as an open hand, the left hand, with Salisbury in the hollow of the
palm, placed nearest the wrist, and the five valleys which cut through
it as the five spread fingers, from the Bourne (the little finger)
succeeded by Avon, Wylye, and Nadder, to the Ebble, which comes in lower
down as the thumb and has its junction with the main stream below
Salisbury.

A very large portion of this high country is now in a transitional
state, that was once a sheep-walk and is now a training ground for the
army. Where the sheep are taken away the turf loses the smooth, elastic
character which makes it better to walk on than the most perfect lawn.
The sheep fed closely, and everything that grew on the down--grasses,
clovers, and numerous small creeping herbs--had acquired the habit of
growing and flowering close to the ground, every species and each
individual plant striving, with the unconscious intelligence that is in
all growing things, to hide its leaves and pushing sprays under the
others, to escape the nibbling teeth by keeping closer to the surface.
There are grasses and some herbs, the plantain among them, which keep
down very close but must throw up a tall stem to flower and seed. Look
at the plantain when its flowering time comes; each particular plant
growing with its leaves so close down on the surface as to be safe from
the busy, searching mouths, then all at once throwing up tall, straight
stems to flower and ripen its seeds quickly. Watch a flock at this time,
and you will see a sheep walking about, rapidly plucking the flowering
spikes, cutting them from the stalk with a sharp snap, taking them off
at the rate of a dozen or so in twenty seconds. But the sheep cannot be
all over the downs at the same time, and the time is short, myriads of
plants throwing up their stems at once, so that many escape, and it has
besides a deep perennial root so that the plant keeps its own life
though it may be unable to sow any seeds for many seasons. So with other