A little beyond Boarstall the country became wild and open again, and there before us, perched right on the top of a bleak, isolated hill, a hill much scarred with clay pits, stood the odd, little, out-of-date town of Brill. Odd, little, out-of-date town--that just describes it, there is no need for more words: on its hill stands one of, I think, the oldest windmills I have ever seen working, an ancient wooden structure with canvas sails, a mill of the kind the old masters put in their pictures, so old must it be. Brill at one time actually tried to transform itself into a fashionable watering-place, a spring of mineral waters having been discovered there, said by experts to be superior even to those of Bath. But the attempt turned out a failure; for the success of such an adventure a place needs something beyond a mere mineral spring. Prosperity and popularity require pretty or interesting surroundings, decent roads, and, above all, reasonable accessibility. Brill, though bracing in situation, has none of these other needful advantages. Yet a pretentious pump-room was built with every required accessory, including a spacious reception-room, all in the Doric style; these are now hastening to decay, and Brill is left to its solitude. Possibly if you asked the average man where Brill is, he would respond, "I never heard of the place." So should I have done before I discovered it and learnt the unfortunate history of its bold and, to me, apparently hopeless bid for popularity, of which nothing came. I am glad it did not, for it is a quaint old town, and deserves to remain so. Beyond Brill a winding lane brought us to Long Crendon that possesses an interesting old Court House of the fifteenth century, and a fine old Tudor gateway, and shortly after this we found ourselves at Thame, and there we took a by-road to our right that for some miles led us through a quiet, pastoral land, and eventually we came out on the main London to Oxford road. Then we drove eastward. This portion of the Oxford road as far as to West Wycombe runs through very pleasant country, as the many motorists who travel it well know, affording in parts wide prospects over a well-wooded country and climbing the Chilterns with many windings through a fragrant forest of firs.