To return on foot to Portland station or the mainland, the best way is to keep along the edge of the western cliffs for the sake of the grand forward views.  The tall tower in the centre of the island in sight from the higher parts of the roads is Reforne, the chief parish church, built in 1706.  Near the prison is St. Peter’s Church crowned by a dome and built by convict labour.  The fine mosaics in the chancel were worked by a female convict.  As a rule the domestic architecture is as dour as the huge rock upon which the cottages are built, though a few of the older dwellings are picturesque with their heavy stone roofs clothed in gold and green moss, but as the quarries have grown in size and importance most of them have been swept away.  As uncompromising as their island are the Baleares—­the Slingers—­who kept invaders, Roman, Saxon and Dane, for long at a respectful distance with the ammunition that lay close at their feet.  Underground habitations of the British period were found about forty years ago and ancient trackways of prehistoric time were to be seen in those days when the island was merely a great sheep-walk and before gunpowder and chisel obliterated them.  The Romans named the island Vindilis.  Many traces of their occupation have been found, including several sarcophagi.

Insular customs and prejudices among the islanders are various and strange.  Intermarrying until quite lately was the rule, and it must be annoying to eugenists to find that the natives are such a hardy and vigorous race.  The “Kimberlin,” as all foreigners from the mainland are called, is still looked upon with a certain amount of suspicion, and oftener than not advances are met with a surliness that must be understood and so forgiven.  Heredity is stronger in remote and insular districts than in those where the channels of communication are free, but the long story of brave and self-sacrificing endeavour to save life on their inhospitable shores more than counterbalances any lack of manners in this ancient race, which is probably very nearly identical with that of the old men who lived in the rock chambers under Verne.  That stain on the honour of so many dwellers on the coast—­a strange and unaccountable throwback—­the crime of wrecking, has never been charged against the Portlander.

One of the most fearful storms ever recorded on this shore was that of November, 1824, when Weymouth esplanade was practically destroyed, and cutters and fishing boats were tossed into the main streets, one of 95 tons being washed right over the Chesil Bank.  On Portland Beach in November, 1795, several transports, with troops for the West Indies on board, were stranded, and two hundred and thirty-four men drowned.

Dissent is strong in the island as the several squarely plain meeting-houses testify.  The constant repetition of three names on the stones in the burying grounds—­Attwooll, Pearce and Stone—­will bring home to the stranger the insularity of the “Isle of Slingers.”