breakwaters was five million tons.