of lofty hills and bold headlands, divided by the deep and rugged chines or combes that once did a fair stroke of business in smuggling. Here and there a fishing village is struggling by slow degrees into a popular watering-place, but, literally, that is sadly uphill work; for the only approach is by coach or steamer, and railways made at a relatively fabulous cost would have to develop the traffic by which they hoped to thrive. And as the season of tourist travel in the watery west is short, the chances of railways vulgarising these districts is almost as remote as any prospects of dividends to possible shareholders.

Meanwhile, the only exceptions to the general inaccessibility are Watchet and Minehead in Somersetshire, and Ilfracombe in Devon. At Ilfracombe the Great Western still keeps up communications with its Barnstaple terminus by means of brakes; but the South-Western has a station which, like the city in the parable, is set conspicuously on the summit of a hill. That rather peculiar situation of the station is eminently suggestive of the character of the surrounding country. All the roads leading out of Ilfracombe are tremendously against the collar. The very "machines" from the chief hotels to the railway station are horsed either with four-in-hand or with a tandem. For longer stages, though the teams are in good condition, the strain on horse-flesh must be severe, and whipcord is freely expended. And those Devon hills, which you climb under hanging copses and between flowery hedgerows, appear to have no ending.

At each gentle winding of the stiff ascent fresh steeps are ever rising before you, until at last you attain the top of some Pisgah which shows a descent towards the

invisible bottom of a valley, with a twin eminence soaring up against the sky-line, to be breasted on the opposite side. The enjoyment of those mountain and moorland drives depends of course on the weather. In wet they are not only wretched enough, but probably the dripping mists shut out such glimpses of the landscape as you might otherwise catch between your neighbours' umbrellas; while the dust-clouds thrown up in a blazing sun beneath the hoofs of the toiling and scrambling horses are a still greater nuisance. So that, on the whole, the voluptuous æsthetic who likes to do his holiday work pleasantly, may be grateful to the spirited South-Western directors for landing him comfortably on the heights overhanging Ilfracombe.

Once arrived there, he will find excellent quarters in the Ilfracombe Hotel. Without going out of my way to give the hotel company an advertisement; without making invidious comparisons with competing establishments of which I know nothing,-I am bound to say that the situation of that hotel is unsurpassed for dreamy noontide siestas and for romantic contemplation after sundown. Rising up a little way from behind a broad and rather lofty esplanade, the hotel is shut in on either side by hills breaking down into black rocks and jagged reefs. Full in front, you look out across the Channel to the dim and distant hills of the Welsh coast. The first evening, when enjoying that view, there was the perfection of summer softness, except that a faint fineweather haze all through the day had been veiling even objects in the foreground and middle distance. Towards sunset the foreground cleared, though long low banks of purple cloud were loom

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ing heavily on the opposite horizon. And soon afterwards, passing slowly before our eyes, we witnessed the marvellous illusions of a magnificent transformation-scene. Far to the westward, beyond a broad track of molten fire, the sun was sinking into the sea in a lurid globe of glowing orange. To the landward, over Wales, he had left the skies still streaked with bands of flaming orange and crimson. And against those skies with their prismatic lights, taking sharply defined shapes and cleancut outlines, was an alpine land emerging, in which the Devon hills seemed to be overtopped by the snowy giants of the Swiss Alps. The rounded headlands and black tors standing out below, might have been exact reflections of the scenery behind us. above there were Mont Blancs, and Matterhorns, and the crests of the Aarhorns and Jungfraus, with their phantom snow-fields gleaming ruddily in the fading lights, and their great glaciers gliding downwards towards the sea, till they were lost among the Devon tors and in the thickening shadOws. As if to confound the confusion, ships were sailing in the air, and fishing-craft with their tawny sails were tacking leisurely through the summits of that cloudland. While by way of prosaic bridge, to bring us back from hallucinations to realities, the swarthy steam-screws bound for Cardiff in Bristol were hugging the base of the Capstone Hill so closely, that apparently any one of the promenaders listening to the evening band might have "chucked a biscuit on to the tafferels" of the steamers. For though the Channel widens out between Ilfracombe and Swansea Bay, the deep waterway before the watering-place is generally lively. The

steamers skirt the southern shore to "dodge" the currents and the flow of the sea, which often runs as fast as four and a half or five knots, while there is a difference of some seventy feet between the extremes of the neap and spring tides.

