CAMBRIDGE COUNTY GEOGRAPHIES

General Editor: F. H. H. Guillemard, M.A., M.D.

DEVONSHIRE

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

London: FETTER LANE, E.C.

C. F. CLAY, Manager

Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET

Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO.

Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS

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Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., ltd.

[All rights reserved]

Cambridge County Geographies

DEVONSHIRE

by

FRANCIS A. KNIGHT

AND

LOUIE M. (KNIGHT) DUTTON

With Maps, Diagrams and Illustrations

Cambridge:

at the University Press

1910

Cambridge:

PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

PREFACE

IN preparing this book much use has been made of the Proceedings of the Devonshire Association and of the first volume of the Victoria History of Devon. The authors also desire to take this opportunity of recording their grateful thanks to Her Gracious Majesty Queen Alexandra for her kindness in providing one of the most interesting illustrations in the volume—the beautiful photograph of the Armada trophy preserved among the Royal plate in Windsor Castle, taken for the purpose of this volume by her command.

F. A. K. and L. M. D.

March, 1910.

[CONTENTS]

[ILLUSTRATIONS]

[MAPS]

The authors are indebted to Mr John S. Amery for leave to reproduce the pictures on pp. [154], [157] and [158].

[1. County and Shire. The Name Devonshire.]

The word "shire," which is probably derived, like "shear" and "share," from an Anglo-Saxon root meaning "to cut," was at one time used in a wider sense than it is at present, and was formerly applied to a division of a county or even of a town. Thus, there were once six small "shires" in Cornwall.

The word shire was in use at the time of King Ina, and occurs in the code of laws which that monarch drew up about the year 709; but the actual division of England into shires was a gradual process, and was not complete at the Norman Conquest. Lancashire, for example, was not constituted a shire until the twelfth century. Alterations in the extent and limits of some of the counties are, indeed, still being made; and in the case of Devonshire the boundaries have been changed several times within the memory of persons still living.

The object of thus dividing up the country was partly military and partly financial. Every shire was bound to provide a certain number of armed men to fight the king's battles, and was also bound to contribute a certain sum of money towards his income and the expenses of the state; and in each district a "shire-reeve"—or sheriff, as we call the officer now—was appointed by the Crown to see that the people did their duty in both respects. The shire was a Saxon institution. County is a Norman word, which came into use after the Conquest, when the government of each shire was entrusted to some powerful noble, often a count, a title which originally meant a companion of the King.

It has been suggested that the reason why the names of some counties end or may end in "shire," while in other cases this syllable is never used, is that the former were "shorn off" from some larger district, while the latter represent entire ancient kingdoms or tribal divisions. According to this theory, Yorkshire is a "shire" because it originally formed part of the kingdom of Northumbria; and Kent is not a "shire" because it practically represents the ancient kingdom of the Cantii. The form "Kent-shire" is, however, found in a record of the time of Athelstan.

In the case of our own county both forms are in use, and we say either "Devon" or "Devonshire," although the two names are not exactly interchangeable. Thus, while we generally talk of "Red Devon" cattle, we always speak of "Devonshire" cream. "Devon," which is the older form, may be derived either from Dumnonii, the name given by Ptolemy, an Alexandrian geographer of the second century, to the inhabitants of the south-west of Britain, perhaps from a Celtic word Dumnos, "people"—or it may come from the old Welsh word Dyvnaint or Dyfneint, "the land of the deeps," that is to say, of deep valleys or deep seas. To the Saxon settlers the people they found in possession of the district were Defn-saetan or "dwellers in Devon"; and in time these settlers called themselves Defenas, or "men of Devon." In the Exeter Domesday Book—the Norman survey of the five south-western counties, completed probably before 1086—the name of the county is given as Devenesira. It would appear, then, that the Britons called their province "Devon," and that the Saxons called it "Devonshire." It is characteristic of the peaceable nature of the Saxon occupation that the two names, like the two nations, seem to have quietly settled down side by side.

Devonshire in the Exeter Domesday Book

It is believed that it was Alfred the Great who marked out the border-line between Devon and Somerset; and it was undoubtedly Athelstan who, after his victory over the West Welsh, made the Tamar the boundary between Devon and Cornwall.

[2. General Characteristics.]

Devonshire is a county in the extreme south-west of England, occupying the greater part of the peninsula between the English and Bristol Channels, and having a coast-line both on the south and on the north. Situated thus, on two seas, and possessing, especially on its southern sea-board, a remarkable number of bays and estuaries, it has always been noted as a maritime county. And although many of its harbours have, in the lapse of ages, become silted up with sand or shingle, and are now of comparatively slight importance, it has one great sea-port, which, while only thirtieth in rank among British commercial ports, is the greatest naval station in the Empire.

The county has in the past been famous for its cloth-weaving and for its tin and copper-mining, but these industries are now greatly decayed, and the main occupation of the people is agriculture, to which both the soil and the climate are particularly favourable.

King Tor, near Tavistock

A special characteristic of Devonshire is its scenery, which is so striking that it is very generally considered the most beautiful county in England; while there are probably very many who regard its mild and genial, equable and health-giving climate as more noteworthy still. It is a remarkably hilly country, and it also possesses not only many rivers, but a great number of broad river estuaries. Another characteristic with which every visitor to the district is struck is the redness which distinguishes its soil, its southern cliffs, and its famous breed of cattle, which is not less noticeable than the soft and pleasant dialect, with its close sound of the letter "u" so typical both of Devon and of West Somerset.

A Typical Devon Stream—Watersmeet, Lynmouth

Another characteristic of the people has always been their loyalty to their sovereign, to their county, and to each other. Devon is proverbial, like Cornwall and Yorkshire, for the clannishness of its inhabitants. It is a land, too, where superstition dies hard. Belief in pixies—fairies, as they are called elsewhere—in witches and witch-craft, in whisht-hounds and other weird and uncanny creatures, and in portents and omens, still lingers, especially on Dartmoor.

A Devon Valley—Yawl Bottom, Uplyme

Dartmoor itself, with its wild and picturesque scenery, its unrivalled wealth of prehistoric antiquities, and its singular geological structure, forms one of the most striking features of the county, and one to which there is no parallel in England. The marine zoology of Devonshire is more interesting than that of any other English county, and nowhere else in the island has there been discovered clearer evidence of the great antiquity of man than was found in Kent's Cavern and other Devonshire caves.

Above all things, its position has made Devonshire a native land of heroes. Very few other counties have produced so many men of mark, so many men of enterprise and daring. Certainly no other has played a greater part in the expansion of England. From Devonshire came not only some of the most distinguished seamen of the Golden Age of Elizabeth, some of the most skilful and daring of her naval captains, but some of the earliest and most famous of our explorers; the founder of the first English colony, the first Englishman to sail the polar sea, the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe.

[3. Size. Shape. Boundaries.]

Devonshire, which occupies rather more than one-twenty-second of the whole area of England and Wales, is one of the largest counties in the British Islands, being exceeded in size only by Yorkshire and Lincoln in England, by Inverness and Argyll in Scotland, and by Cork in Ireland. Its extreme length from east to west, measured along a horizontal line drawn through the middle of the county, starting at the Dorsetshire border half-way between Lyme Cobb and the Seven Rocks Point, passing close to the city of Exeter, and reaching to the point where the river Ottery enters the county, is 67 miles; exactly the same as that of the county of Somerset. Its greatest breadth, from Countisbury Foreland on the north coast to Prawle Point on the south, is 71 miles. It may be added that a longer east and west line can be drawn only in Yorkshire and Sussex, and a longer meridional line only in Yorkshire and Lincoln. The area of the "Ancient" or "Geographical" county of Devonshire, according to the revised return furnished by the Ordnance Department, is 1,667,154 acres, or 2605 square miles. Compared with the counties that adjoin it, it is two-and-a-half times the size of Dorset, it is roughly twice as large as Cornwall, and it is more than half as large again as Somerset. It is fifteen times as large as Rutland, it is about half the size of Yorkshire, and its area is less than that of Lincolnshire by only 48 square miles.

Glen Lyn, near Lynmouth

Although usually said to be irregular in form, the outline of the county has a certain degree of symmetry, being roughly shaped like a life-guardsman's cuirass, with nearly equal sides, with a small hollow at the top or north coast, and a much larger one at the bottom or south coast.

