Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 December 1883 — An Old English Highway. [ARTICLE]

An Old English Highway.

One of the most interesting of English highways is the old coach road from London to Portsmouth. Its interest is in part due to the charming scenery through which it runs, but as much to memories of a by-gone time. One traveling this road at the present day might well deem it lonely, as there will be met on it only the liveried equipage of some local magnate, the more unpretentious turn-out of country doctor or parson, with here and there a lumbering farm wagon, or the farmer himself, in his smart two-wheeled “trap,” on the way to a neighboring market, How different it was half a century ago, when along this same highway fifty four-horse stages were “tooled” to and fro between England’s metropolis and her chief seaport town, top heavy with fares—often a noisy crowd, of jovial Jack-tars, just off a cruise and making Londonward, or with faces set for Portsmouth, once more to breast the billows and brave the dangers of the’ deep! Many a naval officer of name and fame historic, such as the Rodneys, Cochranes, Collingwoods, and Codringtons —even Nile’s hero himself—has been whirled along this old. highway. All that is over now, and long has been. To-day the iron horse, with its rattling train, carries such travelers by a different route —the screech of its whistle being just audible to wayfarers on the old road, as in mockery of their crawling pace. Of its ancient glories there remain only the splendid causeway, still kept in repair, and the inns encountered at short distances sipart, many of them once grand hostelries. They, however, are not in repair; instead, altogether out of it. Their walls are cracked and crumbling to ruins, the ample court-yards are grassgrown, and the stables empty, Or •occupied only' by half a dozen clumsy cart-horses: while of human kind moving around will be a lout or two in smock-frocks, where gaudily-dressed postilions, booted and spurred, with natty ostlers in sleeved waistcoats, tightfitting breeches, and gaiters once ruled the roast. Among other ancient landmarks on this now little-used highway is one of dark and tragic import. , Beyond the town of Petersfield, going southward, the road winds up a long, steep ridge of chalk formation—the “Southdowns,” which have given their name to the celebrated breed of sheep. Near the summit is a crater-like depression, several hundred feet in depth, around whose rim the causeway is carried—a dark and dismal hole, so weird of aspect as to have earned for it the np-

pellation of the “Devil’s Punch Bowl.” —Mayne Reid.