But in its wild scenery lies its greatest charm. From every hill-top gleam the blue waters of the English Channel, broken in the foreground by the long line of the Isle of Wight downs and the white chalk walls of the Needles. Nowhere, in extent at least, spread such stretches of heath and moor, golden in the spring with the blaze of furze, and in the autumn purple with heather, and bronzed with the fading fern. Nowhere in England rise such oak-woods, their boughs rimed with the frostwork of lichens, and dark beech-groves with their floor of red brown leaves, on which the branches weave their own warp and woof of light and shade. Especially to its scenery I would call attention. This, above all, I wish to impress on the reader, seeing that beauty is one of the chief ends and aims of nature: and that the ground beneath our feet is decked with flowers, and the sky above our heads is painted, with a thousand colours, to cheer man as he goes to his work in the morning, and to fill his heart with thankfulness as he returns at evening. Now, neither are scarcely ever seen. The flowers cannot grow in our stony streets: the glory of the morning and evening is blotted out by the fog of smoke which broods over our cities. As the population grows, our commons and waste lands disappear. Our large towns have swollen into provinces. Fashion sways the rich. Necessity compels the poor to live in them. As our wealth increases, our love for nature contracts. One, therefore, of the chief objects of this book is to show how much quiet beauty and how much interest lie beside our doors—to, point out to the reader who may be jaded by the toils of Fashion or Labour where in England there are still some thirty miles of moorland and woodland left uncultivated, over which he can wander as he pleases. And here, if this book should induce any readers to visit the Forest, let me earnestly advise them to do so, as far as possible, on foot. I see but this main difference between rich and poor—that the poor work to get money, the rich spend money to get work. And I know no better way for Englishmen to use their superfluous energies than in learning their own country by walking over its best scenes. I will only ask any one to make the experiment between walking and driving over the same ground; and see how much he will learn by the one, how much lose by the other method. In the one case, he simply hurries or stops, at the discretion of some ignorant driver, who regards him of less importance than his horses; in the other, he can pause to sketch many a scene before invisible, can at his leisure search each heath or quarry for flowers or fossils, can turn aside across the field-paths to any village church, or wander through any wood which may invite him to its solitude, and, above all, know the pleasure of being tired, and the sweetness of rest in the noontide shade. [Illustration: The Entrance from Barrow’s Moor to Mark Ash.]