WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 33 



perhaps a mile or more. Even in ordinary summers 

 there is often a difficulty of this kind ; and there are 

 some farmhouses whose water for household uses has 

 to be brought fully half a mile. Of recent years more 

 wells have been sunk, but there are still too few for 

 the purpose. The effect of water in determining the 

 settlements of human beings is clearly shown here. 

 You may walk mile after mile on the ridges and pass 

 nothing but a shed ; the houses are in the hollows, 

 the " coombes " or " bottoms," as they are called, 

 where the springs run. The villages on the downs 

 are generally on a " bourne," or winter watercourse. 



In summer it is a broad winding trench with low 

 green banks, along whose bed you may stroll dry-shod, 

 with the yellow corn on either hand reaching above 

 your head. A few sedges here and there, and that 

 peculiar whitened appearance left when water has 

 passed over vegetation, betoken that once there was 

 a stream. It is like the watercourses and rivers of 

 the East, which are the roads of the traveller till the 

 storm comes, and, lo ! in the morning is a rushing 

 flood. Near the village some water is to be seen in 

 the pond which has been deepened out to hold it, 

 and which is, too, kept up here by a spring. 



In winter the bourne often has the appearance of a 

 broad brook : you may observe where the current has 

 arranged the small flints washed in from the fields by 

 the rain. As the villages are on the lesser " bournes, " 

 so the towns are placed on the banks of the rivers 

 these fall into. There may generally be found a TOW 



