he Upper Gardens, Bournemouth 18

Boscombe Chine 24

Bournemouth: The Children's Corner, Lower Gardens 28

Talbot Woods, Bournemouth 32

Poole Harbour from Constitutional Hill 38

Christchurch Priory from Wick Ferry 46

Priory Ruins, Christchurch 52

Christchurch Mill 60

[Illustration: PRIORY CHURCH. CHRISTCHURCH]

BOURNEMOUTH POOLE AND CHRISTCHURCH

The scenery which impresses most of us is certainly that in which Nature
is seen in her wild and primitive condition, telling us of growth and
decay, and of the land's submission to eternal laws unchecked by the
hand of man. Yet we also feel a certain pleasure in the contemplation of
those scenes which combine natural beauty with human artifice, and
attest to the ability with which architectural science has developed
Nature's virtues and concealed natural disadvantages.

To a greater extent, perhaps, than any other spot in southern England,
does Bournemouth possess this rare combination of natural loveliness and
architectural art, so cunningly interwoven that it is difficult to
distinguish the artificial from the natural elements of the landscape.

To human agency Bournemouth owes a most delightful set of modern
dwelling-houses, some charming marine drives, and an abundance of Public
Gardens. Through Nature the town receives its unique group of Chines,
which alone set it apart from other watering-places; its invigorating
sea-breezes, and its woods of fir and pine clustering upon slopes of
emerald green, and doing the town excellent service by giving warmth and
colour to the landscape when winter has stripped the oak and the elm of
their glowing robes.

Considerably less than a century ago Bournemouth, or "Burnemouth",
consisted merely of a collection of fishermen's huts and smugglers'
cabins, scattered along the Chines and among the pine-woods. The name
"Bournemouth" comes from the Anglo-Saxon words _burne_, or _bourne_, a
stream, and _mutha_, a mouth; thus the town owes its name to its
situation at the mouth of a little stream which rises in the parish of
Kinson some five or six miles distant.

From Kinson the stream flows placidly through a narrow valley of much
beauty, and reaches the sea by way of one of those romantic Chines so
characte