Devonshire, like Kent and Cornwall, is bounded on two sides by the sea, having the Bristol Channel on the north and north-west, and the English Channel on the south. On its western side the river Tamar, with its tributary the Ottery, forms almost the whole of the frontier between it and Cornwall. The eastern and north-eastern border is less definite, but is roughly marked by Exmoor and the Blackdown Hills, which partly separate Devonshire from Somerset. The short length of frontier between Devonshire and Dorsetshire is marked by no natural feature.

No part of Devonshire is now, as was formerly the case, wholly surrounded by any other county. Three of its parishes, however, are partly in Dorset, one is partly in Cornwall, and one, a district of Exmoor containing no houses or inhabitants, is partly in Somerset. Culmstock, which before 1842 was considered to belong to Somerset, although completely islanded in Devon, and Stockland and Dalwood, which were reckoned with Dorset, although they were entirely inside the Devonshire border, have now been formally transferred to this county. On the other hand, Thornecombe and Ford Abbey, which belonged to Devonshire although they were situate in the adjoining county, have been handed over to Dorset. Still later alterations were the transfer of Hawkchurch and Churchstanton from Dorset to Devon in 1896.

[4. Surface and General Features.]

Devonshire is characterised by such great irregularity and unevenness of surface that practically the only level land in it is along the shores of its estuaries; with the almost inevitable result that it is one of the most picturesque and beautiful counties in England. Its scenery has been very greatly affected by subterranean movements, which have not only roughly shaped its hills and valleys, partly by upheaval and partly by the shrinkage of the earth's crust, but have been the principal cause of the breadth of the river estuaries which are so marked a feature of its coasts, especially of the south. At many points along the shore of Devonshire there is evidence, in raised sea-beaches, and, near Torquay, in the borings of marine mollusca at a great height above the present tide-line, of upheavals that must have raised the whole coast, even if they did not materially change the contour of the country. On the other hand, the existence of submerged forests at many places near the shore proves that the land has sunk at least forty feet, thus allowing the sea to flow further inland; thereby greatly widening the already existing valleys, which had been formed in part by the shrinkage of the earth's crust, and in part by the action of the rivers.

The Upper Dart, from the Moors

The chief physical feature of Devonshire, a feature without parallel in any other part of England, is the Forest of Dartmoor, the great upland, some twenty miles long and eighteen miles broad, which occupies so large a part of the southern half of the county. It is all granite, the largest mass of granite in England, and forms part of a chain of outcrops of that formation extending from Devonshire to the Scilly Isles. The word "forest," it should be remembered, originally meant, not a wood, but a hunting-ground. No part of the open moor is now covered with trees, nor is it likely, considering the poorness of the soil, that it ever was so covered, although roots and other remains of trees have been found in various parts of it. In early days it was a royal hunting-ground, and most of it is still Crown property, forming part of the Duchy of Cornwall.

The most prominent feature of the moor, which contains the highest ground in England south of Ingleborough in Yorkshire, are the isolated rocky heights called tors, some 170 in number, many of which have been weathered, not only into very rugged and highly picturesque, but even into most strange and fantastic shapes; in many cases having their steep slopes strewn with fallen fragments of rock, some of them tons in weight, forming what are known on the moor as "clitters" or "clatters." The highest points are High Willhays, 2039 feet; Yes Tor, 2029 feet, only half a mile away from its rival, Newlake, 1983 feet; Cuthill, 1980 feet; and Great Lynx Tor, 1908 feet above sea-level; and among the most striking and picturesque are Great Lynx Tor, Staple Tor, Mis Tor, and Vixen Tor, although many others are remarkable for their strange and time-worn outlines.

The moor is seamed by many valleys and ravines, not a few of which are, in parts, well-wooded, each with its swiftly-flowing stream or river, and many of them most picturesque and beautiful. Such, in particular, are the Valley of the Dart, especially including Holne Chase and above; of the Teign near Fingle Bridge; of the Tavy at Tavy Cleave; of the Lyd at Lydford, and of the Plym at the Dewerstone.

Tavy Cleave, showing disintegrated granite

Dartmoor is distinguished in being the coldest and rainiest part of Devonshire, and to these two features of its climate are no doubt largely due the fogs which so frequently envelope it. Its great extent and its heavy rainfall make the moor the main watershed of the county. Most of its rivers have their sources in the bogs, which are a well-known and somewhat dangerous feature of the district, and of which the most remarkable are Fox Tor Mire, Cranmere Bog, and Cuthill Bog.

Its varied and peculiar features, its vast expanses of wild and desolate moorland, now aglow with golden gorse, and now still more splendid with the magnificent purple of its broad sheets of heather or with the warm hues of dying bracken, and beautiful, as the seasons change, with the varying tints of grass and sedge, of ferns and rushes, of moss and bog-myrtle and bilberry, of cotton-grass and asphodel; the almost unrivalled beauty of its river-valleys, its multitudinous streams, its wild life, its extraordinary wealth of prehistoric antiquities, its lingering superstitions of pixies, of witch-craft, of night-flying whisht-hounds and ghostly huntsmen, its very solitude and silence, combine to make Dartmoor, to the antiquary and the artist, the naturalist and the angler, one of the most attractive spots in England, and one whose charm poets, painters, and authors have striven from earliest days to immortalise.

The greater part of Exmoor, and all its principal heights, are in Somerset, but it extends into the north-eastern corner of Devon, and detached portions of it, which appear to be really parts of the same upland, reach to the hills above Combe Martin. Part of Span Head, whose summit is 1619 feet above the sea, is in our county; and the outlying spurs of Bratton Down, Kentisbury Down, and the Great Hangman are all over 1000 feet high. There is very beautiful scenery on Exmoor, especially on the Somerset side of the border, somewhat resembling that on Dartmoor, although less wild and picturesque, and without any of the tors which are so characteristic of the greater upland. Exmoor is the only part of England where red deer still run wild; and the district is visited every year by stag-hunters from all parts of the island and especially from Ireland. Both it and Dartmoor are famous for a breed of sturdy little ponies, originally, no doubt, of the same stock. In the Badgeworthy Valley, which is in Somerset, although not far from Lynton, may be seen what are said to be the ruined huts of the Doones, a community of freebooters immortalised by Blackmore, who represents them as having been the terror of the country-side towards the close of the seventeenth century.

Other Devonshire hills are the Black Downs, along the border of Somerset, in which the highest point is 860 feet above the sea; another Black Down, six miles due south, reaching 930 feet; the Great Haldons, south-west of Exeter, 817 feet high; and Dumpdon Hill, about two miles north by east of Honiton, 856 feet above sea-level.

Devonshire is in parts extremely fertile, especially towards the south, and it has been called (in common, it is true, with other counties) the Garden of England. Two very large and specially productive areas are the Vale of Exeter, and the South Hams,—the latter a name somewhat indefinitely applied to the district south of Dartmoor and occupying a large part of the region between the Teign and the Plym, with Kingsbridge as its chief centre. The great fertility of this famous district is due partly to the nature of the soil, partly to the mildness of the climate and the shelter afforded by the heights of Dartmoor, and partly to its nearness to the sea.

On Lundy

A very remarkable and interesting feature of Devonshire is Lundy—an island three miles long by one mile broad, lying out in the Bristol Channel, opposite Barnstaple Bay, and twelve miles north-north-west of Hartland Point. Its name, it is believed, is derived from two Norse words meaning Puffin Isle.

Composed entirely of granite, except for its southern extremity, which is millstone grit, its lofty cliffs are very wild and rugged and picturesque, and for two miles along its eastern side there is a remarkable series of chasms, from three to twenty feet wide and some of them of great depth, known to the islanders as the Earthquakes. The shingle beach at the south-eastern corner, in the shelter of Rat Island, is the only landing-place, but many vessels find good anchorage on the eastern side, well protected from westerly winds. Many ships, however, have been wrecked among the terrible rocks round its base, including the battleship Montagu, lost in 1906, and, according to tradition, one of the galleons of the Spanish Armada. There is a lighthouse at each end of the island, and the southern one is the most powerful in Devonshire.

