&quot; OLD CO ACHING- TIMES.^ 167 



with a finely-shaven plot of turf and well-kept gravelled walks, 

 and a good vegetable and fruit garden, with famous goose 

 berry and apple bushes (apples on dwarf stocks), in the rear. 

 The landlord, a bluff, stout, old man, a little while ago 

 brought us in samples of five different sorts of malt liquor 

 that he had in his cellar. They vary in strength in the pro 

 portions from 8 to 32, and somewhat more in price. 



Before the railways, thirty-two four-horse coaches stopped 

 at this house daily, besides post-coaches, which, when the fleet 

 was about to sail from Portsmouth, passed through the village 

 &quot; like a procession.&quot; He then kept 100 horses, and had usually 

 ten postboys to breakfast, that had been left during the night. 

 Now, there was but one coach and one van that passed 

 through the town. 



June 2lst. 



Near Liphook, instead of the broad, bleak chalk-downs, 

 with their even surface of spare green grass, we find 

 extensive tracts of a most sterile, brown, dry, sandy land, 

 sometimes boggy, (moory,) producing even more scanty 

 pasturage than the downs, but with scattered tufts of heath 

 or ling. Most of this is in commons,, and a few lean sheep, 

 donkeys, and starveling ponies are earnestly occupied in 

 seeking for something to eat upon it. Very little of it, for 

 miles that we have passed over, is enclosed or improved, ex 

 cept that there are extensive plantations of trees. Timber 

 grows slowly upon it ; but the shade of the foliage and the 

 decay of leaves so improves the soil that it is worth cultiva 

 ting after its removal. It is also improved so as to bear tol 

 erable crops, by paring-and-burning and sheep-folding as 

 described on the downs of Wiltshire. 



We had walked half-a-dozen miles this morning, when I 

 discovered I had lost my watch, and turned back. When 



