“Dunstable,” says Ogilby, writing in 1675, “is full of Inns for Accommodation, and noted for good Larks.” This would seem to hint at an unwonted sprightliness in the hostelries and town of Dunstable, were it not that larks bore but one signification in Ogilby’s day. Slang had not then stepped in to give the word a double meaning. Of the notable old inns of Dunstable the “Sugarloaf” remains, roomy and staid, reprobating unseemliness. Larks, like Dunstable wool in still older days, and straw-plaiting in more recent times, no longer render the town notable. Straw-plaiting and hat-making are, it is true, yet carried on, but the industry is a depressed one. A greater feature, perhaps, is seen in the extensive printing works established here in recent years by the great London firm of Waterlow & Sons. XX From Dunstable the road enters a deep chalk cutting through the Downs—similar to, but not so great a work as, the chalky gash through Butser Hill, on the Portsmouth Road. In this mile-length of cutting the traveller stews on still summer days, blinded by the chalky glare; or, when it blows great autumnal guns and snow-laden winter gales, whistling and roaring through this exposed gullet with the sound of a railway train, freezes to his very marrow. Before this cutting was made, and the “spoil” from it used in the making of the great embankment that carries the road above the deep succeeding valley, this was a precipitous ascent and descent, and a cruel tax upon horses. Looking backwards, the embankment is impressive, even in these days of great engineering feats, and proves to the eye how vigorously the question of road reform was being grappled with just before the introduction of railways. From this point the famous Dunstable Downs are well seen, rising in bold terraces and swelling hills from the hollow, and receding in fold upon fold of treeless wastes where the prehistoric Icknield Way runs and the stone implements and flint arrows dropped by primitive man for lack of reliable pockets, are found. [Illustration: DUNSTABLE DOWNS.]