lly,
mostly terminating in a bare top, and which are all west of the Arun,
will be considered incomparably the best. To every man of Lewes the
isolated mass of hills which rise on the east of the town are _the_
Downs. But all must be seen to be truly appreciated and loved as they
will be loved.

Hotels will not be found in the Downs; the tourist who cannot live
without them will find his wants supplied within but a few miles at any
of the numerous Londons by the Sea; but that will not be Sussex pure
and undefiled, and if simplicity and cleanliness, enough to eat and
drink, and a genuine welcome are all that is required, he will find
these in our Downland inns.

It is in the more remote of these hostelries that the inquisitive
stranger will hear the South Saxon dialect in its purity and the slow
wit of the Sussex peasant at its best. The old Downland shepherd with
embroidered smock and Pyecombe crook is vanishing fast, and with him
will disappear a good deal of the character which made the Sussex
native essentially different from his cousins of Essex and Wessex.

[Illustration: LAMB INN, EASTBOURNE.]

One of the most delightful records of rustic life ever printed is that
study in the "Wealden Formation of Human Nature" by the former rector
of Burwash, John Cocker Egerton, entitled _Sussex Folk and Sussex
Ways_. True, the book is mainly about Wealden men and we are more
concerned with the hill tribes, but the shrewd wit and quaint conceits
of the South Saxon portrayed therein will be readily recognized by the
leisurely traveller who has the gift of making himself at home with
strangers. It is to be hoped that in the great and epoch-making changes
that are upon us in this twentieth century some at least of the
individual characteristics of the English peasantry will remain. It is
the divergent and opposite traits of the tribes which make up the
English folk that have helped to make us great. May we long be
preserved from a Wellsian uniformity!

A brief description of the geological history of the range may not be
amiss here. It will be noted by the traveller from the north that the
opposing line of heights in Surrey have their steepest face (or
"escarpment") on the south side, while the Sussex Downs have theirs on
the north. A further peculiarity lies in the fact that the river
valleys which cut across each range from north to south are opposite
each other, thus pointing to the probability that the fracture which
ca