WILTSHIRE LANDSCAPE. 295 



CHAPTER XLIII. 



The South-Downs Wiltshire Landscape Chalk and Flint Irrigation 

 The Cost and Profit of Water-Meadows Sewerage Water Irrigation 

 in Old Times. 



COON after leaving Warminster, began a quite different style 

 ^ of landscape from any I have before seen : long ranges and 

 large groups of high hills with gentle and gracefully undulating 

 slopes ; broad and deep dells between and within them, through 

 which flow in tortuous channels streamlets of exceedingly pure, 

 sparkling water. These hills are bare of trees, except rarely a 

 close body of them, covering a space of perhaps an acre, and evi- 

 dently planted by man. "Within the, shelter of these you will 

 sometimes see that there is a large farm-house with small stables. 

 The valleys are cultivated, but the hills in greater part are cov- 

 ered, without the slightest variety, except what arises from the 

 changing contour of the ground, with short, fine grass, standing 

 thinly, but sufficiently close to give the appearance, at a little 

 distance from the eye, of a smooth, velvety, green surface. 

 Among the first of the hills I observed, at a high elevation, long 

 angular ramparts and earth-works, all greened over. Within 

 them, and at the summit of the hill, were several extensive 

 tumuli, evidently artificial (though I find nothing about it in the 

 books), and on the top of one of these was a shepherd and dog 



