and Arrow Castle, constructed by William Rufus on a cliff
overhanging the sea, and also a modern building known as Pennsylvania
Castle, built by William Penn's grandson in a sheltered nook. The views
here are of great beauty, while at the southern end of the promontory is
the castellated mass of rocks projecting far into the sea, and
supporting two lighthouses, known as the Portland Bill. Below is the
dangerous surf called the Race of Portland, where the tide flows with
unusual swiftness, and in the bordering cliffs are many romantic caves
where the restless waves make a constant plashing.

THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.

[Illustration: CORBIERE LIGHTHOUSE, JERSEY.]

From the harbor of Portland we will make a steamer-excursion almost
across the English Channel, going about one hundred and fifteen miles to
the Channel Islands, off the north-western coast of France and within a
few miles of the shores of Normandy and Brittany. They are Jersey,
Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark, standing in a picturesque situation, with
a mild climate and fertile soil, and devoted mainly to dairying and to
fishing. These islands were known to the Romans, and their strategic
position is so valuable that England, while getting but $100,000 revenue
from them, has expended two or three millions annually in maintaining
their fortifications. It was upon the dangerous cluster of rocks west of
Alderney, and known as the Caskets, that Henry I.'s only son, Prince
William, perished in the twelfth century, and here the man-of-war
Victory was lost with eleven hundred men in 1744. Jersey is the most
remarkable of these islands for its castles and forts, and has seen many
fierce attacks. Both Henry VII. and Charles II. when in exile found
refuge in Jersey. In approaching this island the fantastic outline of
the Corbiere Promontory on the western side is striking. When first seen
through the morning haze it resembles a huge elephant supporting an
embattled tower, but the apparition vanishes on closer approach. A
lighthouse crowns the rock, and the bay of St. Aubin spreads a grand
crescent of smiling shores, in the centre of which is Elizabeth Castle,
standing on a lofty insulated rock whose jagged pinnacles are reared in
grotesque array around the battlements. Within the bay is a safe harbor,
with the villages of St. Helier and St. Aubin on the shores. Here is the
hermitage once occupied by Jersey's patron saint Elericus, and an abbey
dedicated to him anciently occu