The White Horse at Westbury, further down the line, represents a horse in a standing position.  He reflects the utmost credit on his grooms; for not only are his shapely limbs “beautifully and wonderfully made,” but the greatest care is taken of him.  The Westbury horse is not in reality nearly so large as this one at Uffington, but he is a very beautiful feature of the country.  I paid him a visit the other day, and was surprised to find he was very much smaller than he appears from the railway.  Glancing over a recent edition of Tom Hughes’ book, “The Scouring of the White Horse,” I found the following lines:—­

“In all likelihood the pastime of 1857 will be the last of his race; for is not the famous Saxon (or British) horse now scheduled to an Act of Parliament as an ancient monument which will be maintained in time to come as a piece of prosaic business, at the cost of other than Berkshire men reared within sight of the hill?”

Alas! it is too true.  There has been no pastime since 1857.

It would have been a splendid way of commemorating the “diamond jubilee” if a scouring had been organised in 1897.  Forty years have passed since the last pastime, with its backsword play and “climmin a greasy pole for a leg of mutton,” its race for a pig and a cheese; and, oddly enough, the previous scouring had taken place in the year of the Queen’s accession, sixty-one years ago.  It would be enough to make poor Tom Hughes turn in his grave if he knew that the old White Horse had been turned out to grass, and left to look after himself for the rest of his days!

Those were grand old times when the Berkshire; Gloucestershire, and Somersetshire men amused themselves by cracking each other’s heads and cudgel-playing for a gold-laced hat and a pair of buckskin breeches; when a flitch of bacon was run for by donkeys; and when, last, but not least, John Morse, of Uffington, “grinned agin another chap droo hos [horse] collars, a fine bit of spwoart, to be sure, and made the folks laaf.”  I here quote from Tom Hughes’ book, “The Scouring of the White Horse,” to which I must refer my readers for further interesting particulars.

There are some days during summer when the sunlight is so beautiful that every object is invested with a glamour and a charm not usually associated with it.  Such a day was that of which we write.  As we were gliding out of Swindon the sun was beginning to descend.  From a Great Western express, running at the rate of sixty miles an hour through picturesque country, you may watch the sun setting amidst every variety of scenery.  Now some hoary grey tower stands out against the intense brightness of the western sky; now a tracery of fine trees shades for a time the dazzling light; then suddenly the fiery furnace is revealed again, reflected perhaps in the waters of some stream or amid the reeds and sedges of a mere, where a punt is moored containing anglers in broad wideawake hats.  Gradually a dark purple shade