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THE LAND OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 9
The breezy South Downs, the bold hill of Chanctonbury, the great rift of the Devil's Dyke, the wide extending Weald, the quaint old-world villages nestling amid the trees, the busy modern towns of Brighton and St. Leonards, the stately mansions of Goodwood, Petworth, and Norman-hurst, the ruined castles and monasteries eloquent of bygone ages, and the mighty waters of the ocean for ever washing its shores, all combine to make Sussex a land of enchantment for those who have the salt of the sea in their blood, who delight in the beauty of hill and woodland, or who care to muse upon the intricate movements of those forces that have made the nation. For Sussex was the scene of the most decisive incident in the whole of England's history, that great victory of William the Conqueror, when the Norman was grafted upon the Saxon stock, producing in due season that strongest and most conglomerate of races, the " true born Englishmen," who, scorning the narrow limits of their island home, have since gone forth to the ends of the earth, and taken possession of no small portion of the globe, and have founded an empire which is the largest and most populous in the world. |
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