The route now bears right and soon reaches a high and desolate plateau littered with the debris of many years quarrying. The only saving grace in the scenery is the magnificent rearward view along the vast and slightly curving Chesil Bank which stretches away to Abbotsbury and the highlands of the beautiful West Dorset coast. The prison is still farther ahead to the left. There would be fewer visitors to Portland were it not for a morbid desire to see the convicts. Parties are often made up to arrive in time to watch the men as they leave the quarries in the late afternoon. Soldiers and warders mount guard along the walls and the depressing sight should be shunned as much for one's own sake as for that of the prisoners. Good taste, however, is a virtue that usually has to give way before curiosity.
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.
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.
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.