it, compared with a country where high downs prevail, with here and there a large wood on the top or the side of a hill, and where you see, in the deep dells, here and there a farm-house, and here and there a village, the buildings sheltered by a group of lofty trees. This is my taste, and here, in the north of Hampshire, it has its full gratification. I like to look at the winding side of a great down, with two or three numerous flocks of sheep on it, belonging to different farms; and to see, lower down, the folds, in the fields, ready to receive them for the night. We had, when we got upon the downs, after leaving Winchester, this sort of country all the way to Whitchurch. Our point of destination was this village of Burghclere, which lies close under the north side of the lofty hill at Highclere, which is called Beacon Hill, and on the top of which there are still the marks of a Roman encampment. We saw this hill as soon as we got on Winchester Downs; and without any regard to _roads_, we _steered_ for it, as sailors do for a land-mark. Of these 13 miles (from Winchester to Whitchurch) we rode about eight or nine upon the _green-sward_, or over fields equally smooth. And here is one great pleasure of living in countries of this sort: no sloughs, no ditches, no nasty dirty lanes, and the hedges, where there are any, are more for boundary marks than for fences. Fine for hunting and coursing: no impediments; no gates to open; nothing to impede the dogs, the horses, or the view. The water is not _seen running_; but the great bed of chalk _holds it_, and the sun draws it up for the benefit of the grass and the corn; and, whatever inconvenience is experienced from the necessity of deep wells, and of driving sheep and cattle far to water, is amply made up for by the goodness of the water, and by the complete absence of floods, of drains, of ditches and of water-furrows. As _things now are_, however, these countries have one great drawback: the poor day-labourers suffer from the want of fuel, and they have nothing but their _bare pay_. For these reasons they are greatly worse off than those of the _woodland countries_; and it is really surprising what a difference there is between the faces that you see here and the round, red faces that you see in the _wealds_ and the _forests_, particularly in Sussex, where the labourers _will_ have a _meat-pudding_ of some sort or other; and where they _will_ have _a fire_ to sit by in the winter.