Walking downhill draweth superfluity from the head more than the other doeth: but withall it is enemy to feeble thighes, bycause they both moue the legges, and support all the whole weight of the bodie aboue. The change and varietie of the motion causeth that kinde of walking to be best liked, which is sometime vphill, sometime downhill.
When ye walke vpon euen or vneuen ground, ye walke either in medowes or grassie places, or in rowgh and brambly, or in sandie and soft. If ye walke in a medow, it is without all contradiction most for pleasure, bycause nothing there anoyeth, nothing offendeth the sense, and the head is fed both with varietie of sweet odours, and with the moysture of such humour, as the medow yeeldeth.
Rough, brambly, and bushy groundes stuffe the head.
Walking vpon sande.
Sandie, and cheifly if it be any thing deepe, bycause the walking in it stirreth sore, confirmeth and strengtheneth all the partes of the bodie: and fetcheth superfluities mightily downward. This was one of Augustus Cæsars remedies, as Suetonius[28] writeth, to helpe his haulting and weake legges. For to cleare the vpper partes of that which cloyeth them, there is nothing better then to trauell in deepe sande.
Walking in a close gallerie.
Walking in a close gallerie is not so good, bycause the ayre there is not so fresh, free, and open, but pent, close, and grosse: and therfore stuffeth the bodie, onelesse the gallerie be in the vppermost buildinges of the house, where neither any vapour from the ground can come: and the ayre that commeth is pure and cleare.
The close walkes, which were called cryptoporticus were not of choice but of necessitie, when extremitie of weather would not let them walke abroad.
Walking in an open place.
Walking in an open place, and cheifly greene, is much better and more wholesome, then vnder any couert. First of all for the eyes, bycause a fine and subtile ayre comming from the greene to the bodie, which is more penetrable bycause of stirring, scourreth awaye all grosse humours from the eyes, and so leaueth the sight fine and cleare. Further, bycause the bodie in walking waxeth hoat, the aire sucketh humours out of it, and disperseth whatsoeuer is in it more then it can well beare.