Louis Jennings's description, in _Field Paths and Green Lanes_, of the Portsmouth road as he saw it in 1876, is worth reading at Hindhead on a summer day:-- It is with surprise that in this lonely waste one sees, between the Devil's Punch Bowl and the top of the hill, a fine, broad, and well-kept road; nor is that surprise diminished when you come upon it, and find that it is as hard and smooth as any road in a private park can possibly be. There are very few marks of wheels to be found upon it, but abundant traces of sheep. This is the main Portsmouth road, and to any one who knows what the roads are in country places, and even in large towns, throughout the United States, this splendid thoroughfare must seem one of the greatest curiosities in England; for the traffic of London Bridge might be driven along it, and even in this steep and wild country it is kept in the most perfect order. I declare that I stood looking at that road in amazement for pretty nearly quarter of an hour, and I am inclined to think that if I had stayed there till now I should not have seen anybody or anything coming along it in either direction. Will the tide of English summer travel ever again turn towards England itself? The tide turns every Saturday and Sunday. But besides the tide, for which policemen set traps along the level road, Hindhead maintains a colony of its own. The western side of the hill and Grayshott on the Hampshire slope are almost a town. Grayshott lies actually in Hampshire, but geographically it belongs to Hindhead; so do Waggoner's Wells, a string of ponds rather like the Shottermill trout hatchery, but set much more prettily among trees.