SHEEP. 189 



by some adventitious moisture, were raised and 

 leavened into such shapes, by some plastic power, 

 and so made to swell and heave their broad backs 

 into the sky, so much above the less animated 

 clay of the wild below ? 



By what I can guess from the admeasurements 

 of the hills that have been taken round my house, 

 I should suppose that these hills surmount the 

 wild, on an average, at about the rate of five hun- 

 dred feet. 



One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep : 

 from the westward, till you get to the river Adur, 

 all the flocks have horns, and smooth white faces, 

 and white legs ; and a hornless sheep is rarely to 

 be seen. But as soon as you pass that river east- 

 ward, and mount Beeding-hill, all the flocks at 

 once become hornless, or, as they call them, poll- 

 sheep ; and have, moreover, black faces, with a 

 white tuft of wool on their foreheads, and speckled 

 and spotted legs ; so that you would think that 

 the flocks of Laban were pasturing on one side of 

 the stream, and the variegated breed of his son- 

 in-law, Jacob, were cantoned along on the other. 

 And this diversity holds good respectively on each 

 side from the valley of Bramber and Beeding to 

 the eastward, and westward all the whole length 

 of the downs. If you talk with the shepherds on 

 this subject, they tell you that the case has been 

 so from time immemorial ; and smile at your sim- 

 plicity if you ask them whether the situation of 

 these two different breeds might not be reversed. 

 (However, an intelligent friend of mine near 

 Chichester is determined to try the experiment ; 

 and has this autumn, at the hazard of being 

 laughed at, introduced a parcel of black -faced 

 hornless rams among his horned western ewes.) 



