LEWES AND ITS COUNTRY 85 



verdict — and so I found it, strangely so. Never 

 a dead dog or cat floating could I spot. Some- 

 body must have bought them up and taken them 

 home ; they never decay on this river, and, once 

 a dead dog or dead cat, always the same, is the 

 motto they float up to. The isolation fever 

 hospital mattresses, which, cast like bread on 

 the waters, travelled in former years again and 

 again to extreme points between Newhaven 

 Harbour and Barcombe Mills, appeared to have 

 finished their course of almost endless voyages. 

 Nobody had doctored the town's drains with 

 stuff to kill, or which did kill, eels by the million. 

 No barge in evidence, to bung up the whole of 

 the fairway. The swans, who look so pretty 

 but are so ruinous to fishing, were, as usual on 

 this river, quite docile and amenable ; perhaps 

 their being amiable is the reason why boys are 

 permitted to steal their eggs. Wild flowers on 

 the bank, from kingcups to ragged robins, were 

 a treat, and homely familiar the tame animals, 

 beginning with the mighty, lusty, black oxen and 

 finishing with the little bright-eyed field mouse. 

 On each hand looked down the great chalk 

 ranges, good enough to rank as mountains to 

 the ridiculous quadruped cited. 



Let no man run down the Sussex Ouse, for 

 it is — well, if you fancy that sort of stream, this 

 would very likely be the sort you might fancy, 

 not otherwise, because you may not care for a 

 river with no convenient landing-place for eight 

 miles on the tidal part, and no desire on anybody's 

 part to make matters better. And talking of 

 accommodation on the tidal stream, I wish some- 

 one would put before the South Coast directors 

 the claim Newhaven has for consideration as a 



