has become traditional and some have been built by shepherds still living.  These pools of clear cool water high up on the crest of a hill gain a mysterious air by their position, but their existence is capable of a scientific explanation.  Built in the first place to be as nearly as possible non-conducting, with an impervious “puddled” bottom, the pond is renewed every night to a certain extent by the dew which trickles down each grass and reed stem into the reservoir beneath, and to a much greater extent by the mists which drift over the edge to descend in rain on the Weald.  The pools might well be called “cloud ponds.”

[Illustration:  Willingdon.]

The most lovely scenes, the best view points, are described in their proper place.  The question as to which is the finest section of the Downs must be left to the individual explorer.  To some natures the free bare wind-swept expanse at the back of Brighton will appeal the most.  By others the secret woods which climb from hidden combe and dry gully, mostly terminating in a bare top, and which are all west of the Arun, will be considered incomparably the best.  To every man of Lewes the isolated mass of hills which rise on the east of the town are the Downs.  But all must be seen to be truly appreciated and loved as they will be loved.

Hotels will not be found in the Downs; the tourist who cannot live without them will find his wants supplied within but a few miles at any of the numerous Londons by the Sea; but that will not be Sussex pure and undefiled, and if simplicity and cleanliness, enough to eat and drink, and a genuine welcome are all that is required, he will find these in our Downland inns.

It is in the more remote of these hostelries that the inquisitive stranger will hear the South Saxon dialect in its purity and the slow wit of the Sussex peasant at its best.  The old Downland shepherd with embroidered smock and Pyecombe crook is vanishing fast, and with him will disappear a good deal of the character which made the Sussex native essentially different from his cousins of Essex and Wessex.

[Illustration:  Lamb inn, Eastbourne.]

One of the most delightful records of rustic life ever printed is that study in the “Wealden Formation of Human Nature” by the former rector of Burwash, John Cocker Egerton, entitled Sussex Folk and Sussex Ways.  True, the book is mainly about Wealden men and we are more concerned with the hill tribes, but the shrewd wit and quaint conceits of the South Saxon portrayed therein will be readily recognized by the leisurely traveller who has the gift of making himself at home with strangers.  It is to be hoped that in the great and epoch-making changes that are upon us in this twentieth century some at least of the individual characteristics of the English peasantry will remain.  It is the divergent and opposite traits of the tribes which make up the English folk that have helped to make us great.  May we long be preserved from a Wellsian uniformity!