Perhaps the greatest charm of Lundy lies, as will be shown in some detail in a later chapter, in its natural history, especially in the vast numbers of birds which visit it in the breeding season. Among very rare stragglers that have been shot here is the Iceland falcon, a species of which very few examples have been recorded for this country. A few plants and insects are peculiar to the spot. There are now few trees, except those planted not long ago near the owner's house in a cleft at the south-eastern end, but some shrubs, such as fuchsias, hydrangeas, and rhododendrons grow to a great size, and the mesembryanthemums are particularly vigorous and beautiful.

Granite for the Thames Embankment was obtained here, but the quarries have long been closed, and farming is the chief industry of the few inhabitants.

There are evidences of very ancient occupation, in the shape of kistvaens, tumuli, and the foundations of primitive dwellings; and in times more recent the island has had a stirring history. In the reign of Henry II it was held by the turbulent family of the Montmorencies or Moriscos, and the shell of Morisco Castle, now converted into cottages, still stands on the south-east corner of the island. During the Civil War it was fortified for the king, and only surrendered in 1647. At various times in the seventeenth century it was captured by French, Spaniards, and Algerines; and it was, moreover, several times occupied by pirates, some of whom were Englishmen, who found it a convenient station from which to plunder ships sailing up the Bristol Channel.

[5. Watershed. Rivers and the tracing of their courses. Lakes.]

Devonshire is a well-watered county, a county of many rivers; and although not one of its multitudinous streams is of real commercial importance or of much value as a water-way, by their mere abundance and by the beauty of their scenery, especially of the magnificent ravines which many of them in the lapse of ages have worn deep in the rock, they form one of its most striking features.

By far the most important watershed is the great upland of Dartmoor, where, with few exceptions, rise all the principal rivers. The headwaters of the Tamar and the Torridge—which rise close together, but flow in very different directions and reach different seas—are in the high ground in the north-west, on the very border of Cornwall, and the sources of the Exe and of its great twin stream the Barle are on the moor to which the former gives its name, just inside the county of Somerset. But the tributaries of all these are drawn from the bogs of Dartmoor, and especially from the morasses round the now insignificant sheet of water known as Cranmere Pool. The whole eastern border of the county, from Exmoor southward to the Blackdown Hills, is a source of streams. Such are the Lyn, flowing into the Bristol Channel; the Bray, the Yeo, and the Mole, tributaries of the Taw; the Loman, the Culm, and the Clyst, tributaries of the Exe; the Otter, falling into the English Channel; and the Yarty, a tributary of the Axe. It is remarkable that of all the many streams of Devonshire, only two of any consequence reach the estuary of the Severn. Almost all flow into the English Channel.

The River Exe at Tiverton

The longest of the Devonshire rivers is the Exe, after which are named Exford and Exton in Somerset, and Exeter and Exmouth in our own county—a strong and beautiful stream which rises near Simonsbath on Exmoor, flowing for the first twenty miles through Somerset and crossing the Devonshire border near Dulverton station, where it is met, on the left bank, by its great tributary the Barle. It then runs nearly due south, through well-wooded and fertile country, being joined on its left bank, at Tiverton, "the town of the two fords," by the Loman; and farther down on the same side by the Culm, which gives its name to Culmstock. Near Exeter it receives on the right bank the Creedy, a pretty and winding stream that lends its name to Crediton, and along whose shores in some of the richest land in Devonshire. A little below Exeter, close to the once famous port of Topsham, it is joined on the left bank by the Clyst, a small and unimportant stream, flowing through most fertile country, and giving its name to no fewer than seven villages. Below Topsham the Exe widens out to nearly a mile, forming, at high tide, from this point to the sea, a noble estuary five miles long, with the popular watering-place of Exmouth on the slope of the eastern side of its entrance, which is almost closed by a long sandbank called the Warren, divided into two parts by a stream. Until late in the thirteenth century the Exe was navigable from the sea to Exeter. But in 1290 Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of Devon, having quarrelled with the citizens, blocked the river-bed with stones, at a place still called the Countess Weir, leaving, however, sufficient room for ships to pass. At a later period this space was closed by the Earl of Devon, and the navigation of the river entirely stopped. Vessels now reach Exeter by a canal.

The second river in point of length is the Tamar, after which are named North Tamerton in Cornwall and Tamerton Foliott in our own county. Rising in the extreme north-west, in the high ground that parts Devonshire from Cornwall, it forms almost the whole of the dividing line between the two counties, and is characterised throughout the lower portion of its course by some very beautiful scenery. It is joined by many streams, some rising in Devonshire and some in Cornwall; some of which—the Lyd, for example—are renowned for their wildness and beauty. The largest of the western tributaries is the Lynher, entirely a Cornish river, whose estuary joins the Hamoaze. The most important of those on the left bank is the Tavy, a Dartmoor-drawn stream, giving its name to the town of Tavistock and to the villages of Peter Tavy and Mary Tavy, and flowing through some of the most fruitful land in Devonshire. A particularly fertile district is that lying between the Tavy and the Tamar.

Although it is a much shorter river than the Exe or the Tamar, the Dart is better known than either, and is perhaps the most familiar by name of all the Devonshire streams. Along its banks, especially near Holne and Buckland-in-the-Moor, and along the wooded shores of its magnificent estuary, is some of the most beautiful river-scenery, not in this county only but in all England. The most important of its many tributaries are the East and the West Dart—both of which rise in the great bog round Cranmere Pool, and join at a picturesque spot called Dartmeet—and the Webburns, East and West. Below Totnes the Dart widens out into a long and most beautiful estuary, winding among finely-wooded hills. On the west side of its entrance is the old port of Dartmouth, named, like Dartington, after the river, and on the opposite shore is the smaller but equally picturesque little town of Kingswear.

On the Dart; Sharpham Woods

Famous as the Dart is for the wildness and beauty of its scenery, and for the excellence of its trout and salmon fishing, it has an evil name for the dangerous nature of its swiftly-flowing waters, which, after heavy rain on the moor, rise with extraordinary rapidity, changing it in a few hours from a peaceful and easily-forded stream into a raging and resistless torrent. At Hexworthy, in November, 1894, the river rose ten and a half feet above the level of the previous day. Characteristic of this as the other of the moorland streams, is the strange sound it sometimes makes, especially towards nightfall, known as its "cry," and believed by the superstitious to be ominous of flood and danger. To "hear the Broadstones crying"—masses of granite lying in the bed of the stream—is considered by the moor-folk a sure sign of coming rain.

The Dartmoor rivers, in the upper part of their courses, are naturally all swift, and are all more or less tinged by the peat of their moorland birth-place—lightly, when the stream is low, and deepening in flood-time into the colour of a rich cairngorm.

The Teign, another of the streams that rise in the Cranmere bog, is famous both for the beauty of the scenery along its winding shores and for the many prehistoric antiquities—stone circles and alignments, menhirs and tumuli—which stand near them. Its two main branches, the North and the South Teign, meet about a mile to the west of Chagford. To the east of that moorland village the river flows through beautifully wooded valleys, and is joined on its right bank, below Chudleigh, by another Dartmoor tributary, the Bovey, on which stand Bovey Tracy, famous for its beds of lignite and clay and for its potteries, and North Bovey, near which are the remains of the very remarkable Bronze Age village of Grimspound. Below Newton Abbot the Teign becomes a broad estuary, on or near whose shores are five of the townships that are named after the river, the most important of which is the little port and well-known watering-place of Teignmouth. The river mouth is almost blocked by a low promontory, which, although now built over, was once a mere sand-bank or dune, from which latter word, no doubt, it takes its name of the Den.

The Axe at Axminster Bridge

Other south-coast rivers are the Axe—one of whose two main branches rises in Somerset and the other in Dorset—which gives its name to Axminster and Axmouth; the Otter, which rises in the Blackdown Hills, and flowing past Honiton, Ottery St Mary, and Otterton, reaches the sea at Budleigh Salterton; the Aune or Avon, especially famous for its salmon, the Erme, and the slopes Yealm, small but beautiful streams rising on the southern slopes of Dartmoor, widening into estuaries as they near the English Channel, and giving names to Aveton, Ermington, and Yealmpton, respectively. The Plym, after which are named Plympton, Plymouth, and Plymstock, is another Dartmoor river, flowing through some very beautiful country, especially in the neighbourhood of Bickleigh, and at length forming a broad and important estuary known first as the Laira, and lower down as the Catwater or Cattewater, which joins Plymouth Sound.

