62 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
and they are not confined to this one place. Such 
steep-sided narrow hollows are found all along the 
edge of this range of downs, where they slope to the 
larger valley which stretches out to the. horizon. 
There are at least ten of them in a space of twelve 
miles, many having similar springs of water and 
similar terrace-like ledges, more or less perfect. 
Towards the other extremity of this particular coombe 
—where it widens before opening on the valley—the 
spring spreads and occupies a wider channel, beside 
which there is a strip of osier-bed. 
When at the fountain-head, and looking down the 
current, the end of the coombe westwards away from 
the hills seems to open to the sky ; for the ground falls 
rapidly, and the trees hide any trace of human habi- 
tation. The silent hills close in the rear, capped by 
the old fort ; the silent cornfields come to the very 
edge above; the silent steep green walls rise on. 
either hand, so near together that the swallows in the 
blue atmosphere high overhead only come into sight 
for a second as they shoot swiftly across. In the 
evening the red sun, enlarged and bulging as if partly 
flattened, hangs suspended, as it seems, at the very 
mouth of the trough-like hollow. It is natural in the 
silence and the solitude for thoughts of the lapse of 
time to arise—of the endless centuries since, by some 
slow geological ‘process, this hollow was formed. 
Fifteen hundred years ago the men of the camp 
above came hither to draw water; still the spring 
