th Downs are the tombs of Saxon chieftains, that rubble of stones at
the top of yonder hill was once a British camp, and those curious ridges
terracing yonder green slope mark the trenches of some prehistoric
battlefield. All these in the process of time have become part and
parcel of the English countryside, as necessary to its "English"
character as its trees and its wild flowers.

How much, too, the English countryside owes for its beauty to the many
old manor-houses, gabled and moated, with their quaint, mossy-walled
gardens and great forestlike parks. Whatever we may think of the English
territorial system as economics, its service to English scenery has been
incalculable. Without English traditionalism we should hardly have had
the English countryside.

The conservation of great estates, entailing a certain conservatism in
the treatment of farm lands from generation to generation, and the
upholding, too, of game-preserves, however obnoxious to the land
reformer, have been all to the good of the nature-lover. We owe no
little of the beauty of the English woodland to the English pheasant;
and with the coming of land nationalization we may expect to see
considerable changes in the English countryside. Meanwhile, in spite of,
or perhaps because of, the feudalistic character of English landlordism,
the Englishman enjoys a right of walking over his native land of which
no capitalist can rob him. Hence results another charming feature of the
English countryside--the footpaths you see everywhere winding over hill
and dale, through field and coppice. The ancient rights of these are
safeguarded to the people forever by statute no wealth can defy; and,
let any _nouveau riche_ of a landlord try to close one of them, and
he has to reckon with one of the pluckiest and most persistent
organizations of English John Hampdens, the society that makes the
protection of these traditional pathways its particular care. So the
rich man cannot lock up his trees and his woodland glades all for
himself, but is compelled to share them to the extent of allowing the
poorest pedestrian to walk through them--which is about all the rich man
can do with them himself.

These footpaths, in conjunction with English lanes, have made the charm
of walking tours in England proverbial. Certain counties particularly
pride themselves on their lands. Surrey and Devonshire are the great
rivals in this respect. We say "Surrey lanes" or "Devonshire lanes,"
a