iSo9— 1842] DOWN 33 



views round our house — deepish flat-bottomed valley and Letter 12 

 nice farm-house, but big, white, ugly, fallow fields ; — much 

 wheat grown here. House ugly, looks neither old nor new 

 — walls two feet thick — windows rather small — lower story 

 rather low. Capital study 18 x 18. Dining-room 21 x 18. 

 Drawing-room can easily be added to: is 21 x 15. Three 

 stories, plenty of bedrooms. We could hold the Hensleighs 

 and you and Susan and Erasmus all together. House in 

 good repair. Mr. Cresy a few years ago laid out for the 

 owner .£1,500 and made a new roof. Water-pipes over 

 house — two bath-rooms — pretty good offices and good stable- 

 yard, etc., and a cottage. I believe the price is about £2,200, 

 and I have no doubt I shall get it for one year on lease first to 

 try, so that I shall do nothing to the house at first (last owner 

 kept three cows, one horse, and one donkey, and sold some 

 hay annually from one field). I have no doubt if we com- 

 plete the purchase I shall at least save £1,000 over Westcroft, 

 or any other house we have seen. Emma was at first a good 

 deal disappointed, and at the country round the house ; tne 

 day was gloomy and cold with N.E. wind. She likes the 

 actual field and house better than I ; the house is just 

 situated as she likes for retirement, not too near or too far 

 from other houses, but she thinks the country looks desolate. 

 I think all chalk countries do, but I am used to Cambridge- 

 shire, which is ten times worse. Emma is rapidly coming 

 round. She was dreadfully bad with toothache and headache 

 in the evening and Friday, but in coming back yesterday 

 she was so delighted with the scenery for the first few miles 

 from Down, that it has worked a great change in her. We 

 go there again the first fine day Emma is able, and we then 

 finally settle what to do. 



The following fragmentary "Account of Down" was found among 

 Mr. Darwin's papers after the publication of the Life and Letters. It 

 gives the impression that he intended to write a natural history diary 

 after the manner of Gilbert White, but there is no evidence that this was 

 actually the case. 



1843. May 1 5th. — The first peculiarity which strikes a 

 stranger unaccustomed to a hilly chalk country is the 

 valleys, with their steep rounded bottoms— not furrowed with 

 the smallest rivulet. On the road to Down from Kcston 



3 



