14 WITHIN AN HOUR OF LONDON TOWN. 



make tracks for Farleigh Heath, Black Down, or 

 Hind Head. He need not go to the backwoods of 

 America for isolation and loneliness ; the possession 

 of land is another matter. In my wanderings I have 

 often come upon habitations, where men lived and 

 died, that were far from coming up to the level of 

 a backwoodsman's hut. 



During weeks of enforced leisure I indulge in long 

 ramblings on the moors, and in the woodlands, 

 during one of which I was lost for a time in a 

 blinding snowstorm. As a rule, I like best to 

 wander alone, but I honestly confess " Number 

 Two " would have been welcome on that occasion. 

 All day I had been on the look-out for wild things, 

 with very little result ; for they knew what was 

 coming, and they were hugging shelter very closely. 

 Snow had fallen on the previous day. About four 

 o'clock in the afternoon, masses of snow-clouds 

 showed up, driven by the wind from the South coast. 

 The wind soon rose to a hurricane, and the snow 

 travelled with it. There, on a portion of the high- 

 lands, I was fairly caught in it. Fortunately I got in 

 a well-known track ; but it was as much as I could 

 do to keep in it staggering along, blinded with snow 