The chief rivers on the north coast are the Torridge and the Taw, the former of which, rising in the extreme north-west, on the Cornish border, near the source of the Tamar, flows south-west for nearly half its course, and then sweeps round to run in the opposite direction, giving its name to three several Torringtons, and having as its chief tributaries the Walden, the Lew, and the Okement, all on its right bank. The last-named stream is formed of the East and the West Okements, which meet at Okehampton, their namesake. The lower waters of the Torridge form a long and narrow estuary—its shore only ten miles distant from the original source of the river—half-way down which is the once important port of Bideford, built on both sides of the stream, which is here spanned by a very ancient bridge. Near the entrance of the estuary, but neither of them on the open sea, are Appledore, the port of Barnstaple, and Instow, a small but growing watering-place.

The Taw is a Dartmoor-drawn river, rising, like so many streams, in the Cranmere bog, giving its name to Tawstock and to three several Tawtons, and receiving on its right bank the Yeo, the Little Dart, and the Mole. The most considerable town on it is Barnstaple, beyond which it becomes a broad tidal estuary, joining that of the Torridge, and flowing out into what is known both as Barnstaple and Bideford Bay.

Bideford and the Torridge Estuary

Many small streams fall into the Bristol Channel, among which is the Lyn, renowned for its beautiful scenery and its good trout-fishing.

A large proportion of the Celtic words in our language are found in the names of natural features, especially of hills and rivers. This is particularly well seen in Devonshire, where, as has been pointed out, the Saxons came as settlers rather than conquerors, adopting many of the names which they found already in use, and where an unusually large number of towns and villages have been called after the streams on which they stand.

The names Exe, Axe, and Okement, from the Celtic uisge; Avon, Aune, and Auney, from afon; Dart, from dwr; and Teign, from tain, are all derived from roots meaning "water." Other names are taken from descriptive adjectives, such as Wrey, from rea, rapid; Lyn, from lleven, smooth; and Tamar, Taw, and Tavy, from tam, spreading or still.

The lakes of Devonshire, as is the case in the majority of English counties, are little more than ponds. Cranmere Pool, in the great morass where many Devonshire rivers rise, lying in a dreary spot, as befits the reputed place of punishment of evil spirits, has shrunk of late years in consequence of much peat-cutting in its neighbourhood, and is now an insignificant pond, rarely more than seventy yards across, and in hot summers sometimes quite dry. Bradmere Pool and Classenwell Pool, the sites of old mine-workings, are beautiful little lakes, but they are only a few acres in extent. Burrator Reservoir has been made in order to supply water to Plymouth. The largest of these miniature lakes is Slapton Ley, or Lea, a long and narrow sheet of water, two and a quarter miles in length and measuring about 200 acres, separated from the sea, with which it was no doubt once connected, by a bank of fine shingle. The reeds of its north-eastern end, which are cut and sold for thatching, are the haunt of many water-birds; and the Ley is visited in winter by immense numbers of migratory ducks and waders.

[6. Geology.]

Three main points characterise the geological features of Devonshire; the simplicity of the system in the west, north-centre and south-west of the county; the comparative complexity and variety of the strata in the east and south; and, most remarkable of all, the extraordinary number of outcrops of igneous rock, from the great mass of Dartmoor granite, which has no parallel in England, to the hundreds of small dykes or elvans that are scattered chiefly over the southern region, although some occur to the north and east of Dartmoor.

The oldest rocks in Devonshire are probably not, as was once thought, the granites, but the highly altered or metamorphic formations in the extreme south; that is to say, the mica and quartz schists and the hornblende epidote schists which extend from near Start Point to Bolt Tail, a district which, owing in great measure to distortion by volcanic upheaval, includes some of the most picturesque scenery in Devon.

Next in order of age is the series called Devonian, after the name of the county, in which they were first distinguished from the Old Red Sandstone. They are, however, by no means confined to Devonshire, but are very widely distributed, covering a large part of Cornwall, and occurring on the continent of Europe, especially in Russia, and in Asia and North and South America. The Devonian beds—which are found both in the north and south, occupying two distinct areas separated by widespread deposits of culm or carboniferous measures—were, it is thought, formed in open water, and probably at the same time that the Old Red Sandstone of the adjoining county of Somerset and elsewhere, which is not found in this county at all, was being deposited in estuaries and land-locked seas.

DIAGRAM SECTION FROM SNOWDON TO HARWICH, ABOUT 200 MILES.

This cross section shows what would be seen in a deep cutting nearly E. and W. across England and Wales. It shows also how, in consequence of the folding of the strata and the cutting off of the uplifted parts, old rocks which should be tens of thousands of feet down are found in borings in East Anglia only 1000 feet or so below the surface.]

The North Devonian beds, which extend from the coast as far south as the latitude of Barnstaple, consist of slates, grits, and sandstones which, it is believed, judging from the organic remains in them, were formed in shallow water and near shore. Their lower strata, the Foreland grits, Lynton beds, and Hangman grits, contain some fossils and various kinds of coral. But the Middle beds, the Ilfracombe and Morte slates, are much richer in animal remains; of which perhaps the most remarkable are primitive palaeozoic fish, such as the very curious armoured pteraspis; while corals and bivalve shells are abundant and characteristic. The Upper Devonian is less fossiliferous, but contains some large trilobites, various marine shells, and some land-plants.

The South Devonian, which covers nearly all South Devon and a large part of Cornwall, is somewhat different in character, consisting chiefly of slates, with coralline limestones, varied by volcanic outcrops or elvans—a word said to be of Cornish origin, and meaning "white rock." To judge from its fossils, it was deposited in deeper water than the contemporary beds in the north of the county. The Lower and Middle beds are also far richer in animal remains; and the Middle Devonian of the south, which is the most typical of the series and includes the limestones of Plymouth and Torbay, is crowded with shells, trilobites, and corals. Among the shells, bivalves—such as Stringocephalus, which occurs only in the Devonian formations—spiral univalves, and corals are very abundant. There are also many crinoids, distinct from those of the carboniferous limestone, while perhaps the most characteristic form is the rare and curious Caleola sandalina, differing from all other corals in having an operculum. There are not many varieties of trilobite, but the large Brontes flabellifer is not uncommon.

Logan Stone, Dartmoor

The Lower beds of this series contain fewer organic remains, although a good many fossils are found, including fragmentary remains of various fishes which have not yet been identified. The Upper Devonian is, on the whole, very poor in fossils.

Between the two Devonian areas, and occupying a large part of the centre of the county, are the carboniferous or coal-bearing measures, containing, however, not true coal but anthracite, which has more carbon in it than is found in ordinary coal; and these beds are perhaps more often known as Culm, from the Welsh cwlwm, a knot, in allusion to the fragmentary condition in which the mineral is frequently found. Anthracite, which elsewhere and especially in South Wales is a most valuable fuel, is here clayey and impure, and in thin seams. It is worked to a small extent, to be ground and made into a paint called Bideford Black. The Culm measures consist of grits, shales, and sandstones, with beds of chert and limestone containing fossil plants and other forms of marine life. Fish are few, only two species having been identified. The anthracite occurs in the middle Culm, and there are other remains of plants in both the middle and upper beds. The upper Culm is well seen on the coast near Clovelly and by the river Torridge, where it has been bent by volcanic upheaval into curious and beautiful curves. These measures, in general, are characterised by many outcrops of volcanic rock, some of which were probably contemporary, that is to say, they were poured out while the culm was in process of formation; while others are intrusive, or were forced up through the strata after these had been solidified into rock. These igneous rocks are found in great variety.

