Down theValley
威廉·科贝特 / William Cobbett
I came off this morning on the Marlborough road about two miles, or three, and then turned off, over the downs, in a northwesterly direction, in search of the source of the Avon river, which goes down to Salisbury. I had once been at Netheravon, a village in this valley, but I had often heard this valley described as one of the f?inest pieces of land in all England; I knew that there were about thirty parish churches, standing in a length of about thirty miles, and in an average width of hardly a mile; and I was resolved to see a little into the reasons that could have induced our fathers to build all these churches, especially if, as the Scotch would have us believe, there were but a mere handful of people in England until of late years.
In steering across the down, I came to a large farm, which a shepherd told me was Milton Hill Farm. This was upon the high land, and before I came to the edge of this Valley of Avon, which was my land of promise, or at least, of great expectation; for I could not imagine that thirty churches had been built for nothing by the side of a brook (for it is no more during the greater part of the way) thirty miles long. The shepherd showed me the way towards Milton; and at the end of about a mile, from the top of a very high part of the down, with a steep slope towards the valley, I f?irst saw this Valley of Avon; and a most beautiful sight it was! Villages, hamlets, large farms, towers, steeples, f?ields, meadows, orchards, and very f?ine timber trees, scattered all over the valley. The shape of the thing is this: on each side downs, very lofty and steep in some places, and sloping miles back in other places; but each outside of the valley are downs. From the edge of the downs begin capital arable f?ields generally of very great dimensions, and, in some places, running a mile or two back into little crossvalleys, formed by hills of downs. After the cornf?ields come meadows on each side, down to the brook or river. The farmhouses, mansions, villages, and hamlets are generally situated in that part of the arable land which comes nearest the meadows.
Great as my expectations had been, they were more than fulf?illed. I delight in this sort of country; and I had frequently seen the vale of the Itchen, that of the Bourn, and also that of the Teste in Hampshire; I had seen the vales amongst the South Downs; but I never before saw anything to please me like this valley of the Avon. I sat upon my horse and looked over Milton and Easton and Pewsey for half an hour, though I had not breakfasted. The hill was very steep. A road, going slanting down it, was still so steep, and washed so very deep by the rains of ages, that I did not attempt to ride down it, and I did not like to lead my horse, the path was so narrow. So seeing a boy with a drove of pigs going out to the stubbles, I beckoned him to come up to me; and he came and led my horse down for me. But now, before I begin to ride down this beautiful vale, let me give, as well as my means will enable me, a plan or map of it, which I have made in this way. A friend has lent me a very old man of Wiltshire describing the spots where all the churches stand, and also all the spots where manor-houses or mansion-houses stood. I laid a piece of very thin paper upon the map, and thus traced the river upon my paper, putting f?igure to represent the spots where churches stand, and putting stars to reprent the spots where manor-houses or mansion-houses formerly stood. Endless is the variety in the shape of the high lands which from this valley. Sometimes the slope is very gentle, and the arable lands go back very far. At others, the downs come out into the valley almost like piers into the sea, being very steep in their sides; as well as their ends: indeed they have no back ends, but run into the main high land. There is also great variety in the width of the valley; great variety in the width of the meadows; but the land appears all to be of the very best; and it must be so, for the farmers confess it.
It seemed to me that one way, and that not, perhaps, the least striking, of exposing the folly, the stupidity, the inanity, the presumption, the insufferable emptiness and insolence and barbarity, of those numerous wretches who have now the audacity to propose to transport the people of England, upon the principle of the monster Malthus, who has furnished the unfeeling oligarchs and their toad-eaters with the pretence that man has a natural propensity to breed faster than food can be raised for the increase; it seemed to me that one way of exposing this mixture of madness and of blasphemy was to take a look, now that the harvest is in, at the produce, the mouths, the condition, and the changes that have taken place, in a spot like this, which God has favoured with every good that he has had to bestow upon man.
