LEWES AND ITS COUNTRY 87 



adding greatly to local attractions — doing any- 

 thing to put difficulties in the way of folks 

 appreciating the improvements would be a pity. 

 Surely the railway company, who are practically 

 the Harbour Company, must be going against 

 old public ferry rights in preventing or not 

 furnishing means of free crossing. Still, with all 

 its deficiencies, from the salmon-leap at Barcombe 

 Mills to the British Channel, the Ouse has good 

 qualities, as a naturalist can soon find out and a 

 fisherman must. Its best is proximity to the 

 downs ; in genuine June weather, most lovely 

 country on or off. What do I mean by ''on or 

 off"? Look you here. U may not be quite 

 accurate in taking the Weald in with the Downs 

 or the Downs in with the Weald, but for purposes 

 of this argument I make them march together. 

 Some folk — foolish to my mind, but I admit that 

 personal taste may lead me away — do not care for 

 the South Downs. I do, and could live on them all 

 the year round, making up for bleak periods by the 

 sweet balmy turns you have served out to you in 

 due season. Moreover, I believe that a man 

 might camp on them through a long life and 

 never reach the limit of their infinite variety. 

 Mind you, too, if he did pitch his tent up, up 

 aloft, he is always within handy reach of marked 

 change, for no farther off than next door down in 

 the Weald — or, as in the West they would call it 

 the vale — is different climate, different soil, 

 different method of growth, of tree, herb, and plant, 

 and between the two a border land of alluvial wash- 

 ing. Nature's neutral territory, where both the 

 highlands and the plain give of their best. Let 

 me have the upland for health and enjoyment, and 

 when I am ill if anyone thinks I am going and is 