A smoothly-weathered granite Tor, Dartmoor

By far the most important and striking of these volcanic formations is the great granite mass of Dartmoor, one of the most prominent features of the county, measuring 225 square miles in extent, and constituting the largest granitic area in England. Granite is a volcanic rock, formed, it has been suggested, by fusion at a great depth and under great pressure, and consisting in the main of three minerals, quartz, felspar, and mica. That of Dartmoor is, on the whole, grey and coarse-grained, but it varies a good deal in colour, fineness, and composition. Its real origin is obscure. It has been assigned by various experts to various periods, and it has been called "the sphinx of Devon geology." There can, however, be no doubt about the great disturbance which has been caused in the county by upheaval and by the intrusion of melted rock, which has bent, broken, and twisted previously-existing formations in a most extraordinary manner, the results of which are well seen in the picturesque scenery of the Start, Prawle Point, and Bolt Head. Lundy, which is twelve miles from the nearest point of Devonshire mainland, is all granite, except for a small part of its south end, which is Millstone Grit.

A long interval of time appears to have followed the laying down of the Culm measures, during which so vast an amount of shattered rock was worn away that when the beds that come next in order—the New Red Sandstones—were formed, they were, in places, deposited directly upon the Devonian, the superincumbent carboniferous or Culm strata having entirely disappeared. The New Red Sandstones occur chiefly in the east of the county, where their lower beds fill up old creeks and valleys in the carboniferous system; and they extend northwards from the coast past Exeter as far as Holcombe Regis, forming broad bands on either side of the Exe, characterised by the high fertility of the overlying soil, and with one long spur traversing the heart of the county, past Crediton and Exbourne, with isolated patches round Hatherleigh, and with another and less extended prolongation a few miles west of Tiverton. The Lower New Red consists of clays, conglomerates, red breccias and sands, in which occur many outcrops of trap, the evidence, not only of numerous eruptions, but of eruptions extending over a long period of time. These beds contain no fossils, except in fragments of older rocks. The Middle New Red, in the form of thick beds of red marl and red and white limestones, well seen on the south coast, is covered in turn by the Upper New Red, with beds of pebbles, some of which are derived from the Devonian and even from the Silurian. In this formation, near Sidmouth, have been found the remains of two remarkable reptiles, the Hyperodapedon, a strange form allied to the existing tuatera lizard of New Zealand and in England only known elsewhere in the formations of Warwickshire, and the Labyrinthodon, so named from the intricate structure of its teeth, and also called Cheirotherium, from the hand-like impressions of its feet.

Footprints of Cheirotherium, New Red Sandstone

The Rhaetic beds are not well seen in Devonshire. They occur on the coast between Lyme Regis and the mouth of the Axe, and in the estuary of that river, but are much hidden by landslips of cretaceous formations from above. One layer, consisting of black shale, with bivalve shells such as Cardium and Pecten, contains also a bone-bed, with remains of fish, such as Acrodus and Hybodus. The former is represented by its blunt teeth, and the latter, which was a huge, shark-like creature, by its long and formidable-looking fin-spines.

The Lower Lias is exposed in a narrow strip of coast from the Devonshire border to the mouth of the Axe, and to a greater extent in the valley of the river above Axminster. It has been divided on the coast into four distinct zones, each characterised by its own particular species of ammonite.

The cretaceous formations occupy a much wider area, but they also are confined to the southern part of the county. The Greensands of the Blackdown and Haldon Hills have been divided by geologists into fifteen layers, varying in thickness from a few inches to as much as thirty-five feet, some with few fossils, and some very rich in animal remains. Trigonia and Inoceramus are found in almost all the zones: other forms less widely distributed are Murex and Turritella. Chalk occurs on the south coast from the Dorset border to Sidmouth; and in isolated patches it extends inland as far as the Blackdown Hills, and also further west, in the Haldons. The Lower Chalk, well seen on the coast and to the west of Hinton, is made up of calcareous sandstones, with ammonites and pectens. The Middle beds, composed of white chalk with flints, the zone of Terebratulina gracilis, is exposed at Beer. The lower and harder layer is characterised by Rhynconella. The Upper Chalk also holds many flints, with echini; Holaster in the lower, and Micraster in the upper strata.

Last of all come the tertiary deposits, which, however, occupy only a small area in the south-east, chiefly in the valley of the Teign, from Kingsteignton to Bovey Tracy; and there are a few isolated patches, as for example near Bideford and at Plymouth. These beds consist of clays, some of them of much value, with flints from the chalk, and gravels and beds of sand derived from the wearing away of older rocks. The most interesting feature of this formation is the lignite of Bovey Tracy, on the eastern edge of Dartmoor. Lignite, otherwise known as brown coal, consists of the imperfectly fossilised remains of tropical or sub-tropical vegetation, such as the palm, cinnamon, and laurel, amongst which are found lumps of resin. By far the most abundant remains are those of a very large tree allied to the sequoia of California. It is very remarkable that in the Pleistocene clay above the lignite are found stems and twigs of Arctic birch and willow, suggestive of a far colder climate than prevailed in Tertiary times, when the trees that went to form the lignite were growing.

To the Pleistocene period also belong the gravels and alluvial deposits of some of the river valleys (those of the Exe and the Teign, for example), the blown sands of Braunton Burrows and elsewhere, the raised sea-beaches, the submerged forests, and the cave-deposits which are alluded to in other chapters.

[7. Natural History.]

It is generally believed by naturalists that the ancestors of most of our fauna and flora reached this country at a time when what we now call the British Isles formed part of the mainland of Europe, and when there was no intervening sea to bar the way.

Before this colonisation was complete, however—that is, before all the different kinds of European beasts and birds had made their way to the extreme western districts—communication with the continent was broken off. The land of the north-western districts of Europe sank. The sea flowed in, forming the German Ocean, the English Channel and the Irish Sea, and the influx of animal life was stopped.

This is the reason why there are more than twice as many kinds of land animals in Germany as there are in England, and nearly twice as many in England as there are in Ireland. This is the reason why there are no snakes in Ireland, and why the nightingale, on returning from the south, never crosses into the sister kingdom.

On islands that have long been separated from a continent it is found that forms of life tend to vary in the lapse of time, and that fresh species are developed. That it is not long, as geological periods go, since Great Britain became an island, is shown by the fact that we have no quadruped or reptile except the Irish weasel (Mustela hibernica), and, setting aside minor differences which some writers have magnified to the value of a species, only one bird, the red grouse, which is not also to be found in Europe. Very different is the case in Japan, which was separated from the mainland of Asia so long ago that new species have had time to develope; and the islands of that country contain many kinds of beasts and birds which are unknown on the adjacent continent.

Some of the animals which came from Europe into Britain have died out, either because the climate changed and so cut off their food supply, or because they were destroyed by the hunters of the Stone Age. The bones which have been found in Kent's Cavern at Torquay, and in other caverns, afford clear evidence that the mammoth, the lion, the bear, and the hyaena once roamed over the hills of Devonshire.

Although there are many more species of beasts and birds on the continent of Europe than there are in this country, both birds and beasts are numerically much more common here. Nothing strikes a naturalist more forcibly when travelling in France or Italy, for example, than the scarcity of wild life, and especially the fewness of the birds. It is true that we have fewer species, but we have many more individuals. To this, several causes have contributed. Englishmen do not, as is the custom in many European countries, shoot or trap for food small birds of every description. And game preserving—although it has been fatal to the larger birds of prey, such as kites, falcons, and buzzards, and keeps down other species, such as jays, magpies, and carrion crows—provides innumerable sanctuaries for great numbers of the smaller birds, which are safe from harm during the breeding season.

The natural features of Devonshire are so varied in character, including as they do large areas of wild and uncultivated and thinly-inhabited country, together with many well-wooded and sequestered valleys, and wide stretches of bog, salt-marsh, and sea-coast, that it is very rich in both animal and vegetable life. Its marine fauna and flora, in particular, are of very great interest, and are among the most remarkable in England.

A Red Deer

Nearly all the native mammals of the British Isles are found or have been found in this county, from the "tall red deer" that has run wild on Exmoor from time immemorial, down to the pygmy shrew, the smallest but one of European quadrupeds, and weighing only one-tenth of an ounce, or about forty-three grains and a half.

