Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so happy as to convey to you the same idea; but I never contemplate these mountains without thinking I perceive somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings and smooth fungus-like protuberances, their fluted sides, and regular hollows and slopes, that carry at once the air of vegetative dilatation and expansion:--Or, was there even a time when these immense masses of calcareous matter were thrown into fermentation by some adventitious moisture, were raised and leavened into such shapes by some plastic power; and so made to swell and heave their broad backs into the sky, so much above the less animated clay of the wild below ?" The Downs have a human and historic as well as scenic interest.

On many of their highest points are the barrows or graves of our British ancestors, who, could they revisit the glimpses of the moon, would find little change, for these hills have been less interfered with than any district within twice the distance from London.

The English dislike of climbing has saved them.

They will probably be the last stronghold of the horse when petrol has ousted him from every other region.
[Sidenote: ROMAN AND SAXON] After the Briton came the Roman, to whose orderly military mind such a chain of hills seemed a series of heaven-sent earthworks.

Every point in a favourable position was at once fortified by the legionaries.