22 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
these things so seldom, and even then so locally that 
barely one in ten hears of or sees them !. 
The cattle of course suffer too ; all day long files 
of water-carts go down into the hollows where the 
springs burst forth, and at such times half the work 
of the farm consists in fetching the precious liquid 
perhaps a mile or more. Even in ordinary summers 
there is often a difficulty of this kind; and there are 
some farmhouses whose water for household uses 
has to be brought fully half a mile. Of recent years 
more wells have been sunk, but there are still too few 
for the purpose. The effect of water in determining 
the settlements of human beings is clearly shown 
here. You may walk mile after mile on the ridges 
and pass nothing but a shed; the houses are in the 
hollows, the ‘coombes’ or ‘bottoms,’ as they are 
called, where the springs run. The villages on the 
downs are generally on a ‘bourne,’ or winter water- 
course. 
In summer it is a broad winding trench with low 
green banks, along whose bed you may stroll dry- 
shod, with the yellow corn on either hand reaching 
above your head. A few sedges here and there, and 
that peculiar whitened appearance left when water 
has passed over vegetation, betoken that once there 
was a stream. It is like the watercourses and rivers. 
of the East, which are the roads of the traveller till 
the storm comes, and, lo! in the morning is a rushing 
flood, Near the village some water is to be seen in 