Otters

Among the eight species of Devonshire bats is the very rare particoloured bat (Vesperugo discolor), of which the only example ever recorded in England was taken at Plymouth, having perhaps travelled there in the rigging of a ship. It is probably more than a hundred years since the last genuine wild-cat was seen in the county, but both the marten and the polecat still survive in secluded spots. Foxes are common, and there are still many badgers in some of the Dartmoor valleys, where the two species have been known to inhabit the same holt. Otters abound on all the principal streams, and are as regularly hunted as the red deer and the fox. Devonshire is, indeed, pre-eminent for its otter-hunting, and the Culmstock pack is believed to be the oldest in the island. Harvest mice and dormice, although widely distributed, are not numerous, and the original English black rat is now rare.

Among the many marine mammalia that have been recorded for the county are two kinds of seal, the sperm-whale, the common rorqual—of which specimens nearly 70 feet long have been brought into Plymouth—the rare bottle-nosed dolphin and the still rarer Risso's grampus. Bones of a whale called Balaenoptera robustus, which were once washed ashore in Torbay, are said to represent a species so rare that these and a few similar relics stranded in Sweden are the only remains of it that have ever been found.

Situated as Devonshire is, between the English and the Bristol Channels, and containing widely-different physical features, suited to the needs of species of very different habits, the list of its birds, including residents, migrants, occasional visitors, and stragglers from the Atlantic and even from America, is a very long one.

Among the larger land-birds which still hold their ground in the county are the raven and buzzard, both of which are to be seen on Exmoor and Dartmoor and on the coast, and the peregrine falcon, which has eyries on both the northern and southern seaboards. A few pairs of choughs still build in the northern cliffs; while such rare birds as Montagu's harrier—first identified as a British species in this county—the hoopoe, and the golden oriole still occasionally breed here, and might do so regularly were they left in peace. Several birds, such as the kite and the osprey, the latter of which now breeds nowhere in England, and the former only in one solitary spot, have long since left the county. Warblers as a family are less abundant than in some other parts of the British Isles. The nightingale is nowhere common, but it occurs every season near Ashburton and in the valley of the Teign. Owing to the mildness of the climate it is not at all an unusual thing for a few chiffchaffs and willow-warblers to spend the winter in sheltered valleys on the south coast, instead of migrating to Africa in the autumn. The ring-ouzel is a regular visitor to the open country of Dartmoor, while the dipper haunts many of its streams. Two birds which have greatly increased in numbers of late years are the jackdaw and the starling. It is thought that the former has done much towards exterminating the chough by destroying its eggs; and the latter, by taking possession of its holes, has in many places driven away the green woodpecker. Partridges and pheasants are numerous, but black-game, once abundant on Dartmoor, have become so scarce that they are at present protected the whole year round.

But by far the most abundant, and perhaps the most characteristic, of the birds of Devonshire are the sea-fowl, the water-fowl, and the waders, of which more than 140 different kinds have been recorded for the county. Not only are its sandy shores, its bays and estuaries and leys, haunted in autumn and winter by multitudes of northern immigrants—swans, geese, ducks and a great variety of wading-birds; but there are several spots along the south coast and a few on the north where sea-birds regularly breed; while the reed-beds of Slapton Ley provide sanctuary for great numbers of coots and for many wild-ducks and teal, together with some rarer species. Herons are common on the south coast and along the river estuaries, and there are heronries at Powderham and elsewhere. A great black-headed gull (Larus ichthyaetus) shot on the Exe in 1859, is the only one known to have been seen in the British Islands.

There is, however, nothing on the mainland of Devonshire to compare in ornithological interest with Lundy, which in the summer time is a bird-lover's paradise. Gannets, once very numerous, have now left the island, but cormorants, shags and gulls of various species here build their untidy nests. Here multitudes of guillemots and razorbills assemble in the spring and lay their great pear-shaped and boldly-marked eggs on the ledges of the cliffs; while even vaster hosts of puffins come back every year to take up their quarters in rabbit-burrows or in holes which they have dug for themselves in the turf. Here the raven, the buzzard, and the peregrine have fastnesses. Here, in chinks and crannies, storm-petrels breed; and here, when darkness falls, the startled listener may hear the weird, wailing cry of the night-wandering shearwaters.

The few reptiles and batrachians of Devonshire present no points of special interest. Vipers abound on Dartmoor, where they are commoner than grass-snakes. It is curious that, while the palmated newt is common throughout the county, the smooth newt and the triton are now comparatively rare.

The freshwater fish differ little from those found in the neighbouring counties; but there are fewer kinds in Devonshire than there are in the midlands or in the east of England. Trout abound in all the streams, and there are important salmon-fisheries on the Exe, the Dart, and other rivers. A sturgeon seven-and-a-half feet long was once taken in the Exe. Eels, which are hatched in the Atlantic, to the west and north of the British Islands, at a depth of 3000 feet or more, come up from the sea when they are two years old, and still very small, and ascend the rivers, especially Exe, in enormous numbers. When they are mature, which is not until they are several years old, they go down to the sea to spawn, and never return.

It is, however, in marine zoology, for which few other parts of England afford so rich a field, and for which its bays and inlets, its rock-pools and stretches of sand provide ideal hunting-ground for the naturalist, that Devonshire is most distinguished. Many famous zoologists, such as Leach, Montagu, Parfitt, Gosse, and Kingsley have won renown both for themselves and for the county by their researches; while the Marine Biological Laboratory at Plymouth is constantly adding to our knowledge of the multitudinous inhabitants of the sea. The subject is so vast that only a few chief points can here be touched upon.

The sea-fish differ in marked degree from those of the east coast of England. Plaice and cod, for example, are smaller here than those caught in the North Sea and the latter are scarce; and the haddock, one of the most important of east coast fish, is here almost unknown. Two characteristic fish of the south coast of Devon are the pollack, which reaches a great size, and the pilchard, confined to this county and to Cornwall. Many southern and even Mediterranean species find their way to these waters: notable examples are the gigantic tunny, one specimen of which weighed 700 pounds, the beautiful rainbow wrasse, one of the most brilliantly-coloured of all fish, and the boar-fish, which is sometimes quite common. A number of rare species, such as Montagu's sucker and the crystal goby, were first made known as British through being taken off the Devonshire coast. Stray examples of the tropical bonito, the flying-fish, the electric torpedo, and the sun-fish, one specimen of which weighed 500 pounds, and the splendidly-coloured opal or king-fish, have been recorded. Several kinds of sharks have been caught in these waters, including the blue shark, the spinous shark, covered all over with sharp prickles, the rare and formidable hammer-head, the huge thresher, and the still larger basking-shark. The latter is, indeed, the largest of British fish. Specimens have been caught measuring 30 feet in length, and weighing more than eight tons. Marketable marine-fish will be treated of in a later chapter.

Rich as are the Devonshire seas in fish, they are richer still in crustaceans—crabs, lobsters, prawns, shrimps and their allies; and in this respect ours is the premier county of England. Among a multitude of species, two which have occurred nowhere else in Britain may be specially singled out. One of these is the burying-shrimp, Callionassa subterranea, a little creature something like a very small lobster, with one claw—sometimes the right and sometimes the left—very much larger than the other. It was one of Montagu's many discoveries, and was found two feet deep under the sand of the Kingsbridge estuary. The other rare species is the turtle-crab, Planes minutus, a few specimens of which have been drifted ashore on fronds of Sargasso weed. The "small grasshoppers" which Columbus saw floating in the sea a few days before he sighted the New World, were, it is believed, not grasshoppers, but turtle-crabs.

Other and very beautiful forms of marine life, such as starfish, anemones, corals and other zoophytes, and sea-shells are very abundant. And in spite of the comparative scarcity of lime in the soil of Devonshire, the list of land and freshwater shells is a long one. It is remarkable that Limnaea stagnalis and Planorbis corneus, two water-shells that are common in Somerset, are unknown in Devon. The pearl-bearing mussel, Unio margaritifer, is found in both the Taw and the Teign.

The county is rich in insects, especially as regards butterflies, moths, and beetles; but several of the first-named which have been caught in Somerset have not been recorded here. The black-veined white (Pieris crataegi), once a common insect, has disappeared within the last forty years, and the greasy fritillary (Melitaea Artemis)—another vanishing species—is now almost extinct. Neither insect can have been hunted down for the sake of its beauty or its rarity, and the reason for this disappearance is unknown.

