68 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



brake fern, and bunches of tough dry grass. Above on 

 the summit is another ancient camp, and below two 

 more turf-grown tumuli, low, and shaped like an in- 

 verted bowl. Many more have been ploughed down, 

 doubtless, in the course of the years : sometimes still, 

 as the share travels through the soil, there is a sudden 

 jerk, and a scraping sound of iron against stone. 



The ploughman eagerly tears away the earth, and 

 moves the stone, to find a thin jar, as he thinks in 

 fact, a funeral urn. Like all uneducated people, in 

 the far East as well as in the West, he is imbued with 

 the idea of finding hidden treasure, and breaks the urn 

 in pieces to discover nothing ; it is empty. He will 

 carry the fragments home to the farm, when, after a 

 moment's curiosity, they will be thrown aside with 

 potsherds, and finally used to mend the floor of the 

 cowpen. The track winds away yet farther, over hill 

 after hill ; but a summer's day is not long enough to 

 trace it to the end. 



In the narrow valley, far below the frowning ram- 

 parts of the ancient fort that has been more specially 

 described, a beautiful spring breaks forth. Three 

 irregularly circular green spots, brighter in colour than 

 the dry herbage around, mark the outlets of the crev- 

 ices in the earth through which the clear water finds 

 its way to the surface. Three tiny threads of water, 

 each accompanied by its ribbon of verdant grasses, 

 meander downwards some few yards, and then unite 

 and form a little stream. Then the water in its chan- 

 nel first becomes visible, glistening in the sun ; for 



