mother. The supreme honour of burial at Westminster, offered by the
Dean and Chapter, was refused by her relatives in compliance with her
own wish. So East Wellow should be a pilgrim's shrine to the rank and
file of that weaponless army whose badge is the Red Cross.

[Illustration: BARGATE, SOUTHAMPTON.]




CHAPTER II

SOUTHAMPTON WATER AND THE NEW FOREST


Bitterne is now a suburb of Southampton on the opposite side of the
Itchen, but it may claim to be the original town from which the Saxon
settlement arose. It is the site of the Roman Clausentium, an
important station between Porchester and Winchester, and when the
Saxons came up the water and landed upon the peninsula between the two
rivers they probably found a populous town on the older site. This
conjecture would account for the name given to the new colony--_Southhame
tune_--ultimately borne by the county-town and the origin of the shire
name. It is as the natural outlet for the trade of Winchester and Wessex,
standing at the head of one of the finest waterways in Europe, that
Southampton became the present thriving and important town.

To-day its commercial prestige, if not on a par with Liverpool, Hull
or Cardiff, is sufficiently great for the town to rank as a county
borough. The magnificent docks are capable of taking the largest