Even for quite small vessels the entry of Chichester Harbour is navigable only at high tide, but the exploration of it is delightful, whether one runs up Fishbourne Creek (which lands one near to Chichester) or, leaving this on the right, one goes straight on to the wharf of Bosham. There is, unfortunately, no river running from these creeks up into the county, but they form an excellent and sheltered mooring from which to start upon sails into the Solent just to hand. This method of learning the county, the entry from the sea, is the most natural, the most historic, and the most germane to the nature of Sussex. Every port one enters is the port of Rape, every river up which one’s dinghy takes one is the river along which the penetration of the county has proceeded in past times, and one upon which its principal market-towns will be found. So Chichester, Arundel, Steyning, Lewes, can be reached, and with more difficulty towns farther up the country. The whole manner in which Sussex has grown up is impressed upon the man who enters it from the Channel. Unfortunately it is the least familiar and perhaps least easy of all the ways in which the county may be approached, but those who care to try the experiment will find themselves well repaid for the exertion the method involves, especially as they explore one of those valleys which lead through the Downs and reveal section by section, as one goes up stream, every distinctive portion and contrast of the countryside, until the heart of the Weald is reached, and the traveller can see from his boat, as the pirate of the fifth century saw from a wider and more marshy stream, the long, straight escarpment of the hills closing the horizon and defining the land to which he was to give his language and his tribal name. INDEX Adur, River, 39, 40 Aella, legend of, 60 Alfordean Bridge, on Stane Street, 58 Amberley, antiquity of, 111 goes back to eighth century, 105 on old British trackway under the Downs, 15 position on Arun, 36, 37 Amberley Castle, 110 Anderida, legend of fall of, 60-61 upon site of Pevensey, 53 Angerming, mentioned in Doomsday, 105 Arun, maritime portion of, 38 Arun River, 35, 36 its advantages for sailing and boating, 186-188 Arundel, absence of Roman relics in, 53 early fortification of, 66 original site of bridge of, 109 Rape of. _See_ Rape of Arundel river valley of, 37 town of, probable great antiquity of, 107-109 Arundel Castle, new cut-flint work in, 32 view from river, 37, 38 Ashburnham, family of, 126 Ashington, family of, 14 Bar, absence of, at mouth of Ouse, 41 Bar, at mouth of Adur, 39 Barlavington, mentioned in Doomsday, 105 Barnham, mentioned in Doomsday, 105 Bartelotts of Stopham, 127 Battle, Monastery of, 119 position of, 44 Battle of Hastings, 71-74 Beach, value of to early navigators, 4 Beachy Head, 179 difficulties of sailing under, 183, 184 Beeding, mentioned in Alfred’s will, 101