A further matter which every one who is familiar with them must have remarked upon the Downs, is the presence of numerous earthworks raised apparently for defence, and often of very great size. The classical instances of these and the most perfect examples are upon Mount Caburn and Cissbury, one of the foot-hills towards the sea, upon which research has proved that the prehistoric, the Roman, and the barbarian pirate inhabitants have lived in succession. Here was discovered that regular manufactory of flint instruments which is among the most curious prizes of modern prehistoric research, and here also Roman and Saxon ornaments have been found succeeding those of the neolithic men.
But though Cissbury is the most perfect, it is but one of very many similar camps. There is hardly one of the greater summits of the Downs that does not bear traces of these enclosures, and upon some of the hills, notably east of Ambery and again east of Bramber, they are as perfect as they are enormous. There can be little doubt that they were created for the purposes of defence, and the late General Pitt-Rivers conducted an
THE TUMULI
exhaustive inquiry into the number of men that would be required to garrison them, upon their structure, positions, and numbers in this and other countries. But the historical, or rather prehistoric problem which they present does not end with the discovery of their original use, for it is difficult to understand, first, where the multitudes can have come from which sufficed to man such considerable embankments; and, secondly, where provision, and above all water, can have been found for such garrisons; for though, as we have seen, the dew pans will always furnish water in certain amounts, they would never have sufficed for the large numbers which alone could hold from half-a-mile to a mile of rampart and ditch.
Associated with these old camps are the tumuli to be found throughout the whole length of the Downs, especially upon their main ridge. But the reader who is interested in such things must be warned against accepting too uncritically the evidence of the Ordnance Survey upon this matter. In the majority of cases it is right, especially with regard to the very interesting group of tombs just beyond the kennels at Upwaltham, above the Chichester road where it crosses the Downs at Duncton Hill; but there is at least one case, and there are probably others, where the heaps of material accumulated in the making of the roads have been erroneously ascribed to our prehistoric ancestors, and, if the present writer is not mistaken, there is an error of this kind marked upon the map close to the new London road which climbs Bury Hill on its way to cross the Downs at Whiteways Lodge.
The complete isolation of these heights, their loneliness, and their wild charm, is enhanced by a line of towns and of villages especially dependent upon them and standing at their feet towards the south. The northern line of villages which lies just under their escarpment on the edge of the Weald, which we have described as being probably prehistoric sites, and which are connected by what has certainly been a prehistoric road, are not directly made by or dependent upon the Downs themselves. Their farmers are not usually large sheep farmers; their shepherds are few; their lives and their industries are those of the plain; their building materials are oak and plaster; their inhabitants but rarely climb the very steep hillsides immediately above them. The villages and towns to the south, on the contrary, owe their very existence to the Downs, and show in their every aspect the
AMBERLEY VILLAGE
THE SOUTHERN FORT-HILLS