high road was, and is, a difficult matter ;-but across the marsh by a footpath, almost an impossibility ; for a native, the latter experiment is difficult, and should he on a very dark night or a foggy one once lose the track, no difficult matter, the best thing he can do is to lie down till daylight dawns ; for should he persistently attempt to regain the path, the chances are that he may find himself floundering in one of the many ditches which intersect the level in all directions.
At the present day the Weald possesses a distinctive feature not perhaps to be found to so marked an extent in any other district in England . I allude to its general wooded character ;--woods from an acre to upwards of one hundred acres are numerous throughout its whole extent ; the fields are for the most part small, and divided from each other by wide and thickly laced hedgerows. At the commencement of the present century the roads were bad ; turnpike roads were not so numerous as they are at present, nor were they by any means in so good a condition, while the cross roads were, particularly in the winter, in such a state, that it was no difficult matter for a pedestrian to stick fast in the mud. I have seen Ore Lane in this neighbourhood with wheel ruts from eighteen to twenty inches deep, in the winter, and other roads were proportionately bad. "The roads through the Weald of Kent were no bet-