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Ilfracombe is most picturesquely situated: the pity is that it is growing like all favourite searesorts. The bold curves of its hills are being cut away into fashionable crescents; and terraces are being scarped out upon all the heights commanding the landlocked harbour and the beautiful marine views. Already it tains some 6000 or 7000 inhabitants. After all, it is a mere sprat, in point of size, compared to those interminable sea-snakes of Brighton or Hastings, coiling themselves around many a mile of coast. And on its sea side there are constant facilities for charming and extremely interesting excursions. Far the pleasantest way of approaching it, in fine summer weather, is by steamer from Portishead, which is within a few miles of Bristol-though, according as the tide is on the ebb or the flow, the voyage may last three and a half hours or seven. But with the beauties of the varied panorama which unrols itself on either shore, a few hours more or less should be of little consequence. First, the steamer stands in for the winding Welsh coast, till you sight the gunboats lying in Cardiff harbour, with the black hulls and the chimneys of the colliers at their moorings. Then, by way of a sudden change, after remarking these gratifying signs of industrial prosperity, we stand across to the bold heights of Somerset. There is Porlock, sheltering in a deep rift among the hills, and Lynton looking down from its rocks upon

Lynmouth, where John Ridd's own Lyn river runs down to the Channel, through the wilderness of feathering woods which darken the depths of its valley. Lynton and Lynmouth are on the outskirts of Exmoor; and thenceforward, till we come to Hartland Point, far to the south-west of Ilfracombe, we are in a country made familiar by romance. Each town, each hamlet, each hill or heath, is associated either with 'Lorna Doone' or with Westward Ho!' In the struggle for literary fame in our own times, Kingsley and Blackmore stand conspicuously out from the ranks of the most able and ambitious of our novelists. One and the other have stamped the individuality of their genius on districts so rich in all the materials for romance, that it seems marvellous they had never been wrought before. We are more immediately concerned now with the scenes of Westward Ho!' Though in 'Lorna Doone' we are taken incidentally to Ilfracombe, it is only natural to contrast two of our favourite novels. For myself, I give the preference to Lorna.' One and the other will bear reading repeatedly-no bad test of real genius and the gifts of vivid dramatic idealisation. The more showy romance of Kingsley may be more fascinating at first, with its glowing narrative and the fire of its rhetorical descriptions. But we feel, on a third or a fourth perusal, that Kingsley is perpetually 'piling up the agony." He strikes so shrill a key in the opening chapter, that he is kept continually on the strain to the end of the novel. The painting of his beloved Devon scenery is inimitable, but inevitably he repeats himself there; while, though the brilliant pictures of the tropics, conjured up from his fancy, surpass anything

he afterwards delineated in 'At Last,' from actual observation, they are more fascinating to the inexperience of youth than in middle age. We are dazzled, and almost blinded, by the flashes of fervid description, which seem to want an occasional touch of sobriety to tone down the glaring stage effects. But in Lorna Doone,' though the story is almost laboriously elaborated, in consistency with John Ridd's strong and deliberate nature, the impressions have been so deeply driven home that we are always delighted to revive them.

Be that as it may, with Kingsley as with Blackmore, their novels are associated in a twin immortality with the localities they describe. "Westward Ho!' with its breezy spirit and its manly tone, has very. appropriately given its name to the now famous links, where southern gentlemen, who can no longer seek their excitement on the Spanish main, may exercise themselves indefatigably in the game of golf. Kingsley has done for that back-ofthe world nook of Devon what Scott did for the Border counties and the Scottish Highlands, for Warwickshire, for Cumberland, and the banks of the Tees. Wherever we go, we are wandering among the memories of Kingsley's innumerable Devonshire worthies

from the Hoe of Plymouth, bustling even in Elizabeth's time, to the shingly coves, now encumbered by bathing-machines, that breach the cliff-wall at Ilfracombe. But it is around Bideford, Barnstaple, and Clovelly that he has centred the interest of his romance. There, within a mile or two of Bideford, is Borrough, communicating with the once flourishing seaport by the deeply grooved, Breton-like lanes, overgrown with their luxuriant summer growth of sweet honey

suckle and dog-roses, along which Amyas used to saunter daily to and from Mr Brimblecombe's school. There are Stow and Portledge, and half-a-score of other places, the seats of the Grenvils, the Coffins, and other long-descended families, who have figured honourably in the history of England, and are still resident in Devon, though for the most part they have transplanted themselves elsewhere. Some of those seats, like Stow, have been demolished, rebuilt, and demolished again. But the natural characteristics of the county have scarcely changed, and nowhere have things altered so little as at Clovelly. It is true that the Carys are gone, but the grounds of Clovelly Court must be much as they used to be; and the fishing village which clings to the face of the cliffs, descending abruptly from the lodge gates to the little harbour, is absolutely unique in England. In fact, cramped between the steep walls of that rocky chasm, it has never had room for expansion. Even now it is some fourteen miles from the nearest railway, and the only roads by which it may be reached come to an abrupt ending at a sylvan corner on the hill overhanging it. By far the most easy means of access are by sea, and the inmates of Clovelly Court can only come at their seaport by scrambling down the ladder-like causeway on foot, or by trusting their necks to a sure-footed pony.

