Shottermill that George Eliot made the acquaintance of this country, which she describes as unsurpassable in "its particular style of beauty--perpetual undulation of heath and copse, and clear views of hurrying water, with here and there a grand pine-wood, steep wood-clothed promontories and gleaming pools." If one might take exception to any words of such a writer, running water in clear view is not characteristic about Hindhead, unless at the bottom of the Punch Bowl, or in the case of that branch of the Wey which she had beside her in the Shottermill valley. Such are hints of the scenes opening out to explorers on what may at first sight seem a monotonous stretch of heath and pine-woods, with this good quality for feeble folks, that, once at the top, they can ramble some way without any trying ups and downs. "Eyes or no eyes," its visitors cannot but be sensible of that "ampler ether," those restoring breezes that blow over Hindhead, untainted by smoky towns or misty flats. Too soon passes its season of purple glory; but it has other charms that win on one by familiarity. Its very winter is apt to show a more cheerful face than on the sodden, muggy lowlands; then always it lies open to the painting of the sky, from crisp clear mornings, when "not yet are Christmas garlands sere," till that evening of the year, when-- Red o'er the forest peers the setting sun, The line of yellow light dies fast away That crowned the eastern copse; and chill and dun Falls on the moor the brief November day. Keble, like other writers of our day, means by _moor_ the heathy uplands that are the chief ornament of Hindhead. But Spenser's "moorish Colne" hints to us how, in the south of England at least, this name has implied rather such marshy and rushy flats as, about Thursley, are still vernacularly called the "moor" _par excellence_. These lowerlying skirts have beauties of their own, and seldom fail to be at least patched with the richer material spread out to dry on the heights.