the day when he
listened to the well-sinker and not to the geologist, and so threw away
more than a thousand pounds. And there is an answer to what you asked on
board the yacht--What use was there in learning little matters of natural
history and science, which seemed of no use at all? And now, look out
again. Do you see any change in the country?

What?

Why, there to the left.

There are high hills there now, as well as to the right. What are they?

Chalk hills too. The chalk is on both sides of us now. These are the
Chilterns, all away to Ipsden and Nettlebed, and so on across Oxfordshire
and Buckinghamshire, and into Hertfordshire; and on again to Royston and
Cambridge, while below them lies the Vale of Aylesbury; you can just see
the beginning of it on their left. A pleasant land are those hills, and
wealthy; full of noble houses buried in the deep beech-woods, which once
were a great forest, stretching in a ring round the north of London, full
of deer and boar, and of wild bulls too, even as late as the twelfth
century, according to the old legend of Thomas a Becket's father and the
fair Saracen, which you have often heard.

I know. But how are you going to get through the chalk hills? Is there
a tunnel as there is at Box and at Micheldever?

No. Something much prettier than a tunnel and something which took a
great many years longer in making. We shall soon meet with a very
remarkable and famous old gentleman, who is a great adept at digging, and
at landscape gardening likewise; and he has dug out a path for himself
through the chalk, which we shall take the liberty of using also. And
his name, if you wish to know it, is Father Thames.

I see him. What a great river!

Yes. Here he comes, gleaming and winding down from Oxford, over the
lowlands, past Wallingford; but where he is going to it is not so easy to
see.

Ah, here is chalk in the cutting at last. And what a high bridge. And
the river far under our feet. Why we are crossing him again!

Yes; he winds more sharply than a railroad can. But is not this prettier
than a tunnel?

Oh, what hanging-woods, and churches; and such great houses, and pretty
cottages and gardens--all in this narrow crack of a valley!

Ay. Old Father Thames is a good landscape gardener, as I said. There is
Basildon--and Hurley--and Pangbourne, with its roaring lasher. Father
Thames has had to work hard for many an age before he could cut this
trench ri