ivy, forming
within a large area, that was once subdivided into courts, of which
however, there are, at present, scarcely any remains. We found an old
woman as warder, who occupied a room or two in a sort of cottage that had
been made out of the ruins. The part of the edifice which had been the
prison of Charles I. was a total ruin, resembling any ordinary house,
without roof, floors, or chimneys. The aperture of the window through
which he attempted to escape is still visible. It is in the outer wall,
against which the principal apartments had been erected. The whole work
stands on a high irregular ridge of a rocky hill, the keep being much the
most elevated. We ascended to the sort of bastion which its summit forms,
whence the view was charming. The whole vale, which contains Carisbrooke
and Newport, with a multitude of cottages, villas, farm-houses and
orchards, with meads, lawns and shrubberies, lay in full view, and we had
distant glimpses of the water. The setting of this sweet picture, or the
adjacent hills, was as naked and brown as the vale itself was crowded with
objects and verdant. The Isle of Wight, as a whole, did not strike me as
being either particularly fertile or particularly beautiful, while it
contains certain spots that are eminently both. I have sailed entirely
round it more than once, and, judging from the appearance of its coasts,
and from what was visible in this little excursion, I should think that it
had more than a usual amount of waste treeless land. The sea-views are
fine, as a matter of course, and the air is pure and bracing. It is
consequently much frequented in summer. It were better to call it the
"watering-place," than to call it the "garden" of England.

We had come in quest of a house where the family might be left, for a few
days, while I went up to London. But the whole party was anxious to put
their feet in _bona fide_ old England before they crossed the Channel, and
the plan was changed to meet their wishes. We slept that night at Newport,
therefore, and returned in the morning to Cowes, early enough to get on
board a steam-boat for Southampton. This town lies several miles up an
estuary that receives one or two small streams. There are a few dwellings
on the banks of the latter, that are about the size and of the appearance
of the better sort of country-houses on the Hudson, although more
attention appears to have been generally paid to the grounds. There were
two more of Henr