The road now descends to Easton, a place of remarkably wide streets and a number of well-built churches, not all of the Establishment, however.  The solid old houses, consisting entirely of the local stone, are not uninteresting and are in keeping with the dour and bleak scenery of the island.  The mistake of importing alien red bricks of a most aggressive hue has not been made here.  Those that flame from the hill slope above Portland station only succeed in emphasizing the general bleakness of their surroundings.  At Easton clock tower a street called “Straits” turns left and east and presently a broad road leads downhill to the right to the gates of Pennsylvania Castle, built, it is said, at the suggestion of George III by John Penn, Governor of Portland, and a descendant of the great Penn in whose honour it was named.  A narrow passage by the castle wall brings us to Rufus, or “Bow and Arrow” Castle, to which the third name of “Red King’s Castle” has been given by Hardy in The Well Beloved.  Its picturesque ivy-clad shell is perched on a crag at the head of Church Hope Cove, really “Church Ope” or opening.  In the grounds of Pennsylvania Castle, shown on application, are the ruins of an ancient church, destroyed by a landslip.  The disaster brought to light the foundations of a far older building.  Near the ruins is a gravestone with the following mysterious epitaph: 

  “IN LIFE I WROATH IN STONE;
  NOW LIFE IS GONE, I KNOW
  I SHALL BE RAISED
  BY A STONE AND B
  SUCH A STONE AS GIVETH
  LIVING BREATH AND SAVETH
  THE RIGHTEOUS FROM THE
  SECOND DEATH.”

Gravestones of the twelfth century, thought to be the oldest headstones in England, were brought to light in excavations consequent on the landslip.

The Cove will possibly be considered the only pleasant place in Portland.  It is well wooded, of perfect outline, and with a miniature beach where shingle, rocks and greenery mingle in picturesque confusion and a remarkably crystalline sea laves the milk-white stones and gravel.  Cave Hole, near by, is a fine sight in rough weather.

[Illustration:  BOW AND ARROW CASTLE.]

The road continues to the small hamlet of Southwell and paths lead onward amid rather tame surroundings to the flattened headland known to the world as Portland Bill, but to all Portlanders as the “Beal.”  This headland is crowned by a lighthouse which has replaced two older and discarded buildings.  In wild weather the scene at the Beal is magnificent, in spite of the low altitude of the cliff.  Pulpit Rock is the quite appropriate name given to the curiously shaped block of limestone which stands close to the water.  The “Shambles” lightship, about three miles from the Beal, warns the mariner off the long and dangerous sandbank known by that ominous name on which so many good ships have perished.  Around the bank, in February, 1653, the Dutch and English fleets under van Tromp and Blake, circled and fought for three days until the Hollanders had lost eleven ships of war and thirty merchantmen.