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NEAR WORTHING 193
Cissbury Ring can be easily ascended from the village of Findon, which lies in a valley four miles north of Worthing. Take the track opposite the Gun Inn, mounting steadily until the grand oval of the Ring is seen above on the right. Here we find a single fosse, from eight to twelve feet in depth, and a broad and lofty vallum enclose an oval camp, about sixty acres in extent. Roman coins and pottery have been discovered here, and traces of the foundation of a praetorium ; so that it is probable the Roman legionaries kept watch and ward upon this solitary height long before JElla. and his sea rovers hunted the Britons out of their woodland villages.
Here we may visualise the life of the men of the Stone Age in the magic mirror of one of Rudyard Kipling's best stories, " The Knife and the Naked Chalk," for it was from some such point as this that Tyr went down to bring back from the Weald the knife which gave his people the greater protection against the wolf. Here, too, Dan and Una make the acquaintance of Mr. Dudeney, an old shepherd, who perhaps was a descendant from a long line of shepherds bearing that name who are not without their records in this district. Particulars of the Southdown shepherds will be found in " Glimpses of our Sussex Ancestors,"
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