172 ON TRACING CERTAIN ANTIQUITIES. 



antiquarian friends live near Badbury it might be worth Ayhile to 

 try to catch the right moment. Possibly, by thus watching, they 

 may even yet see the old cart road when the low sun sends tender 

 but clear grey long shadows from every roughness of surface how- 

 ever minute. This hope is uttered by reason of what Avas actually 

 seen last May. Right opposite Swanage, we all know, rises 

 Ballard Down. It is a great element in a lovely view, grouping 

 grandly, as it does, with Old Harry and the cliffs to the right, 

 grey Whitecliff Farm among its trees to the left, and the sapphire 

 sea in front. All this you see with joy and delight morning, noon, 

 and evening. But it was only after many scores of gazings at 

 that fair scene that one strange feature of Ballard Down was 

 perceived. On a lovely afternoon, about five o'clock, the sun was 

 shining almost in line with the face of the down, just raking the 

 hillside. The very slightest tuft of furze or grass had its long, 

 clear shadow. And presently such tender shadows softly lined out 

 into almost startling view two zig-zag ridges and two scarps, all 

 corresponding to each other and of most mysterious aspect. Each 

 zig-zag consisted of one horizontal bank joining two vertical ones, 

 one upwards and the other downwards. One of the scarps is at 

 the foot of the steepest part of the down and the other at right 

 angles to it, running up the western edge of a hollow or coombe 

 in the hillside. They may be from ten to fifteen yards long 

 each. Now it would, perhaps, be out of anyone's power fully and 

 surely to trace the banks by scrambling about the steep. You 

 almost doubt if they can exist. Yet go back to Swanage with your 

 doubt and wait for the sun to get into position. He will draw 

 these puzzling, inscrutable lines on Ballard side as plainly as you 

 could with a pen on paper. What are they ? What for 1 Who 

 made them 1 ? When? Truly it cannot have been yesterday. 

 Ballard Down is very steep. Gradual denudation must have had 

 great destroying power, we know. Yet, denudation fully allowed 

 for, the feeling, as you climb about searching for the banks, is that 

 millenniums must have rolled by since they stood up in wholeness, 

 as they now lie in erasure. War fences they could not be. Field, 



