AN ENGLISH SHIRE. 



185 



Celtic root signifying * The Uninhabited.' Even in our 

 own (lay, a large part of this tract is covered by the 

 v.oodhinds of Tolgate Forest, St. Leonard's Forest, and 

 Aslidown Forest ; while the remainder is only very 

 scantily laid down in pasture-land or hop-fields, with a 

 considerable sprinkling of copses, woodsj commons, and 

 parks. From its very nature, indeed, the Weald can 

 never be anything else, in its greater portion, than a 

 \Yild, uncultivated, and wooded region. • 



Let us note, too, how the really habitable strip of 

 Sussex, from the point of view of an early people, was 

 quite naturally cut off from all other parts of England by 

 obvious limits. This habitable strip consists, of course, 

 of the coastwise belt from Brighton to the Hampshire 

 border (which belt I shall henceforward take the liberty 

 of designating as Sussex Proper), together with the sea- 

 ward valleys and combes of the South Downs. To the 

 west, the great tidal flats and swamps about Hayling 

 Island cut off Sussex from Hampshire ; and before drain- 

 age and reclamation had done their work, these marshy 

 districts must have formed a most impassable frontier. 

 From this point, the great woodland region of the Weald, 

 thickly covered with primaeval forest, and tenanted by 

 wolves, bears, wild boars, and red deer, swept round in 

 a long curve from the swamps at Bosham and Havanb 

 to the corresponding swamps of the opposite end at 

 Pevensey and Hurstmonceux. The belt of savage 

 wooded country, thick with the lairs of wild beasts, 

 which thus ringed round the greater part of the county, 

 shut off the coastwise strip at once from all possibility 

 of communication with the rest of England. So Sussex 



