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The Undercliff stretches along the southern coast for several miles to the westward of Bonchurch an irregular terrace formed by the sliding forward of the chalk-downs, which dip gently towards the sea. This makes a lofty natural terrace, backed by cliffs to the northward and open to the full influence of the southern sun.
Goodwood is the seat of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, who has a fine park, and a valuable picture-gallery particularly rich in historical portraits. At Bigner, twelve miles from Chichester over the chalk-downs, are the remains of an extensive Roman villa, the buildings and pavements having been exhumed for a space of six hundred by three hundred and fifty feet.
The bold and picturesque chalk-cliffs tower far above the sea, their dazzling whiteness relieved by the rich green foliage. Some of these hills rise four hundred feet, forming the chalk-downs that are the backbone of this most attractive island. Among these hills are bewitching little vales and glens, and almost every favored spot is availed of as a villa site.
On the northern verge of the chalk-downs, and about fifteen miles south of London, is the famous race-course at Epsom, whither much of London goes for a holiday on the "Derby Day."
Following up the Medina River a few miles, almost to the centre of the island, it leads to the metropolis, the little town of Newport, and here, upon an outer precipice of the chalk-downs overlooking the river-valley and the town, and elevated two hundred feet above the sea, is Carisbrooke Castle.
Proceeding eastward along the chalk-downs and over the border into Kent, we reach the Wealden formation, the "wooded land" of that county so named by the Saxons which stretches between the North and South Downs, the chalk-formations bordering this primeval forest, but now almost entirely transformed into a rich agricultural country.
The view from the top of Leith Hill is grand, although it takes some exertion to get there, and it discloses a panorama of typical English scenery over the white chalk-downs, dappled with green and the darker woodland, with the Thames lowlands far away to the north, while to the southward the land falls abruptly to the great valley of the Weald, a plain of rich red earth, with woods and grainfields and hedgerows stretching away to the dim line of the South Downs at the horizon.
The bold chalk-downs rise from their craggy bases, the guardians of the broken terrace intervening between them and the sea. Foliage and ivy cling to them; flowers cluster on the turf and banks and gleam in the crevices; and little streams come down the ravines. Here was the smallest church of England St. Lawrence twenty feet long, twelve wide, and six feet high to the eaves.
You can see now why the chalk-downs at Winchester are always green, even in the hottest summer: because Madam How has put under them her great chalk sponge. The winter rains soak into it; and the summer heat draws that rain out of it again as invisible steam, coming up from below, to keep the roots of the turf cool and moist under the blazing sun. You love that short turf well.
But he is a thorough good fellow nevertheless; quite as good as I: civil, contented, industrious, and often very handsome; and a far shrewder fellow too owing to his dash of wild forest blood, from gipsy, highwayman; and what not than his bullet-headed and flaxen- polled cousin, the pure South-Saxon of the Chalk-downs.
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