Spurge Hawk Moth, with Pupa and Caterpillar

As in the case of birds, the county is, from its position, a favourite alighting-place for insects coming from abroad. Between 1876 and 1890 large numbers of a very striking and beautiful American butterfly, Danais plexippus, appeared in England, having apparently crossed the Atlantic, and three specimens were caught in Devonshire. The Lulworth skipper (Hesperia Actaeon), a small butterfly which elsewhere is only found in Dorset, occurs along the south-east coast of this county. Moths are very abundant, and the first recorded British examples of several species were taken in Devonshire.

About a hundred years ago, caterpillars of the spurge hawk-moth (Deilephila euphorbiae) were very plentiful on spurge plants growing among the sand-hills near Barnstaple. Many of these caterpillars were taken by naturalists, and were reared, and ultimately turned into perfect insects; although neither there nor anywhere else in our island was a wild example of this very beautiful moth ever seen alive. The spurge plants were long ago covered up by drifting sand, and the caterpillars were all destroyed. No other locality for them has been found in England, and as far as this country is concerned the spurge hawk-moth appears to be extinct.

As might be expected in a district of such varied physical features, with so mild a climate and such an ample rainfall, the flowering plants of Devonshire are very numerous, no fewer than 1156 species having been recorded. The abundance and beauty of its wild-flowers is one of the characteristics of the county. No one who has ever seen them will forget the wonderful wealth of primroses in some of the river valleys—at Holne, for example—or the splendour of the ling-empurpled sweeps of Dartmoor, or its sheets of golden gorse; or the marvellous mist of bluebells upon woodland slopes or in the shelter of straggling hedgerows. Each several district, sea-shore and salt-marsh, moor and bog, wood and valley, has its own distinct and characteristic flora. One Devonshire plant, the Romulea or gênotte, Romulea columnae, a Mediterranean species with very small pale blue flowers, is abundant on the Warren at the mouth of the Exe, but grows nowhere else in England, although it is found in Guernsey. Several plants occur in only one other English county; such for instance are the white rock-rose, Helianthemum polifolium, and the Irish spurge, Euphorbia hibernica, which are confined to Devon and Somerset, and the "flower of the Exe," Lobelia urens, which grows only in Devon and Cornwall. Three plants, which are very abundant in Somerset, the cowslip, the sweet violet, and the mistletoe, are rare in this county, although not unknown. The first plants of sea-kale ever brought into cultivation were originally dug up on Slapton sands; and the vegetable came into note in Bath about 1775.

Ferns are characteristic of Devonshire. Not only are most of the familiar kinds abundant, but rarer species as the true maiden-hair, two filmy ferns, and the parsley fern (Cryptogramme crispa) are to be found. The magnificent royal fern, Osmunda regalis, still grows in some of the river valleys, and especially in Holne Chase, but it has suffered much from the greed of collectors, and the raids of unscrupulous dealers. A great variety of spleenworts has been recorded for the county, and one of the characteristic hedgerow ferns is the pretty little Asplenium adiantum-nigrum. Mosses, also, are very abundant, and there is one kind which occurs nowhere else in Britain. In sea-weeds Devonshire is richer than any other county except Dorset. Among its 468 different species is the Sargasso or Gulf-weed, sprays of which are sometimes thrown ashore after rough weather.

Except on the moors Devonshire is well timbered. The elm is perhaps the most conspicuous tree, but the beech and the ash are also very abundant. There is a very fine wych-elm, with a trunk 16 ft. in circumference, in Sharpham Park. The sycamore, which when well-developed is a very beautiful tree, here attains to fine proportions, and there are noble examples at Widecombe-in-the-Moor. The oak, although it grows freely, does not, as a rule, reach a great size, though there are some well-grown specimens at Tawstock Court. There is an oak at Flitton, near North Molton, which is thirty-three feet in circumference, and the Meavy oak is twenty-five feet in girth. An oak-tree thirteen and a half feet in diameter was cut down at Okehampton in 1776, and there is a tradition that two couples danced upon its stump. There are no very remarkable yews in Devonshire. Probably the finest are at Stoke Gabriel, Kenn, and Withycombe Raleigh, but the first of these is only fifteen feet in girth at the level of the ground. There is a story that, under the yew-tree at Mamhead, Boswell vowed that he would never get drunk again. At Bowringsleigh there is a magnificent avenue of lime-trees, and the avenue of araucarias at Bicton, planted in 1842, is said to be the finest in the kingdom. Several manor-houses possess one or more noble old mulberry-trees planted in the time of James I, with a view to encourage the cultivation of silk. At Buckland Abbey, once the home of Sir Francis Drake, there are some beautiful tulip-trees. Palms and other sub-tropical trees grow without protection at several places on the south coast; and at Kingsbridge and other towns pomegranates, oranges, lemons, and citrons will ripen their fruit in the open air.

A good many places in Devonshire take their names from trees. Thus Ashburton is named from the ash, Egg Buckland from the oak, Bickleigh from the beech, and Holne from the holly.

[8. A Peregrination of the Coast: 1, The Bristol Channel.]

Devonshire, like Cornwall and Kent, is remarkable in having both a northern and a southern seaboard; a peculiarity shared by no other English county. Its two shores present striking points of difference. The south coast-line is broken by many estuaries. On the other shore there is only one important river mouth. There are, it is true, many little coves and inlets on the Bristol Channel, some of them of great beauty; but they make little show upon the map of England, and the stern outline of the North Devon coast affords no harbour of refuge.

Both shores are rock-bound. But while the southern cliffs are, in great measure, of warm-hued and even brightly-coloured stone, those on the north are dark and gloomy; and their tones, although in some places very beautiful, are set in quieter key—in grey or brown or even verging upon black. Again, the southern shore is fringed at some points with sandy beaches; while on the north coast there are no sands at all, except on the western side of Bideford Bay.

Along the northern seaboard of Devon there runs a series of magnificent cliffs, in parts heavily wooded, whose dark walls, sloping steeply to the shore and with projecting bases suggestive of the ram of a battleship, are relieved at many points by deep, rocky clefts, known variously as combes or mouths; each with its stream, each green with ferns and oak-coppice and thickets of thorn and hazel, and each with its butterfly-haunted clumps of tall hemp-agrimony.

The Castle Rock, Lynton

Down such a hollow, the deep and finely-wooded valley of Glenthorne, runs the border-line that divides Somerset from Devon. Rather more than three miles west of it there stands out into the Bristol Channel the dark mass of Countisbury Foreland, the most northerly point in the county, and one of the highest along its coast, 1100 feet above sea-level. Four miles beyond the Foreland, at the mouth of a deep and well-wooded valley, down which runs the beautiful trout-stream from which it takes its name, is Lynmouth, famous for its scenery, of which two striking features are the Watersmeet on the river, and the Valley of Rocks on the coast. A port and fishing-village up to the close of the eighteenth century, its small tidal harbour is visited now only by a few small coasting vessels. About four miles west of Lynmouth is Heddon's Mouth, a little bay at the foot of towering cliffs, with another trout-stream flowing down to the sea through one of the loveliest combes in North Devon. Five miles of cliff stretch from Heddon's Mouth to Combe Martin Bay, a little inlet lying in the shelter of two conspicuous heights, the Great Hangman and the Little Hangman—names associated with no tragic story, but derived, like many others round our coasts, from the Celtic maen, a stone—and with its village, once famous for its rich silver-mines, running a mile inland. Two miles of rock-bound and dangerous coast, swept, especially off Rillage Point, by a strong tide-race, extend from Combe Martin Bay to the ancient port of Ilfracombe, whose mild yet bracing climate and beautiful surroundings have made it the most popular seaside resort in North Devon. Its little land-locked harbour is almost surrounded by lofty hills and rugged cliffs, whose beauty is greatly heightened by the varied colouring of the rock and by the vivid green of the abundant vegetation.

Valley of Rocks, Lynton

Ilfracombe is a place that has played a part in history. In the fourteenth century it provided six ships towards Edward III's expedition against Calais. It was from this port that Queen Elizabeth sent troops to Ireland during the rebellion of the Earl of Tyrone. In the Civil War it was taken alternately by Royalists and Parliamentarians. It was from Ilfracombe that Wade and Ferguson and other Sedgemoor fugitives tried in vain to escape by sea. And it was here, in 1796, that the French squadron which afterwards landed 1000 scoundrels of the Légion noire at Fishguard, on the opposite coast—the last hostile invasion of these islands—burnt the fishing-smacks lying in the harbour. The French ships were in the end taken by Lord Bridport.

