io IN HAMPSHIRE HIGHLANDS 



country which is enriched by so many pure and 

 sweet trout-streams as these. Softness was the 

 feature of this landscape to the south: a medley it 

 looked of oak and hazel coppice, farms, and great 

 thatched barns among dark elms, with here a few 

 cottages clustered together, and there the orna- 

 mental timber of some considerable county seat, 

 such as Amport, that recalls the fine old Hamp- 

 shire name of Paulett. But to the north I 

 enjoyed a much rarer, if less extensive, view of 

 southern scenery. Bare and severe lay the hills 

 above Combe, as desolate in aspect as those 

 irreclaimable hills of Exmoor Forest, one of 

 Nature's last remaining fastnesses in the tilled 

 and tamed south. Green on the convex, and by 

 reason of the light grey on the concave, how fine 

 those hills looked that still, clear June evening ! 

 There is a glamour about such barren and severe 

 spots in the midst of a country the features of 

 which are softness and plenty. Green waving 

 woods of oak and underwood, valleys watered by 

 pellucid and never-failing chalk springs, trim 

 cottages, their gardens ablaze through the summer 

 with the flowers of our forefathers, lanes having 

 great straggling hedges, laden in many parts with 



