THE CHER HILL WHITE HORSE 205 



remains as old-fashioned to-day as ever,* but does 

 nob very closely resemble the word-picture Dickens 

 draws of it. He probably made acquaintance with 

 the downs and the inn only in passing on his way 

 between Bath and London in 1835. It stands at a 

 spot where the road promises to become more cheerful 

 and less gaunt and inhospitable ; but the promise is 

 not kept, the way going inexorably again along downs 

 as bare as before, for another two miles. All the way 

 between here and Cherhill village the " Lansdowne 

 Column " is seen crowning the rolling hills to the left 

 front. Built within the ramparts of an ancient hill- 

 fort of the Danes, who encamped naturally enough 

 in the most inaccessible position they could find, this 

 " column," which is an obelisk, is an exceedingly 

 prominent object in every direction. As one proceeds 

 and turns the flank of the hill, the strange sight of a 

 trotting White Horse is seen carved in the chalk of 

 its swelling shoulder. This is not one of the ancient 

 White Horses that decorate the hillsides of some parts 



* " There are inauy pleasaiiter places, even in this dreary world, 

 than Marlborough Downs when it blows hard ; and if yon throw 

 in beside a gloomy winter's evening, a miry and sloppy road, and 

 a pelting fall of heavy rain, and try the effect, by way of experi- 

 ment, in your own proper person, you will experience the full 

 force of this observation." 



The traveller's horse stopped before "a road-side inn on the 

 right-hand side of the way, about half a quarter of a mile from 

 the end of the Downs. ... It was a strange old place, built of a 

 kind of shingle, inlaid, as it were, with cross-beams, with gabled- 

 topped windows projecting completely over the pathway, and a 

 low door with a dark porch and a couple of steep steps leading 

 down into the house, instead of the modern fashion of half a 

 dozen shallow ones leading up to it." 



