The rolling undulations of the tamest
portions of the range are broken by combes whose sides are steep enough
to give a spice of adventure to their descent. The "prospects," as
such, are immeasurably superior to those obtainable from most of the
mountains of the north and west, where a distant view is rare by reason
of the surrounding chain of heights, and where the chance of any view
at all to reward the climber is remote unless he chooses that fortnight
in early June or late September when the peaks are usually unshrouded.
Really bad weather, long continued, is uncommon in the Down country. A
dull or wet spell is soon over. The writer has set out from Worthing in
a thin drizzle of the soaking variety, descending from a sky of lead
stretching from horizon to horizon, which in the north would be
accepted as an institution of forty-eight hours at least, and on
arriving at the summit of Chanctonbury has been rewarded by a glorious
green and gold expanse glittering under a dome of intense blue.
[Illustration: MARKET CROSS, ALFRISTON.]
From the wooded heights of the Hampshire border to that grand headland
where the hills find their march arrested by the sea, the escarpment of
the Downs is sixty miles long and every mile is beautiful.
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