The Ouse is the river of the pleasant county town of Lewes. This rare old town, on its chalk hill, with downs surrounding it, and with the Ouse, on whose right bank it is spread, adding to its attractions, ranks in interest with Chester and Durham. The great battle which was fought on May 14th, 1264, is the event of which the local historians are most proud. As we have seen, it was at Fletching Common that De Montfort encamped his soldiers, and thence he sent a couple of bishops the day before the battle on a fruitless errand to the king, who was quartered at the priory. The most sanguinary slaughter appears to have taken place south of the town, where the Ouse was crossed by a bridge; and the river with its marshy flats assisted in the destruction, for many knights were discovered after the battle stuck in the swamp, "sitting on their horses, in complete armour, and with drawn swords in their lifeless hands." The Ouse cannot be said to be picturesque; at Lewes it has long lost the sparkle which characterised it in the forest outskirts; but from any elevated point of Lewes Castle, notably the western keep, the easy stream may be seen as it is about to disappear between the hills. The disestablished locks between Cuckfield and Lewes indicate a brisk bygone barge traffic. Early in the present century the river was navigable for barges of forty tons burden for ten miles without interruption, and thence beyond Lindfield in the Hayward's Heath country. In early times it was probably a broad estuary extending to Lewes itself, and at some time found an outlet to the sea at Seaford, three miles to the east. This, however, is very ancient history, for the river was brought back to its present channel in the sixteenth century. Shoreham, the humble and dull attendant upon Brighton, has an advantage over the great watering-place--which is streamless--in being situated on a river. It is not a beautiful place, but it has something of a harbour, in which you may find port in a storm, and it has a bridge across the /Adur/. This river comes down from openings in the hills, having passed through pretty country, with such villages as Bramber (where there was once a broad estuary in which vessels anchored) and Steyning. The source of the Adur on the borders of St. Leonard's Forest has been previously mentioned; but there are at least two other rills that have an equal claim. From Henfield the river runs south, through pasture land, and, as we have seen, winds past Bramber, supposed to be the Portus Adurni of the Romans. There is very little of the castle left, and that is almost hidden by trees. At New Shoreham the Adur turns eastward, and runs for a while parallel with the seashore.