THE LANGDON HILLS.

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a roof bronzed and tinted with age, green with mosses here and there; the small window also was gay with scarlet geraniums and fuchsias, two flowers that appear to be the special favourites of cottagers, and that always seem to flourish with them. A cottage it was that suggested Devonshire to us, rather than the eastern counties; possibly our imagination was heightened by the wooded hills beyond-hills that certainly did not give us the impression of a county as flat as a pancake,' as a popular writer has termed Essex, which only proves to me that some people glibly describe places that they have never taken the trouble to see. Indeed, a certain guide-book compiler whom I chanced to meet during my wanderings, taking his holiday at a watering-place, in an unguarded moment honestly confessed to me that he had visited scarcely one of the numerous places and picturesque spots that he professed to give an account of: How could I see them?' he said; 'the sum I was paid for the copy, though fairly liberal as such work is paid for, would not have recouped me for my time and hotel expenses; the thing could not be done. No, I collected all the works I could relating to the part of the country I was commissioned to write upon, and gathered my information from them, and one of books was amongst the number.'`

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Reaching the top of the Langdon Hills we came upon a homely little hostel; here we obtained a modest meal and a welcome rest; but, though modest our repast, it was served nicely upon a scrupulously clean cloth, the ale was cool and clear, and the charge

for two of us gave change from half-a-crown, and, marvellous to say, the civil waitress (not charged for in the bill) did not loiter about—as is the usual wont of her kind to be remembered, though she did not lose thereby. As we were about to leave we were asked if we would care to go to the top of the house to see the view from there, which the landlady told us was very fine; so we went. A lad showed us up, but he, too, as soon as he had pointed out the different landmarks, suddenly disappeared and we saw no more of him. What a happy land this, where backsheesh is a thing unknown, and simple attentions are willingly given without looking for reward!

The prospect from the highest point of the Langdon Hills is one worth going far to see. It is astonishing that a spot of so much beauty (possessing a peculiar character all its own, and not to be repeated in England) should be so near to town and so little known. For ourselves I must confess that it was quite by accident that we went to Langdon, and had it not been for our planless mode of wandering about country it never would have been seen by us. All of which goes to prove how much of interest, how many unknown spots await the traveller who explores the land in our rambling leisurely fashion, content merely to enjoy his outing and take his chance of the good things that are sure to come to him, careless of performing any definite itinerary.

From where we stood we looked down through the sun-filled air upon a glorious expanse of waving woods, green meadows, and red tilled fields, down upon miles of smiling verdure dotted here and there

A GLORIOUS PROSPECT.

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with scattered farmsteads and red-roofed villages, with ever and again a peep of a distant church tower or spire: all this goodly prospect bounded only by the circling blue of the far-away horizon where land and sky were blended together in a dim dreamy uncertainty. Right through the heart of this map-like panorama wound the silvery Thames-at least it appeared silvery to us-we could trace the river's winding course from just below Purfleet in the west, to where it widened out and lost its identity in the long line of gleaming silver of the distant sea. A magnificent prospect, in truth, so space-expressing ; our vision rejoiced in its unaccustomed freedom, confined as it is for so great a portion of the year to the sadly limited vista of a London street. The stately river was dotted with ships outward and inward bound, from the mighty ocean steamer (so dwarfed by distance that it was difficult to realise that the tiny moving speck with the long trail of smoke behind was actually a little world afloat) to the humble barge: several of these picturesque craft were noticeable on the water, their many sails, light in sunshine and dark in shade, added greatly to the effect of the picture by the life they gave to it, and, as they glided downward with the tide, we watched them

pass on and on, and go

From less to less, and vanish into light.

Yet, though now so little known, the view from the Langdon Hills has often been written about and described by travellers of the last century, who being unblest with railways, when journeying this way,

could not but observe what was before them. If they went with slower speed than we do, they saw more, they were not taken into darksome tunnels under hills, or through gloomy cuttings just where the scenery is most beautiful, as are their descendants in this advanced age. And if in the light of this our day we consider that they made haste slowly, what of it? Life was not the feverish thing it is now, an endless rushing hither and thither, a ceaseless competition and striving for wealth; men then had time to live as well as to die; and it could hardly be said of our forefathers, the Puritans excepted (and I doubt much if they were as severe as some would have us believe), that they took their pleasures sadly.'

In times past then, when travelling Englishmen knew more of their own country than they do now, the view from the Langdon Hills was often stated to be the finest in England.' That experienced traveller Arthur Young, in his 'Six Weeks' Tour in the Southern Counties,' thus writes of this spot On the summit of a vast hill, one of the most astonishing prospects to be beheld breaks out almost at once from one of the dark lanes. Such a prodigious valley everywhere clothed with the finest verdure, and intersected with numberless hedges and woods, appears beneath you, that it is past description-the Thames winding through it full of ships, and bounded by the hills of Kent. Nothing can exceed it unless that which Hannibal exhibited to his disconsolate troops when he bade them behold the glories of the Italian plains. I beg

AN OLD TRAVELLER'S OPINION.

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go and view this enchanting scene

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you will never beheld anything equal to it, even in the West of England, that region of landscape.' Due allowance must, of course, be made for the grandiloquent and exaggerative language which our ancestors delighted to employ when describing scenery at all out of the common-place; still it must be noted that this skilled traveller had seen much of other lands besides his own, and the true value of his remarks can therefore be estimated by the comparisons he makes.

This of English views is certainly unique in one respect the prospect-which, by the way, comes suddenly upon the observer and gains greatly by the fact is uninterrupted in all directions, and the Thames, widening to a mighty river here, gives a sense of vastness to the scene more suggestive of Western America, that land of big rivers, mighty distances, and broad effects, than a portion of our tight little island,' where, as a rule, simple grandeur gives place to perfected beauty, and wild spaciousness to gem-like loveliness. In truth, as we looked seaward down upon our famous English river, where it flows on in the full majesty of its breadth and power, we felt, without a great strain upon our imagination, that we could fancy ourselves gazing upon one of those illimitable prospects that form so grand and impressive a feature of the wild western territories of the States.

Of the many thousands who go to Richmond Hill and delight in that popular and deservedly farfamed view of these thousands, how many, I wonder,

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