landscape and its soil, and of the relief upon which it is built. The reader may perhaps grasp in one glance the Wealden heights running along the northern horizon, the wide rolling belt of the clay weald between those heights and the Downs broken here and there by rocks and sandstone, patched with pines, the Downs themselves running in one vast wall for their fifty or sixty miles of stretch from the Hampshire border to Beachy Head, and the coastal plain to the south of them. There have also been indicated in this first part of the book, though briefly, the various types of towns and villages and buildings which these four belts produce; it has been shown how the parallelism of all the four tilts somewhat from the north-west to the south-east, so that all four end at last upon the sea; and it has been shown how the rivers run from the Weald, cut right through the Downs, and form along the coast the main harbours of the county. With such a general plan before us we can go on to speak more particularly of the history upon which modern Sussex reposes, and to describe in more detail the towns and the sites connected with the story of this countryside: of Chichester which was its spiritual capital; Arundel, Bramber, and Lewes, which were its defences; Midhurst, Petworth, Pulborough, Horsham, Steyning, Uckfield, and the rest, which are still its Wealden market towns; its six ancient harbours, and the recent change which more numerous roads and more rapid methods of locomotion have begun to bring upon the county, not wholly for its good. [Illustration: CHURCH STREET, STEYNING] PART II THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SUSSEX The pre-history of Sussex is unknown. The county does not lie (as a first glance at the map might suggest) upon the main track between the metallic districts of the West of England and the Straits of Dover. That track was forced north by the indent of Southampton Water, and pursued its way, perhaps originally through Salisbury Plain, ultimately through Winchester, and so by Farnham, where it struck and followed the North Downs to Canterbury, which was the common centre for the ports of the Kentish coast. Sussex, moreover, was not only off this main prehistoric trade route, but also, as has been previously explained in the first portion of this book, was cut off to some extent on the north by the Weald, and to the east and to the west by Romney Marsh and Chichester Harbour respectively.