SALISB UR Y PLAIN 2 1 5 



landmark iu one's existence, and awakens a new set of 

 sensations, is slieer gammon. I woukl say to every 

 man who can't see a prairie — go to Salisbury Plain, 

 Marlborough Downs, or any of the broad, high, open 

 lands near the sea. Many of them are fully as 

 impressive; and Salisbury Plain is decidedly vdlOyq ^o.' 

 Salisbury Plain is the very core and concentrated 

 essence of the wild bleak scenery so characteristic of 

 Wiltshire. An elevated tract of country measuring 

 roughly twenty-four miles from east to west, and 

 sixteen from north to south, and comprising the dis- 

 trict between Ludgershall and Westbury, and Devizes 

 and Old Sarum, it is by no means the Plain pictured 

 by strangers, who, misled by that geographical ex- 

 pression, have a mind's -eye picture of it as being 

 quite flat. As a matter of fact, Salisbury Plain is 

 not a bit like that. It is a lono- series of undulatino- 

 chalky dowms, ' as flat as your hand ' if you like, 

 because the hand is anything but flat, and the simile 

 is excellently descriptive of a rolling country that 

 resembles the swellino- contours of an outstretched 

 palm. Unproductive, exposed, and lonely, Salisbury 

 Plain opposes even to this day a very eff'ectual 

 barrier ao-ainst intercourse between north and south 

 or east and west Wiltshire, and was the lurking- 

 place, until even so late as 1839, of highw^aymen and 

 footpads, who shared the solitudes with the bustards, 

 and attacked and robbed those travellers w^hose 

 business called them across the dreary wastes. Many 

 a malefactor has tried his 'prentice hand and learned 

 his business in these wilds, and has, after robbing 

 elsewhere, retired here from pursuit. Salisbury Plain, 



