[Illustration:  CHESIL BEACH, PORTLAND.]

This portion of the sea, known as the West Bay, was the largest indentation on the coast, and on that account was doubly dangerous to ships caught or driven there in a storm, especially before the time when steam was applied to them, and when the constant traffic through the Channel between Spain and Spanish Flanders furnished many victims, for in those days the wrecks were innumerable.  Strange fish and other products of the tropical seas had drifted hither across the Atlantic from the West Indies and America, and in the fishing season the fin whale, blue shark, threshers and others had been caught, also the sun fish, boar fish, and the angler or sea-devil.  Rare mosses and lichens, with agates, jaspers, coloured flints and corals, had also been found on the Chesil Bank; but the most marvellous of all finds, and perhaps that of the greatest interest, was the Mermaid, which was found there in June 1757.  It was thirteen feet long, and the upper part of it had some resemblance to the human form, while the lower part was like that of a fish.  The head was partly like that of a man and partly like that of a hog.  Its fins resembled hands, and it had forty-eight large teeth in each jaw, not unlike those in the jaw-bone of a man.  Just fancy one of our Jack-tars diving from the Chesil Bank and finding a mate like that below!  But we were told that diving from that Bank into the sea would mean certain death, as the return flows from the heavy swell of the Atlantic which comes in here, makes it almost impossible for the strongest swimmer to return to the Bank, and that “back-wash” in a storm had accounted for the many shipwrecks that had occurred there in olden times.

From where we stood we could see the Hill and Bill of Portland, in the rear of which was the famous Breakwater, the foundation-stone of which had been laid by the Prince Consort, the husband of Queen Victoria, more than twenty years previously, and although hundreds of prisoners from the great convict settlement at Portland had been employed upon the work ever since, the building of it was not yet completed.

The stone from the famous quarries at Portland, though easily worked, is of a very durable nature, and has been employed in the great public buildings in London for hundreds of years.  Inigo Jones used most of it in the building of the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall, and Sir Christopher Wren in the reconstruction of St. Paul’s Cathedral after the Great Fire, while it had also been used in the building of many churches and bridges.

We had expected to find a path along the cliffs from Bridport Quay to Lyme Regis, but two big rocks, “Thorncombe Beacon” and “Golden Cap,” had evidently prevented one from being made, for though the Golden Cap was only about 600 feet above sea-level it formed the highest elevation on the south coast.  We therefore made the best of our way across the country to the village of Chideoak, and from there descended into Charmouth, crossing the river Char at the entrance to that village or town by a bridge.  On the battlement of this bridge we found a similar inscription to that we had seen at Sturminster, warning us that whoever damaged the bridge would be liable to be “transported for life,” by order of King George the Fourth.”