Standing upon these ramparts to-day, identical in general configuration in spite of the intervening centuries, one may imagine one's self a Caesarian soldier and see in fancy the hinds below running for safety.
After the Romans came the Saxons, who did not, however, use the heights as their predecessors had.

Yet they left even more intimate traces, for, as I shall show in a later chapter on Sussex dialect, the language of the Sussex labourer is still largely theirs, the farms themselves often follow their original Saxon disposition, the field names are unaltered, and the character of the people is of the yellow-haired parent stock.
Sussex, in many respects, is still Saxon.

In a poem by Mr.W.G.Hole is a stanza which no one that knows Sussex can read without visualising instantly a Sussex hill-side farm:-- The Saxon lies, too, in his grave where the plough-lands swell; And he feels with the joy that is Earth's The Spring with its myriad births; And he scents as the evening falls The rich deep breath of the stalls; And he says, "Still the seasons bring increase and joy to the world--It is well!" [Sidenote: THE ESCAPE OF CHARLES II.] Standing on one of these hills above the Hartings one may remember an event in English history of more recent date than any of the periods that we have been recalling--the escape of Charles II in 1651.

It was over these Downs that he passed; and it has been suggested that a traveller wishing for a picturesque route across the Downs might do well to follow his course.
According to the best accounts Charles was met, on the evening of October 13, near Hambledon, in Hampshire (afterwards to be famous as the cradle of first-class cricket), by Thomas and George Gunter of Racton, with a leash of greyhounds as if for coursing.

The King slept at the house of Thomas Symonds, Gunter's brother-in-law, in the character of a Roundhead.