But it is more remarkable still how a great part of these Downs
comes, by a new method of husbandry, to be not only made arable
(which they never were in former days), but to bear excellent
wheat, and great crops, too, though otherwise poor barren land, and
never known to our ancestors to be capable of any such thing–nay,
they would perhaps have laughed at any one that would have gone
about to plough up the wild downs and hills where the sheep were
wont to go. But experience has made the present age wiser and more
skilful in husbandry; for by only folding the sheep upon the
ploughed lands–those lands which otherwise are barren, and where
the plough goes within three or four inches of the solid rock of
chalk, are made fruitful and bear very good wheat, as well as rye
and barley. I shall say more of this when I come to speak of the
same practice farther in the country.
This plain country continues in length from Winchester to Salisbury
(twenty-five miles), from thence to Dorchester (twenty-two miles),
thence to Weymouth (six miles); so that they lie near fifty miles
in length and breadth; they reach also in some places thirty-five
to forty miles. They who would make any practicable guess at the
number of sheep usually fed on these Downs may take it from a
calculation made, as I was told, at Dorchester, that there were six
hundred thousand sheep fed within six miles of that town, measuring
every way round and the town in the centre.
As we passed this plain country, we saw a great many old camps, as
well Roman as British, and several remains of the ancient
inhabitants of this kingdom, and of their wars, battles,
entrenchments, encampments, buildings, and other fortifications,
which are indeed very agreeable to a traveller that has read
anything of the history of the country. Old Sarum is as remarkable
as any of these, where there is a double entrenchment, with a deep
graff or ditch to either of them; the area about one hundred yards
in diameter, taking in the whole crown of the hill, and thereby
rendering the ascent very difficult. Near this there is one farm-
house, which is all the remains I could see of any town in or near
the place (for the encampment has no resemblance of a town), and
yet this is called the borough of Old Sarum, and sends two members
to Parliament. Whom those members can justly say they represent
would be hard for them to answer.
Some will have it that the old city of SORBIODUNUM or Salisbury
stood here, and was afterwards (for I know not what reasons)
removed to the low marshy grounds among the rivers, where it now
stands. But as I see no authority for it other than mere
tradition, I believe my share of it, and take it AD REFERENDUM.
Salisbury itself is indeed a large and pleasant city, though I do
not think it at all the pleasanter for that which they boast so
much of–namely, the water running through the middle of every
street–or that it adds anything to the beauty of the place, but
just the contrary; it keeps the streets always dirty, full of wet
and filth and weeds, even in the middle of summer.
The city is placed upon the confluence of two large rivers, the
Avon and the Willy, neither of them considerable rivers, but very
large when joined together, and yet larger when they receive a
third river (viz., the Naddir), which joins them near Clarendon
Park, about three miles below the city; then, with a deep channel
and a current less rapid, they run down to Christchurch, which is
their port. And where they empty themselves into the sea, from
that town upwards towards Salisbury they are made navigable to
within two miles, and might be so quite into the city, were it not
for the strength of the stream.
As the city of Winchester is a city without trade–that is to say,
without any particular manufactures–so this city of Salisbury and
all the county of Wilts, of which it is the capital, are full of a