Few steamer trips in the south are as pleasant and interesting.
In consequence of the double tides with which Southampton is favoured,
the chance of having a long stretch of ill looking and worse smelling
mud flats in the foreground of the view is almost negligible. Unless a
very thorough knowledge of the shore is desired, the view from the
deck will give the stranger an adequate idea of the surrounding
country. The passing show of shipping, of all sorts, sizes and
nationalities, is not the least interesting item of the passage. The
writer's most vivid recollection of Southampton Water in the early
summer of 1918 is not of the beautiful shores shimmering in the June
sun, but of an extraordinary line of "dazzle ships" in the centre of
the waterway, moored bow to stern in a long perspective, or it would
be more correct to say, want of perspective, the brain and the eye
being so much at variance that the ends of the line could scarcely be
believed to consist of ships at all.
[Illustration: NETLEY RUINS.]
The ruins of Netley Abbey can best be seen by taking the pleasant
shore road from Woolston and Weston Grove.
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