DOWNS. 



A GOOD road Is recognized as the groundwork of 

 civilization. So long as there is a firm and artificial 

 track under his feet the traveller may he said to be 

 in contact with city and town, no matter how far 

 they may be distant. A yard or two outside the 

 railway in America the primeval forest or prairie 

 often remains untouched, and much in the same way, 

 though in a less striking degree at first sight, some 

 of our own highways winding through Down districts 

 are bounded by undisturbed soil. Such a road wears 

 for itself a hollow, and the bank at the top is fringed 

 with long rough grass hanging over the crumbling 

 chalk. Broad discs of greater knapweed with stalks 

 like wire, and yellow toad-flax with spotted lip grow 

 among it. Grasping this tough grass as a handle 

 to climb up by, the explorer finds a rising slope of 

 sward, and having walked over the first ridge, 

 shutting off the road behind him, is at once out of 

 civilization. There is no noise. Wherever there 

 are men there is a hum, even in the harvest-field; 

 and in the road below, though lonely, there is some- 

 times the sharp clatter of hoofs or the grating of 

 wheels on flints. But here the long, long slopes, the 



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