WAY down upon the Southern coast of England is an old town of more than ordinary interest. Everybody is familiar with that great depot for England’s naval and military forces—Portsmouth.

The run down from London is one of delight, that is it would be were it not for the fact that the stolid Briton will not keep pace with the times, and introduce upon his railroads modern carriages, in which a traveler may ride with some degree of comfort. He refuses to abandon the ancient compartment carriage, which is the most abominable arrangement conceivable. The cars, as we would call them, are about half the size of the ordinary American passenger coaches, but instead of being large, roomy and convenient, they are exactly the reverse. They are divided into compartments, each one of which will hold ten persons, five on each side, facing each other.

After booking your place, instead of buying your ticket—although really you do buy a ticket—you take your seat in one of these compartments, in which are nine other persons. Thereupon the guard, about like our brakeman, locks the door, and you are a prisoner until the next station is reached.

There are absolutely no conveniences. You are simply compelled to sit bolt upright, in a close, stuffy room, in company with nine other persons whom you don’t know, and don’t care to know. You can’t walk from one end of the car to the other, because there is no aisle, as in our cars. You can do nothing but sit there and think what reforms you would inaugurate were you only a Board of Directors on one of the roads.

It is possibly a finicky sort of a person who would object to trifles light as air; but there be breaths that are not as light as air, and they are no trifles. You travel second or third class, and there shall be nine sturdy Englishmen smoking short pipes, or villainous cigars, with their breaths ornamented with every variety of very bad liquor that the combined genius of the liquor compounders of all nations can produce. Likewise there are feet innocent of baths. If you happen to have an end seat you may let down the window and get fresh air, but heaven help you if you are in the middle. You inhale the fumes till a state approaching intoxication ensues, but you must sit there all the same, for there is no escape. Such a debauch may be cheap; but I never did like anything second-hand—second-hand intoxication least of all. I vastly prefer original sin. And then imagine the pleasure of traveling in such company as one must necessarily be thrown into by this system. The terrible tragedy on the Brighton road recently, gives a good idea of some of its beauties. A well-to-do merchant living in the country had been to London to make some sales of land, and was spotted by an impecunious wretch, who had previously known him. The merchant, whose name was Gold, left London on the afternoon train, and was alone in one of these compartments, securely locked with the villain, whose name was Lefroy. It seems from the facts of the case, as gathered by the police, that while between two stations Lefroy attacked Gold. There was a violent struggle, during the course of which Lefroy killed Gold, rifled the body and threw it out of the window, as it was found by the road side. When the guard unlocked the compartment at the next station Lefroy invented some flimsy story about some mysterious shooting, to account for the presence of the blood, and actually made his escape. It is comforting to know that afterward Lefroy was caught, tried and hung. England does hang murderers.

How utterly impossible such a tragedy would have been in an American car. But here the victim had absolutely no way of calling for or obtaining assistance. The two were alone, locked in the compartment, and the cries of the wretched man as he realized his danger, were drowned by the noise of the train thundering along at sixty miles an hour.

But to return to Portsmouth. The scenery from London is charming. The train rushes along, after leaving the fog and smoke of London in the rear, through the garden land of England. The fields are all cultivated, the farm houses, ancient and peculiar, have an air of solidity and comfort, and an occasional castle lends variety to the scene and makes the picture perfect.

The towns through which the road passes are, of course, all very old. They abound in red-tiled houses of antique pattern, narrow streets, that at the end of the village lose themselves in beautiful lanes, fringed on either side with long rows of stately trees that shade the close-cut hawthorne hedges. But over all these is an air of age. Everything is finished. Everything is complete. We have visited so many old towns, and inspected so many old buildings, that it would be a positive relief to see a brand new house, painted white, with green shutters, whose gable roof glistens in the sunlight with its new pine shingles. But, alas! that cannot be. Here everything is old and purely English.

Portsmouth was reached after a delightful run of two and a half hours, and soon after we were snugly quartered in the queerest hostelry imaginable, our comfortable room overlooking an arm of the sea, upon which were all manner of craft, from the diminutive dory to the massive merchantman.

Portsmouth is, and always has been, one of England’s strongest points. Situated in a most commanding position it has been an invaluable factor in her matter of defenses. Only five or six miles away, the Isle of Wight runs for miles parallel with the coast, forming a narrow passage through which the vessels for a foreign nation, if they intended to make a hostile landing in that neighborhood, must pass. Spithead, the famous place of entry and departure of vessels, is just off Portsmouth, and is guarded, as is the passage, by two immense stone forts, built at no end of labor and money, directly in the channel, effectually protecting that entrance. And then to make things more secure, there is a series of three forts on the Isle of Wight, while Portsmouth, to speak within bounds, is made up almost entirely of forts.

At first one wonders why England finds it necessary to keep these forts, and the heavy force of soldiers required to garrison them. At Portsmouth is one of the largest, if not the largest, dock yard in the world, upon the safety of which the fate of the nation’s navy depends, and if that point, strong as it is, and affording such excellent opportunities for the protection of the southern coast, were to fall into the hands of an enemy, it would open all England to it. And your English are great Generals. In time of peace they prepare for war, and keep all things in readiness for any emergency, no matter how sudden or how severe.

The harbor is a beautiful one and full of interest. Of course there is the inevitable waterman, with his tarpaulin hat and tight fitting “Jersey,” who beseeches “Y’r hon’r,” to let him row you about. And of course he carries his point.

