What strikes one so forcibly about this part of England, after a sojourn in some smoky town, is its extraordinary cleanliness.

There is no such thing as dirt in a limestone country.  The very mud off the roads in rainy weather is not dirt at all, sticky though it undoubtedly is.  It consists almost entirely of lime, which, though it burns all the varnish off your carriage if allowed to remain on it for a few days, has nothing repulsive about its nature, like ordinary mud.

How pleasant, too, is the contrast between the quiet, peaceful country life and the restless din and never-ceasing commotion of the “busy haunts of men”!  As we pass along through villages gay with flowers, we converse freely with the driver of the ’bus, chiefly about fishing.  The great question which every one asks in this part of the world in the first week in June is whether the may-fly is up.  The lovely green-drake generally appears on the Windrush about this time, and then for ten days nobody thinks or talks about anything else.  Who that has ever witnessed a real may-fly “rise” on a chalk or limestone stream will deny that it is one of the most beautiful and interesting sights in all creation?  Myriads of olive-coloured, transparent insects, almost as large as butterflies, rising out of the water, and floating on wings as light as gossamer, only to live but one short day; great trout, flopping and rolling in all directions, forgetful of all the wiles of which they are generally capable; and then, when the evening sun is declining, the female fly may be seen hovering over the water, and dropping her eggs time after time, until, having accomplished the only purpose for which she has existed in the winged state, she falls lifeless into the stream.  But though these lovely insects live but twenty-four hours, and during that short period undergo a transformation from the sub-imago to the imago state, they exist as larvae in the bed of the river for quite two years from the time the eggs are dropped.  The season of 1896 was one of the worst ever known on some may-fly rivers; probably the great frost two winters back was the cause of failure.  The intense cold is supposed to have killed the larvae.

The Windrush trout are very large indeed; a five-pound fish is not at all uncommon.  The driver of the ’bus talked of monsters of eight pounds having been taken near Burford, but we took this cum grano salis.

After a five-mile drive we suddenly see the picturesque old town below us.  Like most of the villages of the country, it lies in one of the narrow valleys which intersect the hills, so that you do not get a view of the houses until you arrive at the edge of the depression in which they are built.