182 SHEEP OF SUSSEX DOWNS. 



ture, were raised and leavened into such shapes by 

 some plastic power, and so made to swell and heave 

 their broad backs into the sky, so much above the 

 less animated clay of the wild below ? 



By what I can guess from the admeasurements of 

 the hills that have been taken round my house, I 

 should suppose that these hills surmount the wild, at 

 an average, at about the rate of five hundred feet. 



One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep : 

 from the westward, till you get to the river Adur, 

 all the flocks have horns, and smooth white faces, 

 and white legs ; and a hornless sheep is rarely to be 

 seen. But as soon as you pass that river eastward, 

 and mount Beeding-hill, all the flocks at once become 

 hornless, or, as they call them, poll-sheep; and have, 

 moreover, black faces, with a white tuft of wool on 

 their foreheads, and speckled and spotted legs : so 

 that, you would think that the flocks of Laban were 

 pasturing on one side of the stream, and the varie- 

 gated breed of his son-in-law, Jacob, were cantoned 

 along on the other. And this diversity holds good 

 respectively on each side, from the valley of Bramber 

 and Beeding to the eastward, and westward all the 

 whole length of the downs. If you talk with the 

 shepherds on this subject, they tell you that the case 

 has been so from time immemorial; and smile at your 

 simplicity if you ask them, whether the situation of 

 these two different breeds might not be reversed ? 

 (However, an intelligent friend of mine near Chi- 

 Chester is determined to try the experiment; and 

 has, this autumn, at the hazard of being laughed at, 

 introduced a parcel of black-faced hornless rams 

 among his horned western ewes.) The black-faced 

 poll- sheep have the shortest legs and the finest 

 wool. 



As I had hardly ever before travelled these downs 

 at so late a season of the year, I was determined to 



