Hampshire has been given the character of having the least interesting
shore of all the southern counties. This is a matter of individual
taste. The surf that beats on the sands from Bournemouth to
Southampton Water washes the very edge of the "Great Wood." Again, the
long pebble wall of the Chesil Bank and the barrier "fleets" of middle
Wessex are a real sanctuary of the wild. This is almost the longest
stretch in England without bathing machine or bungalow. Remote and
little visited also is the exquisite sea country that begins at the
strange little settlement of Bridport Quay and ends in Devonshire. To
the writer's mind there is nothing more lovely in seaward England than
the scenery around Golden Cap, that glorious hill that rises near
little old "Chiddick," and no sea town to equal Lyme, standing at the
gate of Devon and incomparably more interesting and unspoilt than any
Devon coast town.

But the traveller in search of something besides the picturesque will
not be contented until he has explored the wonderful region that
enshrines the most unique of human works in Britain, belonging to
remotely different ages and widely dissimilar in aspect and
purpose--Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge. No one can claim to know
Wessex until some hours of quiet have been spent within the walls of
the ancient capital, and no one can know England until the spirit of
the English countryside, the secluded and primary village of the
byways with its mothering church, rich with the best of the past, has
been studied, known and loved. This is the essential England for which
the yeoman of England, whose memorials will be seen in almost every
Wessex hamlet, have given their lives.

[Illustration: ST. CROSS.]