For any one not fully acquainted with the county, and desirous of thoroughly learning its character, the best plan is to take one of the several routes which traverse it, and to make his journey slowly. The county is so diversified, its changes of scenery are so rapid, and the slight falls and rises of the Weald make each so considerable a difference to the view, that quick travelling will never teach a man the nature of Sussex. It is on this account that the millions who have gone and come by the railway between London and the sea coast have not retained so much as the knowledge that they have passed through the most distinctive county in England. The same is undoubtedly true of the motor car of to-day. What man travelling at fifteen to twenty miles an hour recognises the moment when he crosses the county boundary, or picks out, as he flashes by, the brickwork of a true Sussex gable? There are but two ways of learning Sussex: on horseback and on foot; and of these the first, for those who can afford it, is the best. As to the line to be followed, those who have the leisure should certainly traverse two--the one from north to south, the other from east to west. And for the benefit of those who may be inclined to try the experiment, there shall be detailed here the way in which such a journey may best be undertaken. It will be remembered that we have seen, with regard to the Weald, that its original clearings with their isolated farmhouses were united by random winding tracks--not true ways, such as [Illustration: HARTFIELD] [Sidenote: THE OLD FOREST TRACKS] the old deep-cut British road under the Downs, still less properly engineered or civilised roads, but mere forest paths rambling with but a general direction, and linking up one steading with another. Now it is a remarkable fact that the lines of these original tracks are in great part preserved; in places they have been destroyed by the plough, in others they have merged into the great highways of the county, but much of them still remains in the form of secluded and tortuous lanes which are sometimes partly metalled, sometimes flagged on a packhorse path with Sussex marble, and sometimes left green. If a traveller will take one of these where it enters the county and pursue it to the Downs, he will get as true a conception of the way in which the Weald has grown up, of its primeval woodland, and of the nature of its clearings as it is possible to obtain. He will discover that to this day very much of the curious loneliness of the Weald survives within a mile or two of its most populous towns, and the impression of his two days’ march (or one day if he is a great walker--the distance will commonly be under twenty-five miles) will teach him more of the county than any amount of bicycling along its main roads.