Eastbourne Memories - A Victorian Perspective

An Account of, notable events, Persons and town history - online book

	288	Old Memories of East-Bourne. [Chap. XX.
	Being at Durham on September 15, 1893, I paid a visit to Canon H. B. Tristram, the well-known Palestine traveller. He showed me a collection of 800 stuffed birds and of 18,000 unstuffed birds, collected by himself — a marvel­lous sight. Of the many beautiful sights of Nature which I have ever gazed upon I think few have come up to the Stonehenge in 12 inches of snow on March 17, 1887. To see those mag­nificent monoliths in a setting of the purest white was a sight at once startling and picturesque—to put it very mildly and briefly. On September 6, 1888, an influential War Office Official took my wife and some of my children and myself over the Tower of London. We saw not only what everybody is permitted to see, but a good many things not shown to the public ; in particular the dungeons where State prisoners-used to be confined. The thoughts which these awful places and their instruments of torture brought to our