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.
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