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The Ouse, most meandering of English streams, waters a country almost perfectly level throughout, though here and there fringed by the undulations of the receding Chilterns;—with a picturesqueness derived from rich meadows, broad pastures with flowery hedgerows, and tall stately trees; while in many places the still river expands into a miniature lake, with water lilies floating upon its bosom. Among scenes like these the great dreamer passed his youth, in his village home at Elstow; often visiting the neighbouring town of Bedford, where we may picture him as leaning in many a musing fit over the old Ouse Bridge, on which the town prison then stood. How little, did John Bunyan then think what those prison walls would become to him and to the world! The bridge is gone, the town has become a thriving modern bustling place; only the river remains, and the country walk to Elstow is little changed. There is the cottage which tradition identifies with Bunyan: with the church and the belfry, so memorable in the record of his experiences, the village green on which in his thoughtless youth he used to play at "tip-cat:" there is nothing more to see, but it is impossible to pace through those homely ways without remembering how once the place was luminous to his awe-stricken spirit with "the light that never was on sea or shore," and the landscape on which his inward eye was fixed was that which was closed in by the great white throne.

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It is remarkable that there is in Bunyan's writings so little of local colouring. His fields, hills and valleys are not of earth. The "wilderness of this world" through which he wandered was something quite apart from the Bedfordshire flats, although indeed "the den" on which he lighted is but too truthful a representation of the prison on the old Ouse Bridge. Even where familiar scenes may have supplied the groundwork of the picture, incidental touches show that his soul was beyond them. His hillsides are covered with "vineyards;" the meadows by the riverside are fair with "lilies;" the fruits in the orchard have mystic healing virtue. The scenery of Palestine rather than of Bedfordshire is present to his view, and his well-loved Bible has contributed as much to his descriptions as any reminiscences of his excursions around his native place. *

* It has recently been argued, with some plausibility, that
Bunyan may have derived some of his pictures of scenery from
his preaching excursions to the Surrey hills and the Sussex
Weald (see pp. 33-35), where he would often cross the track
of "the Canterbury pilgrims." "It is said that he frequently
selected the hilly districts of South Surrey as his hiding-
place; two houses, one on Quarry Hill, Guildford, and the
other known as Horn Hatch, on Shalford Common, being pointed
out as among those he occupied.".... "The struggles of the
pedestrian through the Shalford swamp might have given
Bunyan the original idea of the Slough of Despond; the
Surrey Hills he loved so well might be called the
Delectable Mountains; St. Martha's Hill would answer
perfectly his description of the Hill Difficulty; the Vale
of Albury, amid the picturesque scenery of which he passed
so many days of true humiliation, might be considered the
Valley of Humiliation; and lastly, the name Doubting
Castle actually exists to this day, near the Pilgrims' Way,
being approached, as its namesake was supposed lo be, by a
path near Box Hill. It is right, however, to state that the
antiquity of the last name quoted is not verified."—Notes
on the Pilgrims' Way in West Surrey; by Captain E. Renouard
James, R.E. Stanford, 1871.