After South Warnborough we had a hilly drive over a down-like undulating country, and then we descended into Alton, where I have an idea they brew good ale. At Alton we put up at "The Swan," an old coaching inn of some former fame, and that still has a pleasantly prosperous look, keeps up its ancient reputation for good cheer, and presents a smiling front to the street. I found a fine bowling-green in the rear, and during the course of the evening some of the townsfolk forgathered there and played bowls quite seriously over their pipes and their ale. It may not be high art, but I noticed there was an art in playing bowls, and the old men who knew and studied it appeared mostly to win. A good old-fashioned game is bowls, that never seems wholly to go out of fashion, and a pleasant one to watch; engrossing too, for even Drake, when playing it on Plymouth Hoe with the dreaded Armada in sight, went on with his rub undisturbed. "There is no hurry," quoth he, and he quietly finished his game and then went and played ball with the Spaniards--but those were the days before steam. Now I never look on at a game of bowls but I think of bold Drake and those easy-going historic old days when, if they did things slowly, they did them very thoroughly. [Illustration: A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY DOORWAY.] Writing of the subject of inn gardens, I remember seeing somewhere on the way boldly displayed on the front of an inn the simple legend "Lovely Garden." I am glad to note that innkeepers are becoming aware of the attraction of a garden and so proclaim it: a garden where guests may escape from walled rooms into the fresh air, there to loiter at ease retired from the street and the crowd; to secure a bedroom looking over those gardens is a further attraction to me. It may be that special good-fortune attended me, but during the whole of my journey never once at my inn where I stopped for the night did I fail to find entertainment, either from host or from guest. I think I have said so before. Now here at "The Swan" was still another landlord both willing to gossip and wishful to entertain a lone wanderer in the smoke-room of his comfortable hostel. He brought me a time-yellowed paper of the seventeenth century having an advertisement of his inn, to show how long it had been in existence. In the same paper, I think it was, my eye caught the following announcement: "June 19th, 1684. The post will go every day, to and from, betwixt London and Epsom during the season for drinking the waters." Then Epsom was a fashionable Spa. Also he showed me an old posting bill of the house that was of some interest, for it was a bill paid by the Rev. Gilbert White for a postchaise from "The Swan" to Meon Stoke and back, when White was on a visit to a friend at that place; and thus the bill runs:-- HARROW. HAMPSHIRE--ALTON. Swan. Neat Post-Chaises. _£_ _s._ _d._ August 1st. Chaise to Meon Stoke 13 6