DOWNS 



A GOOD road is recognised as the groundwork of 

 civilisation. So long as there is a firm and artificial 

 track under his feet the traveller may be said to be 

 in contact with city and town, no matter how far 

 they may be distant. A yard or two outside the 

 railway in America the primeval forest or prairie 

 often remains untouched, and much in the same way, 

 though in a less striking degree at first sight, some 

 of our own highways winding through Down districts 

 are bounded by undisturbed soil. Such a road wears 

 for itself a hollow, and the bank at the top is fringed 

 with long rough grass hanging over the crumbling 

 chalk. Broad discs of greater knapweed with stalks 

 like wire, and yellow toad-flax with spotted lip grow 

 among it. Grasping this tough grass as a handle to 

 climb up by, the explorer finds a rising slope of sward, 

 and having walked over the first ridge, shutting off 

 the road behind him, is at once out of civilisation. 

 There is no noise. Wherever there are men there is 

 a hum, even in the harvest-field; and in the road 

 below, though lonely, there is sometimes the sharp 

 clatter of hoofs or the grating of wheels on flints. But 

 here the long, long slopes, the endless ridges, the gaps 

 between, hazy and indistinct, are absolutely with- 

 out noise. In the sunny autumn day the peace of the 

 sky overhead is reflected in the silent earth. Looking 

 out over the steep hills, the first impression is of an 

 immense void like the sea; but there are sounds in 

 detail, the twitter of passing swallows, the restless 

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