Leith Hill is not for the multitude which climbs Box Hill. It is further from London, and further from a railway station. But it calls its own companies of travellers, and they are often large; the roads from Holmwood, which is the nearest station, are lined with notices indicating the right direction. When brakes carry excursionists from Holmwood, the brakes halt at the foot, and the visitors climb. The climb ends in a tower with a story. It was built by Richard Hull, eldest bencher of the Inner Temple and member of several Irish Parliaments. He built it, his Latin inscription informs you, for the enjoyment of himself and his neighbours, and six years later, in 1772, he was buried under it. Gratefully enough, the neighbourhood rifled the dead man's tower of its doors and windows; then, by way of compensation, to prevent more robbery, filled it half full of cement. It was left to the late owner of Wotton, Mr. W.J. Evelyn, in 1863 to restore the building and to add a staircase, and I believe the platform of the roof stands now exactly a thousand feet above sea level. [Illustration: _Friday Street._] The full view from Leith Hill has been described by a number of very fortunate persons. Aubrey was one of the first, and he estimated that the whole circumference of the horizon could not be less than two hundred miles. It is probably more. But did Aubrey ever see the full vision? If he did, he climbed the hill on a lucky day. English weather sends few days clear enough of mist to set a sharp outline on the Kentish downs, the Buckinghamshire hills and the slopes of Wiltshire, and the combination of transparent air and presence in the neighbourhood of a great height must be rare for ordinary men. Yet Leith Hill, even on the mistiest day, can give the true notion of height. The first day I climbed it was after a night of July rain. A wind had sprung up and seemed from the lower roads about the hill to have blown the distance clear. Then came an hour of hot sunshine, and the sudden view of the weald was of a sea of cloud. For two or three miles, perhaps, near the hill the oaks and elms, the roofs and the roads were plain enough. Beyond swam an infinite veil. But the sense of height, of detachment, remained.