[Illustration: 0224] [Illustration: 0225] |SIR Walter Scott somewhere speaks of the Isle of Wight as a "beautiful island, which he who once sees never forgets, through whatever part of the wide world his future path may lead him." Whether this description be over-coloured or no, it is certain that there is hardly any spot of English ground so well adapted for a ramble of three or four days. There cannot be a more charming excursion than a cruise round "the Island," as inhabitants of the neighbouring counties fondly call it, when the atmosphere is clear, and light breezes stir the water, without raising it to roughness. The Solent, with its richly varied shores, and its flotilla of white-sailed yachts, is first traversed: then round the Needles we meet the open sea, gazing as we pass by at the quaint, almost grotesque, forms of those pointed chalk pillars, the evident relics of cliffs worn away by the action of the sea. Scratchell's Bay, with its chalk precipices, is passed; and other bays, with their richly coloured, variegated sands, excite new interest and wonder. Then the Chines, or ravines in the cliff, diversify the outline; and so we reach the Undercliffe, that line of coast, whose perfect protection from the winter's cold, with the fresh purity of the sea-breeze, render it almost unique as a residence for the consumptive. Niton at one extremity, and Ventnor and Bonchurch at the other, with the five miles between, offering a succession of views unsurpassed in beauty. "The beautiful places," writes Lord Jeffrey, "are either where the cliffs sink deep into bays and valleys, opening like a theatre to the sun and the sea, or where there has been a terrace of low land formed at their feet, which stretches under the shelter of that enormous wall like a rich garden plot, all roughened over with masses of rock fallen in distant ages, and overshadowed with thickets of myrtle and rose and geranium, which all grow wild here in great luxuriance and profusion." [Illustration: 0226] After leaving Bonchurch, Shanklin Chine, Sandown Bay, terminated on the north by the magnificent chalk headland called Culver Cliff, or the Cliff of the White Dove, terminate the most beautiful part of this little voyage. After rounding one or two more headlands, Ryde comes into sight, and loyal travellers begin to look out for Whipping-ham church tower, and the woods and palace of Osborne; soon after passing which Cowes is reached, and the excursion is over. [Illustration: 9226]