For two miles the road, magnificent in surface and in breadth, one of the finest in England, followed the bottom of the valley, falling in that distance some 300 feet; and in all this part it was most evidently the oldest of ways across these hills. There could be repeated of it what has been said above with regard to the road between Bishop Sutton and Ropley, and what will appear further on in the valley of the Wey: that any track, ancient or modern, was bound to follow the same course. For the dry and porous soil permitted a journey even under the earliest conditions along the lowest points, and, so permitted, such a journey had the advantage of descending by the easiest gradient. Had it taken to the hillside it would have fallen at last upon Alton by way of a steep spur. Moreover, the bottom of the valley is here constant in direction, not curving as we had found it on the far side of the watershed, and this direction deviates little from the straight line to Alton. These characters do not attach to the London turnpike after the fifteenth milestone is passed; it turns somewhat sharply to the right (or southward) and falls by a corner into the road from the Meon valley at the entry of Chawton village. Such a course one may be certain was not followed by the Old Road. It could not but have preserved the alignment which the valley had already given it, and which corresponds, moreover, with the High Street of Alton itself. For these seven furlongs there can be no doubt that it continued straight along the dip of the valley, and entered Alton on the northern side[20] of the triangular common called 'The Butts,' by which one approaches the town from the south-west. We were unable to prove this by direct examination; the main line of railway has here obliterated much by an embankment, and to this has been added all the new work of the Meon valley line, and the junction. The ground has therefore lost all its original character, and its oldest marks have disappeared. We made no attempt to follow the direct path for this short mile. We descended the high-road round by Chawton to Alton, and the first division of our task, the division in which a greater proportion of uncertainty would exist than in any other, was accomplished. Comforted by such a thought, we drank mild ale at the 'Three Tuns' for about half an hour. FOOTNOTES: [8] The prosperity of the Jews in the early Middle Ages was remarkable. They have been said to have accumulated 46 per cent. of the total personalty of England in little more than the first century of their operations. This is an error, due to overlooking the fact that for the Saladin Tithe the Jew was taxed one fourth and not one-tenth of his goods. The true figure should be about 25½ per cent. But even that is astonishing for perhaps one per cent. of the population. It supposes an average Jewish fortune twenty-five times larger than the average English one.