10 



NATURAL HISTORY OP SELBORNE. 



HOLLOW LANE. 



LETTEK Y. 



TO THE SAME. 



AMONG the singularities of this place the two rocky hollow lanes, 

 the one to Alton, and the other to the forest, deserve our attention. 

 These roads, running through the malm lands, are, by the traffic of 

 ages, and the fretting of water, worn down through the first stratum of 

 our freestone, and partly through the second ; so that they look more 

 like water-courses than roads ; and are bedded with naked rag for 

 furlongs together. In many places they are reduced sixteen or eighteen 

 feet beneath the level of the fields ; and after floods, and in frosts, 

 exhibit very grotesque and wild appearances, from the tangled roots 

 that are twisted among the strata, and from the torrents rushing down 

 their broken sides ; and especially when those cascades are frozen into 

 icicles, hanging in all the fanciful shapes of frost-work. These rugged 

 gloomy scenes affright the ladies when they peep down into them from 

 the paths above, and make timid horsemen shudder while they ride 



