THE GRAPHOTYPING COMPANY, Limited, SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., PREFACE. N the following pages an attempt is made to provide the visitor to the "Garden Isle " with a handy book of reference to its most salient features. The descriptions are necessarily brief: the places to be visited and the objects of interest are so numerous that a more lengthy notice of them would swell the volume to proportions altogether out of keeping with its character. It has, therefore, been the object of the compiler rather to glance at than to describe in detail the various scenes of which he treats, so as to provide a useful vade mecum to the Tourist. In his efforts to do this he has consulted every authority to which he has access, and has made use of a store of matériel accumulated during a residence of some length in the Island, during which his daily avocation gave him peculiar opportunities of acquiring information on its history and geography, and of visiting every spot to which he has directed attention. If his efforts prove, as he trusts they will, of use to any visiting fair Vectis, either on business or pleasure, they will not have been in vain, and he will feel himself amply rewarded for the trouble and anxiety which the production of even so small a volume as the present has entailed. E. S. C. May, 1873. |