VII 

 THE SOUTH DOWNS 



FROM the maritime plain we set our faces towards the 

 South Downs, most beautiful of all the chalk country. 

 West of the Arun they are mostly covered with wood, 

 for both elevation and rainfall are considerable ; and 

 on much of the land the beech forest, if only it is 

 managed for timber rather than neglected for game, is 

 likely to prove more profitable than agriculture. But 

 eastward the country becomes more bare ; in the great 

 waterless hollows lie the homesteads with wide, hedge- 

 less arable fields round them, sloping upwards in 

 gentle, undulating folds to the open grassland, which, 

 though never wholly unenclosed and broken in places 

 by cultivation even to the tops of the ridges, stretches 

 on and on until it finally rolls over in a great wave to 

 the Gault valley and the Wealden plain beyond. 

 Beautiful as are the folds of the hills in the heart of 

 the chalk country, as, for example, behind Brighton, 

 the South Downs are most impressive when viewed 

 from the low country northward ; there the sudden 

 sweep of the escarpment truly merits old Gilbert 

 White's description of " this majestic chain of moun- 

 tains," nowhere more so than towards Lewes, where 

 Ditchling and Firle Beacons are crowned with smooth 

 and spotless turf. 



The true South Down farmer lives by his sheep, 



