From Ramsey the visitor may travel seventeen miles south to Douglas, returning thence to Peel, if he like, by railway. At the very beginning, however, a digression should be made to Kirk Maughold and St. Maughold's Head, immediately beyond it. Kirk Maughold, beyond question, is one of the pleasantest villages in Man, and certainly for the archaeologist a shrine of the first importance. Even the little church, in this case, has some touches of mediaevalism (thirteenth-century lancets) that redeem it from the general charge of Manx ecclesiological dulness. The churchyard in which it stands—like that of Adel, in Yorkshire—is quite disproportionately large, containing, it is said, nearly four acres. For the sake of its church alone, however, no one would come to Kirk Maughold: the magnet that attracts one is the collection of crosses in the churchyard, now studiously protected in a picturesque shelter. These, of course, are mostly pre-Conquest—the term, it is true, in strictness has no real application to Man, but at any rate it serves roughly to indicate a style, if not to disclose a period. Man is as distinguished for the number and variety of its old crosses as its far away sister, Cornwall. Not that Cornish and Manx crosses have any close affinity—they belong, no doubt, to wholly different schools of ancient Celtic art. Cornish crosses, in particular, like those in Pembrokeshire and Iona, are generally cut more or less to the cross-shape (though it may be only a wheel cross), whereas those of Man are merely carved in relief on a slab of rectangular slate. "The erect cross-slabs," says the late Mr. J. Romilly Allen, "are, with a few unimportant exceptions, peculiar to Scotland and the Isle of Man. They are probably older than the free-standing crosses, because the erect cross-slabs are not treated architecturally (as the high crosses of Ireland are), but resemble more nearly than anything else ornamented pages from the Celtic illuminated MSS. directly translated to stone with hardly any modification whatever to suit the requirements of the new material to which the decoration was applied." "There is no district," says Mr. P. M. C. Kermode, in his beautiful volume on "Manx Crosses," of so small an area which can boast of so great a number of monuments of this class, extending over such a lengthy period, and having such a variety of interest—Ogam, Latin, and Runic inscriptions, Celtic art with its Scandinavian applications and development, Christian symbols and pagan myths. Altogether, according to this same authority, the island has one hundred and sixteen old crosses, extending over a period of six centuries, forty-five of which may be called Scandinavian and seventy-one pre-Scandinavian. Not one of the seventeen old parishes is wholly without an example, though Ballaugh, Lezayre, and Patrick have only one each. Kirkmichael, however, has ten; whilst Maughold has actually thirty-seven—by far the biggest collection in the island. Kirk Braddon also exhibits some extremely interesting examples. Most of these cross-slabs are commemorative of the dead; and one of the inscriptions at Kirkmichael (as in Black's Guide to the Isle of Man) may fairly be given as typical of the rest:

One of those, however, at Kirk Maughold is not strictly a cross-slab at all, but seems merely to have been carved on a face of rock by the village priest—perhaps in a moment of leisure on some pleasant summer afternoon, just as Wordsworth carved the name of "Joanna"

It comes from Keeil Woirrey, Corna, and bears the touching Runic inscription: "Christ Malachi Patrick and Adamnan (perhaps an invocation of the worthy pastor's patron saints): of all the sheep John is the Priest in Corna Dale."

But these prehistoric cross-slabs, if prehistoric we may call them—and though certainly they are not prehistoric in the strict and proper sense of the word, they are prehistoric in the sense of reaching far back into paths of history that are only dimly lighted, and are difficult to traverse—do not exhaust the archaeological treasures in which Kirk Maughold is so rich. On the strip of village green, as we approach the churchyard, is a picturesque, seventeenth-century sundial on three steps, with the inscription: Eus. (Edwardus) Christian fecit, 1666. Christian, I believe, like Quaile, is still a common Manx surname. Hard at hand is another old cross, but, of course, far later than those in the churchyard. This, in its present state, measures more than 10 feet in height, and its head—perhaps later than the shaft—which is sculptured with a ring and cross, a chalice and missal, and the famous arms of Man, and surmounted above all by a Crucifixion and Virgin and Child, is a rare and very interesting survival.

From Kirk Maughold we need not return to Ramsey to recover the main road to Douglas. On the contrary, we may proceed through pleasant country lanes that are tiresomely up and down hill and not a little roundabout, and enter the highroad after traversing that very Corna Dale of all of whose sheep Presbyter John, we have seen, was shepherd a thousand years ago or more. North Barrule (1,842 feet) all the way is a lovely peak in front—more shapely, perhaps, and richer in its blending of upland and lowland colour than any other summit in the island. It is this peak which is so graceful and conspicuous in distant views of Man, as seen, for example, from the coast of Cumberland, in the neighbourhood of St. Bees. The great highroad, when once accomplished, proves somewhat too hard, and straight, and broad, and white for any except the cyclist; for him it is ideal, supposing him to have spent his morning in wheeling his way with sorrow and pain up the steep rough lanes that rise from Kirkmichael towards Snaefell. The sea, however, as we draw near Dhoon Glen—a deep gash down below us on the left—grows more and more magnificent beneath us; and presently, just before doubling the sudden corner that gives access to Glen Laxey, road and tramway run together (the latter might be spared) on the edge of a sheer cliff that looks down from an almost giddy height on the waves that break far down below. This is one of the finest "bits" on a hard highroad in Man, but to the cyclist it is gone in a moment. Laxey opens out as suddenly, as the road turns the corner of the glen (into which it drops, and out of which it rises, by a huge but inevitable zigzag), as Nice opens out to those who turn the corner of the hill on the road down from Villefranche and Beaulieu. This large and prosperous village—it is really a little town—occupies a situation entirely different from any other settlement in the island—it is rather like that of Lynmouth—on the short strath where two glens commingle (Glens Laxey and Roy) before their united waters run out into the sea. Laxey, to the writer's taste, is far too big and straggling—untidy, perhaps, is too unkind a word to use of it—to make an idyllic centre from which to explore the hills. It should be borne in mind, however, that it is a nearer starting-point to Snaefell than any other centre in the island: the mountain tram, in fact—if that be not, indeed, a positive detraction—actually starts from its doors. But in the popular imagination the outstanding feature of Laxey (connected with the industry of lead-mining) is undoubtedly the famous Great Wheel, which is probably familiar from photographs and pictures in advertisements to many thousands of Englishmen who have never set foot on the island at all. It was erected in 1854, and measures "72-1/2 feet in diameter (as compared with 50 feet of the big Catrine Wheel in Ayrshire) and about 220 in circumference. The breadth is 6 feet; it revolves at a maximum speed of two rounds with a capacity for raising 250 gallons per minute." Its business is to keep the levels of the lead-mines free from water. "The platform above it, extending from one side to the top, is 75 feet above the ground, and reached by a spiral staircase of nearly 100 steps."

It will thus be seen that this mammoth wheel is less than was the Great Wheel at Earl's Court—which latter, however, was perhaps, unkind people might suggest, like the melancholy Jacques' ducdame, only "a Greek invocation to call fools into a circle"—but probably is otherwise unrivalled in the world. Yet those who love Nature and love the Isle of Man are hardly likely to travel to Laxey just to get a sight of its Great Wheel!