Ever since the middle of March I have been trying remedies for the _hooping-cough_, and have, I believe, tried everything, except riding, wet to the skin, two or three hours amongst the clouds on the South Downs. This remedy is now under trial. As Lord Liverpool said, the other day, of the Irish Tithe Bill, it is "under experiment." I am treating my disorder (with better success, I hope) in somewhat the same way that the pretty fellows at Whitehall treat the disorders of poor Ireland. There is one thing in favour of this remedy of mine, I shall _know_ the effect of it, and that, too, in a short time. It rained a little last night. I got off from Petworth without baiting my horse, thinking that the weather looked suspicious; and that St. Swithin meaned to treat me to a dose. I had no great-coat, nor any means of changing my clothes. The hooping-cough made me anxious; but I had fixed on going along the South Downs from Donnington Hill down to Lavant, and then to go on the flat to the South foot of Portsdown Hill, and to reach Fareham to-night. Two men, whom I met soon after I set off, assured me that it would not rain. I came on to Donnington, which lies at the foot of that part of the South Downs which I had to go up. Before I came to this point, I crossed the Arun and its canal again; and here was another place of deposit for timber, lime, coals, and other things. White, in his history of Selborne, mentions a hill, which is one of the Hindhead group, from which two springs (one on each side of the hill) send water into the _two seas_: the _Atlantic_ and the _German Ocean_! This is big talk: but it is a fact. One of the streams becomes the _Arun_, which falls into the Channel; and the other, after winding along amongst the hills and hillocks between Hindhead and Godalming, goes into the river _Wey_, which falls into the Thames at Weybridge. The soil upon leaving Petworth, and at Petworth, seems very good; a fine deep loam, a sort of mixture of sand and soft chalk. I then came to a sandy common; a piece of ground that seemed to have no business there; it looked as if it had been tossed from Hindhead or Blackdown. The common, however, during the rage for "improvements," has been _enclosed_. That impudent fellow, Old Rose, stated the number of Enclosure Bills as an indubitable proof of "national prosperity." There was some _rye_ upon this common, the sight of which would have gladdened the heart of Lord Liverpool. It was, in parts, not more than eight inches high. It was ripe, and, of course, the straw dead; or I should have found out the owner, and have bought it to make _bonnets_ of! I defy the Italians to grow worse rye than this. The reader will recollect that I always said that we could grow _as poor_ corn as any Italians that ever lived. The village of Donton lies at the foot of one of these great chalk ridges which are called the South Downs. The ridge in this place is, I think, about three-fourths of a