114 MOUNTAINS. 



little down that stands behind his famous parish 

 of Selborne as "a vast hill of chalk, rising three 

 hundred feet above the village." Another nunor 

 undulation in the same neighborhood he gravely 

 describes as "a noble promontory," while the 

 prospect from its summit is bounded, he says, in 

 all seriousness, "by the vast range of mountains 

 called the Sussex Downs." We should hardly 

 use such language nowa(hi3's of the Maritime 

 Alps or the Bernese Oberland ; we should think 

 the description applied fitly only to the very 

 greatest backbones of continents, like the Hima- 

 layas, the Andes, and the Rocky Mountains. 

 "Though I have now travelled the Sussex Downs 

 upwards of thirty years," says White, on another 

 occasion, "yet I still investigate that chain of ma- 

 jestic mountains with fresh admiration year by 

 year," He could not have spoken with more en- 

 thusiasm if he had been trying to describe the 

 Yosemite Valley or the snow-clad summits of the 

 frosty Caucasus. 



When the eighteenth century got amongst any- 

 thing worthy to be considered as anywhere near 

 real mountains, its helplessness and fear of the 

 perils before it became almost childish. We 

 hardly nowadays apply the name of mountain at 

 all to Snowdon or Cader Idris : we speak of them 

 patronizingly in our modern fashion as "the Welsh 

 hills," and walk up them casually before breakfast 



