be too much for any ordinary human, especially if
he were thirsty, so in this book the traveller is taken up and down
without any regard for his consequent fatigue, when it is assured that
his rest will be sweet, even though it may be only under a hawthorn
bush!

[Illustration: A SUSSEX LANE, JEVINGTON.]

"No breeze so fresh and invigorating as that of the Sussex Downs; no
turf so springy to the feet as their soft greensward. A flight of larks
flies past us, and a cloud of mingled rooks and starlings wheel
overhead.... The fairies still haunt this spot, and hold their midnight
revels upon it, as yon dark rings testify. The common folk hereabouts
term the good people 'Pharisees' and style these emerald circles
'Hagtracks.' Why, we care not to enquire. Enough for us, the fairies
are not altogether gone. A smooth soft carpet is here spread out for
Oberon and Titania and their attendant elves, to dance upon by
moonlight...." (Ainsworth: _Ovingdean Grange_.)

"He described the Downs fronting the paleness of the earliest dawn and
then their arch and curve and dip against the pearly grey of the
half-glow; and then among their hollows, lo, the illumination of the
east all around, and up and away, and a gallop for miles along the
turfy, thymy, rolling billows, land to left, sea to light below you....
Compare you the Alps with them? If you could jump on the back of an
eagle, you might. The Alps have height. But the Downs have swiftness.
Those long stretching lines of the Downs are greyhounds in full career.
To look at them is to set the blood racing! Speed is on the Downs,
glorious motion, odorous air of sea and herb, exquisite as the Isles of
Greece." (Geo. Meredith: _Beauchamp's Career_.)

The most delightful close springy turf covers the Downs with a velvet
mantle, forming the most exhilarating of all earthly surfaces upon
which to walk and the most restful on which to stretch the wearied
body. Most delightful also are the miniature flowers which gem and
embroider the velvet; gold of potentilla, blue of gentian, pink and
white of milkwort, purple of the scabious and clustered bell-flower;
the whole robe scented with the fragrance of sweet thyme. Several
unfamiliar species of orchis may be found and also the rare and
beautiful rampion, "The Pride of Sussex." The hills are a paradise for
birds; the practice of snaring the wheatear for market has lately
fallen into desuetude and the "Sussex ortolan" is becoming more
numerous