The very first thing he does, before you can admire the strange species of ships that are on every hand, is to row you directly to Lord Nelson’s flag ship, the “Victory,” on which the gallant sailor died, at the battle of Trafalgar. But one is not sorry at that, for Nelson’s character was one that compelled the admiration of every one who had ever studied him and his glorious achievements. With what a thrill, then, one stands upon the very deck upon which he trod during one the most brilliant sea fights in the annals of history, to go upon the gun decks where he commanded his gallant sailors. With what feeling of sadness one stands on the spot where he stood when the deadly leaden ball of a French sharpshooter gave him his death wound, and with uncovered head bows before the spot where the soul of the greatest, bravest sailor the world ever knew, winged its way amid the smoke and horror of battle to the peaceful haven of the great hereafter.

The anniversary of the battle is celebrated regularly, and the old ship is once each year made radiant with flowers. A beautiful wreath is always placed upon the spot on the deck where the hero fell.

It does not seem possible that the great, clumsy-looking vessels that were used in those days could even be navigated, to say nothing of fighting with them. The “Victory,” which is only one of a half dozen of the same kind now laid up—put on the retired list—in Portsmouth Harbor, is a huge floating castle, and required, when in commission, one thousand men to operate her. She is fifty-eight feet from the main deck to the hold, though she seems, with her four decks above the water line, to be even higher than that. Comparing her with the long, narrow iron-clad of to-day, it requires a considerable stretch of imagination to realize that she had once been really in service, and no slight service, either.

A two hours’ trip around the harbor is one of constantly increasing interest. There are ships and ships. Here are immense men-of-war, full rigged and ready for a cruise, alongside of which is a trim yacht flying the pennant of the Royal Yacht Squadron. Here a huge merchantman, with a cargo from Bombay, perhaps. Beyond, a great white steamer, larger than the transatlantic passenger steamship, that takes England’s soldiers, these same red-coated fellows we see strutting about here with their diminutive caps jauntily perched over their left ear, out to India to help keep the natives quiet and subdued. Right here is the Queen’s private yacht, the “Albert and Mary,” a vessel of large dimensions, and fitted up in the most exquisite manner. This is the ship the Queen takes her little excursions in, and occasionally sends it across the channel to bring over some distinguished personage whom she wishes to honor.

Near this palatial steamer, as though to make the contrast all the greater, is an old man-of-war, built years ago, and found now to be of no use, either for the purpose for which it was originally built, or for the carrying trade. So it lies there a worn-out monument of the past, gradually yielding to the ravages of time.

But the great point of interest in Portsmouth is the dockyards, the finest in the world. A thorough survey of it would take three or four days, but a stroll of four or five hours gives one a fair idea of what it is. Here the mammoth vessels belonging to England’s naval equipment are taken for repairs, and the dry docks, of which no description is sufficient to convey a definite idea of their size and general appearance, are constantly filled with them. These docks are magnificent specimens of masonry, some of them being acres in extent, and built in the most solid, substantial manner. In the great buildings fronting on the water are vessels of all sizes and descriptions, in course of construction, some ready to launch, and others in the first stage of the work.

Just now the workmen are engaged in putting the finishing touches on a great iron-clad turret-ship, of which England is very proud. And well she may be, for the “Inflexible” is really a wonderful vessel, with her two turrets bearing each two guns of eighty tons weight. The turrets, made of heavy iron plates, are made to revolve by machinery, so that the guns may be fired in any direction. The loading and cleaning is all done by ingeniously arranged machinery, worked by hydraulic pressure. In fact, all over the ship steam power is used wherever it is possible, and in some instances where it seems almost impossible. She is built entirely of iron, and seems impregnable. As one gazes upon her monstrous proportions, her terrible facilities for dealing death and destruction, there comes involuntarily the wish that there may never be an occasion when her loud-mouthed and frightfully effective services may be required.

Impregnable as she seems to be, English mechanics are busy inventing guns to pierce her. That is going on all the time. They construct a vessel which will resist any gun they have, and then construct a gun which will pierce the vessel. Where it will end the Lord only knows. In England the irresistible is always meeting the immovable, and vice versa.

In Portsmouth, more than in any place in England, the policy of England is manifest. Portsmouth is one vast fort, and every other man you see on her streets is a soldier. You come upon vast fortifications everywhere, long lines of earth works stretch in every direction on the coast, commanding every approach to the city, and vast stores of ammunition are piled away safe and secure but ready for use at a moment’s notice. Portsmouth is a watch dog for that part of the island, and it would be a daring foe that would attack her. It gives you a very good idea of England’s strength, and of her power of defense. But heaven help the people who have to foot the bills for all this.

After a day spent in the midst of all these places suggestive of war with its terrible sequences, it was a pleasure, in the evening, when the light sea breeze tempered the heat that had been so oppressive, to stroll down to the “Old Fort,” as it is called, though it bears but faint resemblance now, to an effective fortification. Its heavy stone abutments that were once crowned with cannon, are now covered with moss; the cannons have been taken away, and in their stead are rustic seats around which happy children laugh and play, while their nurses sit talking of their red coated favorites in the adjoining barracks. There is just now an air of peace and harmony, of war days done away with, that is only disturbed by the occasional sight of a sentry who paces his beat in front of the barracks. It is

UNDER CLIFF—ISLE OF WIGHT.