Steamers make frequent excursions from Ilfracombe in the sum

upon it. For the grey roofs are scarcely distinguishable from the hanging woods which thickly clothe the sides of the combe. Then the haze has been thickened by the spiral threads of smoke curling up from many a cottage-chimney, and floating in the stirless calm of that perfectly sheltered little valley. Nothing but a fresh gale and a strong surf from the north-westward, could knock the tiny fishingcraft about, or cause confusion in the anchorage behind the primitive little pier. But the prudence of the fishermen takes precautions against possible changes in the weather, and the fishing-boats not on service are hauled high and dry on a broad ledge of shingle well above the broken beach. To the left of the landing-place are low cottages, with long verandahs, that remind one rather of habitations in Kingsley's tropics than of a fishing - hamlet in Devon. The landing is of course in boats and as the charge for landing and embarking again is sixpence for each person, the Clovelly men must make a fair harvest in the summer-time. Indeed, being shut up between the downs, the cliffs, and the beach, they must be entirely dependent on the sea in one shape or another. There is hardly a yard about the village where you could plough and sow, though it is brightened and beautified by small strips of hanging gardens; and where there is no room for even a narrow flower-border without the doors, the villagers are fond of displaying geraniums and mignonette on their window-sills. There is perhaps no village in England where it seems more certain to the stranger that he has lost his way, as there can be no place where losing one's self is more impossible. Landed on the beach, you see nothing before you

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but impracticable wooded steeps, though there is a rough staircase of stone leading to the threshold of the Red Lion hostelry. Feeling yourself bound to give the portly landlord a good turn-he is smoking and contemplating the disembarkation with simulated indifference-you trespass on what is apparently his private approach; but really, the flight of steps is a public thoroughfare, and the only outlet for Clovelly life and traffic. You scramble up on one side; you scramble down upon the other, crossing the stone platform before the open door of the Lion; you follow a path that skirts the shingles by the harbour, to climb again, and be brought up beneath an archway that leads to nothing but a neglected backyard - so you think, at least, and modestly make inquiry, to be told that the low-browed arch is the entrance to the main street. The room above it, by the way, is said to be haunted by the village ghost. Beyond that, surprises, which are almost always striking and beautiful, meet you at every turn, till, sated into quiet satisfaction, you cease to be surprised at anything. There is a whitewashed cottage that would be prosaic enough anywhere else, embowered in a soft bloom of pink China roses, and backed up by the boughs of spreading apple - trees. You turn the corner by a narrow passage between a dead wall and a dilapidated pigsty; but the dead wall is brightened by a blaze of fuchsia, and the pigsty is tapestried with hart's tongue ferns. Another step, and you are looking down over an angular parapet of masonry on a creek of bright blue water at the bottom of the cliffs. That is what About's M. le Roy, in his 'Trente et Quarante,' might well have called a corner of the

Cornice en mieux, for Clovelly beach is washed by the tide, which the tideless Cornice is not. It is stiff work toiling up the little street in a hot sun, and you are delighted to come to an anchor at the New Inn, half-way up, where the walls of the coffeeroom are elaborately decorated with old china, and where a luncheon-table is temptingly laid out for the trippers. The inn is as quaint as anything else in Clovelly: half the house stands on one side of the street, half on the other. The natives, with few exceptions, turn their attention to letting lodgings, - for there are tickets of "apartments to let " in almost every window. No doubt, the first coups d'œil in a glorious summer day are most enchanting. Yet we should be sorry to commit ourself to a week in Clovelly, when westerly winds were bringing up wet from the Atlantic. But in summer, those first enchanting coups d'œil, with the glimpses up the overhanging chestnut glades and down to the blue baylets of the Channel, remind one irresistibly of the most picturesque mountain-towns in the Apennines or along the Riviera. The causeway, the crossways, the crowding together of the houses, as if the inhabitants shrank from the sunshine, are all the same. Nay, to complete the illusion, you are met by the donkeys with their panniers of manure, which block the narrow thoroughfare as they come stumbling down over the stones.

But when the hill has been scaled, and you have passed into Clovelly Park, you are fairly out of Italy and back again in England. The fresh foliage is exuberantly rich. But everywhere you can trace the perpetual struggle between the biting northerly gales