Wild Life in a Southern County. Richard Jefferies
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hence, on the most barren and wildest part of the down, there yet linger some stunted oaks interspersed among the ash copses which to this day are called ‘the Chace’ and are proved by documentary evidence to stand on the site of an ancient deer forest. A deer forest, too, there is (though seven or eight miles distant, yet on the same range of hills) to this very day tenanted by the antlered stag. Such evidence could be multiplied; but this is enough to establish the fact that for the whole breadth of the hills to have been covered with wood is well within possibility.
I may even go further, and say that, if left to itself, it would in a few generations revert to that condition; for this reason: that when a clump of trees is planted here, experience has shown that it is not so much the wind or the soil which hinders their growth as the attacks of animals wild and tame. Rabbits in cold, frosty weather have a remarkable taste for the bark of the young ash-saplings: they nibble it off as clean as if stripped with a knife, of course frequently killing the plant. Cattle—of which a few wander on the hills—are equally destructive to the young green shoots or ‘tops’ of many trees. Young horses especially will bark almost any smooth-barked tree, not to eat, but as if to relieve their teeth by tearing it off. In the meadows all the young oaks that spring up from dropped acorns out in the grass are invariably torn up by cattle and the still closer-cropping sheep. If the sheep and cattle were removed, and the plough stood still for a century, ash and beech and oak and hawthorn would reassert themselves, and these wide, open downs become again a vast forest, as doubtless they were when the beaver and the marten, the wild boar and the wolf, roamed over the country.
This great earthwork, crowning a ridge from whence a view for many miles could have been obtained over the tops of the primeval trees, must then have had a strangely different strategical position to what it now seemingly occupies in the midst of almost treeless hills. Possibly, too, the powerful effect of so many square miles of vegetation in condensing vapour may have had a distinct influence upon the rainfall, and have rendered water more plentiful than now: a consideration which may help to explain the manner in which these ancient forts were held.
The general deficiency of moisture characteristic of these chalk hills is such that it is said agriculture flourishes best upon them in what is called a ‘dropping’ summer, when there is a shower every two or three days, the soil absorbing it so quickly. For the grass and hay crops down below in the vale, and for the arable fields there with a stiff heavy soil, on the other hand, a certain amount of dry weather is desirable, else the plough cannot work in its seasons nor the crops ripen or the harvest be garnered in. So that the old saying was that in a drought the vale had to feed the hill, and in a wet year the hill had to feed the vale: which remains true to a considerable extent, so far at least as the cattle are concerned, and was probably true of men and their food also before the importation of corn in such immense quantities placed both alike free from anxiety on that account. This deficiency of moisture being borne in mind, it is a little curious to find ponds of water on the very summit of the down.
Scarcely a quarter of a mile from the earthwork, and on a level with it—close to the clump of firs and beech alluded to previously—there may be seen on this warm summer day a broad, circular, pan-like depression partially filled with water. Being on the very top of the ridge, and only so far sunk as to hold a sufficient quantity, there is little or no watershed to drain into the pond; neither is there a spring or any other apparent source of supply. It would naturally be imagined that in this exposed position, even if filled to the brim by heavy storms of rain, a week of sultry sunshine would evaporate it to the last drop; instead of which, excepting, of course, unusually protracted spells of dry weather such as only come at lengthy intervals, there will always be found some water here; even under the blazing sunshine a shallow pool remains, and in ordinary times the circular basin is half full.
It is of quite modern construction, and, except indirectly, has no bearing upon the water-supply of the earthwork, having been made within a few years only for the convenience of the stock kept upon the hill farms. Some special care is taken in puddling the bottom and sides to prevent leakage, and a layer of soot is usually employed to repel boring grubs or worms which would otherwise make their holes through and let the water soak into the thirsty chalk beneath. In wet weather the pond quickly fills; once full, it is afterwards kept up by the condensation of the thick, damp mists, the dew and cloud-like vapours, that even in the early mornings of the hot summer days so frequently cling about the downs. These more than supply the waste from evaporation, so that the basin may be called a dew-pond. The mists that hang about the ridges are often almost as laden with moisture as a rain-cloud itself. They deposit a thick layer of tiny bead-like drops upon the coat of the wayfarer, which seem to cling after the manner of oil. Though these hills have not the faintest pretensions to be compared with mountains, yet when the rainy clouds hang low they often strike the higher ridges, which from a distance appear blotted out entirely, and are then receiving a misty shower.
Then there rise up sometimes thick masses of vapour which during the night have gathered over the brooks and water-meadows, the marshy places of the vale, and now come borne on the breeze rolling along the slopes; and, as these pass over the dew-pond, doubtless its colder water condenses that portion which draws down into the depression where it stands. In winter the vapours clinging about the clumps of beech freeze to the boughs, forming, not a rime merely, like that seen in the vale, but a kind of ice-casing, while icicles also depend underneath. Now, if a wind comes sweeping across the hill with sudden blast, these glittering appendages rattle together loudly, and there falls a hail of jagged icy fragments. When one has seen the size and quantity of these, it becomes more easy to understand the amount of water which an intangible vapour may carry with it to be condensed into the pond or congealed upon the tree.
There is another such a pond half a mile or more from the earthwork in another direction, but also on a level, making two upon this high and exposed down. Many others are scattered about—they have become more numerous of late years. Several are situate on the lower plateau, which is also dry enough. Toiling over the endless hills in the summer heats, I have often been driven by necessity of thirst to taste a little of the water contained in them, though well knowing the inevitable result. The water has a dead flavour: it is not stagnant in the sense of impurity, but dead, even when quite clear. In a few moments after tasting it, the mouth dries, with a harsh unpleasant feeling as if some impalpable dusty particles had got into the substance of the tongue. This is caused probably by suspended chalk, of which it tastes; for assuaging thirst, therefore, it is worse than useless in summer: very different is the exquisitely limpid cool liquid which bubbles out in the narrow coombes far below.
The indirect bearing of the phenomena of these dew-ponds upon the water-supply of the ancient fort is found in the evidence they supply that under different conditions the deposit of moisture here might have been very much larger. The ice formed upon the branches of the beech trees in winter proves that water is often present in the atmosphere in large quantities; all it requires is something to precipitate it. Therefore, if these hills were once clothed with forest, as previously suggested, it appears possible that the primitive inhabitants, after all, may have carried on their agriculture with less difficulty, and have been able to store up water in their camps with greater ease, than would be the case at present. This may explain the traces of primeval cultivation to be seen here on the barest bleakest, and most unpromising hillsides. Such traces may be discovered at intervals all along the slope, on the summit, and near the foot of the down at the rear of the entrenchment.
It is easy to pass almost over them without observing the nearly obliterated marks—the faint lines left on the surface by the implements of men in the days when the first Caesar was yet a living memory. These marks are like some of the little used paths which traverse the hills: if you look along way in front you can see them tolerably distinctly, but under your feet they are invisible, the turf being only so slightly worn by wayfarers. So, to find the signs of ancient fields, look for them from a distance as you approach along the slope; then you will see squares and parallelograms dimly defined upon the sward by slightly raised and narrow banks, green with the grass that has grown over them for so many centuries.
They have the appearance sometimes of shallow terraces raised one above the other, rising with the slope of the down. This terrace formation is perhaps occasionally artificial; but in some cases, I think, the natural conformation of the ground has been taken