288 The Vale of Warminster. 
has nothing to do with the earth called clay, because the hill is 
entirely of chalk. The name is a mere corruption of an old word 
Clee, which means hill. Clee hills, in Shropshire, Clack Abbey, in 
Wiltshire, and some others are probably only corrupt forms of the 
same word. 
On Cley Hill (so, in obedience to custom, we continue to call it, 
although if Cleg means hill, the phrase becomes tautologous) and 
running round it, is a dry foss or ditch with a high earthen bank, 
but not a drop of water or sign of a well. 
Without referring particularly to King Alfred and his army, who 
are thought by some (not by myself) to have gone up there, but 
generaliy to hills of this kind that appear to have been occupied as 
encampments: one may ask “How could any great number of 
persons remain there for any length of time, so as to stand a siege 5 
there being no water?” This question was answered once quite to 
my own satisfaction. Last year I happened to be going to Longleat 
with another visitor, one who had been tossed about the world and 
had seen a good deal; and as we drove along I started the subject. 
My companion said he had seen the thing over and over again in 
New Zealand, and could tell exactly how it was. He then described 
to me that in the case of the New Zealand ‘‘Cley Hills” (‘‘ Pahs,” or 
Hippahs, as they call them there), on the earthen bank that runs 
all round, are very strong palisades of wicker work, and posts of a 
considerable height. These, standing on a high bank above a ditch, 
form a most difficult barrier to get over, and an excellent protection 
against lances. Against artillery, of course, barrier there would be 
none, but our hill fortresses existed long before artillery. But the 
water—how about that? I saw, he said, two or three hundred 
women carrying up pails and pitchers on their heads all day long 
from the streams at the foot of the hill. As that supply would of 
course be sufficient until some enemy interfered and stopped the 
graceful water-carriers, what, I asked, is the use of storming these 
New Zealand pahs, and sacrificing lives, because you have only to 
cut off the supply of water and the camp must surrender? He said 
that was exactly the case. It was a waste of life to attack them ; 
but surround the place, and in a few days it must be given up, 7.¢., 
