BRIGHTON TO NEWHAVEN 53 



combe rock, worth a lot for path-making, because 

 it sets so well. Beneath this is, in this particular 

 spot, a bed of chalk. All above this bed has to 

 slide into the water and be wasted, or can be 

 raised landwards, and so become a gold-mine in 

 a way. What puzzled me about the matter was 

 the owners practically making a present of the 

 stuff to the sea. Moving it landwards cannot 

 accelerate the elements' destructive work — a sharp 

 frost and a shower of hard rain to follow can 

 bring the valuable material down by the hundreds 

 of tons. 



Farther inland was the great puzzle round 

 about which I was writing before. How is it — 

 how the devil is it ? — that so magnificent a play- 

 ground as the Downs constitute are scarcely 

 noticed ? Going inland, for, say, five miles from 

 the sprint races' start, not one man, woman, boy, 

 or girl did I meet, overtake, or see about in the 

 offing. What were Brighton's two hundred 

 thousand or so residents and temporary visitors 

 about not to get out in the sweet air and on the 

 turf? Goodness knows we all hear enough 

 railing at the dirty weather ! Per contra, can we 

 expect a Clerk of the Department to turn on 

 bright sun, balmy, comforting, placid warmth, in 

 a Morland blue ground and a Constable white 

 fleecy clouded sky if his customers, so to speak, 

 make no use of the treat? Not one single 

 solitary soul took his pleasure out of the supply 

 where I was. Spring might not be coming in or 

 have any harbingers at all so far as they were 

 concerned. There were we, the furze chats ('' fuzz 

 chaps " shepherds will call them occasionally), a 

 few stray yellow-hammers, or ammers, styled in 

 parts squibbly larks, an odd jackdaw or so, rooks 