A short distance west of Ilfracombe is Wildersmouth, a beautiful bay, with a gravelly beach, famous for its richness in the lower forms of marine life, and three miles farther down the coast juts out Bull Point, a bold headland guarded by a powerful lighthouse, marking the north-eastern limit of the most dangerous part of the coast, which here turns abruptly southward, facing squarely to the open Atlantic. A little farther on is Morte Point, whose name the popular fancy regards, although without foundation, as hinting at the deadly character of its black, jagged, sea-swept rocks. The village of Mortehoe, a few hundred yards inland, was the property in the thirteenth century of the de Traci family, one of whom was among the murderers of Thomas à Becket. But there is no ground for the legend that he was buried here, or for the traditions of him that are current in the district. A tiny little cove on the south side of Morte Point, called Barracane Beach, was once famous for its rare and beautiful shells; but it is now so widely known, and its charm is so completely lost, that it has been said of it that there are more collectors than specimens.

Ilfracombe, from Hillsborough

Beyond Morte Point is Morte Bay, most of whose shore lies low, and is fringed throughout almost its entire length by the broad expanse of Woollacombe Sands, along whose margin, at heights varying from eight to fifteen feet above high-water mark, may be traced at intervals a raised sea-beach. At the southern extremity of Morte Bay is the noble headland of Baggy Point, a magnificent piece of cliff, haunted by crowds of sea-birds, and pierced by many caves. The shore of Croyde Bay, beyond the Point, is famous for its fertility; and from the crest of Saunton Down, the last headland before the estuary formed by the waters of the Taw and the Torridge, is a view which, embracing sea and coast-line, rich expanses of farm-land, the distant heights of Dartmoor and the faint shape of Lundy on the far horizon, is one of the finest in all Devon. Along the shore to the south of Baggy Point, where Saunton Sands form the seaward fringe of Braunton Burrows, is another long stretch of raised sea-beach, from two to fifteen feet above high-water mark. And in this beach, not far from Saunton, is a large boulder of red granite, a rock unknown in the district, which may have been stranded here by floating ice.

Braunton Burrows is a long, wide tract of sand-hills, some eighteen square miles in area, stretching far inland, and reaching to the estuary of the Taw and the Torridge, with deep hollows among which, without a compass, it is quite possible to get completely lost. It is a place of much interest to the naturalist and the antiquarian. A number of rare plants are found here, great quantities of primitive flint implements have been discovered in the sand, and at low water the remains of a submerged forest are to be seen along the shore.

The estuary formed by the combined streams of the Taw and Torridge, the former of which is also known as the Barnstaple River, flows into Barnstaple Bay at the south end of Braunton Burrows. There is no port on the open coast; but just inside the estuary are the quaint old town of Appledore and the equally ancient village of Instow, on the left and right banks, respectively, of the river Torridge. In the mouth of the same stream, a little to the south of Appledore, is a long flat rock called the Hubblestone; named, according to tradition, after the viking Hubba, who pillaged this coast in the reign of King Alfred, and fell in battle at the mouth of the Parrett, in the adjoining county of Somerset.

Blocking up a great part of the river mouth, and stretching down the coast past Westward Ho! a distance of about two miles, is the Pebble Ridge, a remarkable bank of shingle and sea-worn boulders, some of which are of great size, though the majority are not more than a few inches in diameter. The sea has gradually shifted it further and further inland, and it now covers what was once a long stretch of good pasture-ground. On its landward side are the golf-links of Northam Burrows, considered to be among the finest south of the Tweed.

Westward Ho! a modern watering-place named in honour of Kingsley's great romance, is chiefly interesting on account of its submerged forest, in whose peat and clay, deeply covered by the sea at high tide, have been found, not only the trunks of large oak and fir-trees, and bones of the wild boar, stag, horse, and dog, but bones of man, together with charcoal, pottery, and implements of flint.

Six miles south-west of Westward Ho! and in the centre of the curve that marks the southern shore of Barnstaple Bay, is the prettily situated fishing-village of Buck's Mill, with red and wood-crowned cliffs behind and beyond it, and extending to Clovelly, the famous little town that may truly be called one of the most remarkable spots, not in Devonshire only, but in all England. Crowded in a hollow in the cliff, with woods on either side, and with an air of climbing up from its little tidal harbour sheltered by a rough stone pier of the time of Richard II, it consists of one long, winding, pebble-paved street, too steep for wheeled traffic, with quaint and irregularly-built cottages to left and right, beautiful with creepers and myrtles, fuchsias and geraniums. Not only is Clovelly intimately associated with the memory of Charles Kingsley, whose father was rector here, but it is the original "village of Steepways," in Dickens and Collins' Christmas story, A Message from the Sea.

Cliffs near Clovelly

A long stretch of wild and magnificent coast-line extends from Clovelly to Hartland Point, where the shore again turns southward, and again from Hartland to the county border; a wall of precipitous black cliffs, relieved here and there by bands of red schist, and broken at intervals by green combes such as are characteristic of the seabord of Devon; a terrible coast, strewn with fragments of wreckage from ill-fated ships.

Clovelly Harbour

Hartland Point, believed to be the Promontory of Hercules alluded to by the geographer Ptolemy, is a noble headland, whose dark steeps rise 350 feet sheer up out of a dangerous and ever restless sea. Perhaps there is not, in any other part of North Devon, more striking evidence of volcanic upheaval and disturbance than is to be seen in the curved and gnarled and twisted strata of the cliffs that tower above Hartland Quay.

Six miles south of Hartland the northern seaboard of the county ends, as it began, in a deep hollow in the cliffs, Marsland Mouth, a beautiful combe, down which, under storm-beaten oaks and thickets of thorn and hazel, there winds the stream that forms the border-line between Devonshire and Cornwall.

Church Rock, Clovelly

[9. A Peregrination of the Coast: 2, The English Channel.]

The points that specially characterise the southern seaboard of Devonshire, and distinguish it from the northern shore, are its many estuaries, its numerous bays and bold headlands, the strong, deep red, in some places, of its rugged cliffs, and, in a minor degree, the sandy beaches which lend an added charm to many of its seaside towns.

No natural feature marks the spot, half-way between Lyme Cobb and the Seven Rocks Point, where the border-line between Dorsetshire and Devonshire begins. But all that part of the coast, almost as far as the mouth of the Axe, shows signs of having been broken away by repeated landslips; one of the most serious of which happened in 1839, when a vast mass of cliff, extending all the way from Pinhay (or Pinner) to Culverhole Point, slipped bodily down some 300 feet, carrying with it fields and houses; and it now lies in most picturesque ruin on the beach.

The mouth of the Axe, above whose eastern side rises the Haven Cliff, a fine mass of red sandstone crowned by white chalk, has long since been silted up by pebbles, and no ships now visit either Axmouth or Seaton, the latter of which was once of sufficient importance to contribute two vessels towards Edward III's expedition against Calais, but is now only a watering-place. Beyond the mouth of the Axe, separated from it by a mile of low-lying shore, the White Cliff, also a scene of many landslips, rises sheer up out of the sea; a fine piece of cliff-wall, the effect of whose bands of red and white, of brown and grey, is greatly heightened by the green of its abundant vegetation. More striking still is the white precipice of Beer Head, the most southerly outcrop of chalk in England, worn above into picturesque and ivy-mantled crags, and hollowed at its base into many caves. From its summit, 426 feet above the sea, is a far-reaching view of the coast, covering the 50 miles from Portland on the east to the Start on the west. Half-way between the mouth of the Axe and Beer Head is the quaint and old-world village of Beer, famous for its labyrinthine quarries tunnelled deep into the hill, for its fisheries and lace-making, and, formerly, as a special haunt of smugglers. From Beer Head, past the little openings of Branscombe Mouth, Weston Mouth, and Salcombe, to Sidmouth, is a range of magnificent and picturesquely-coloured cliffs, white and grey and yellow, and at some points rising straight up from the sea-line.

Pinhay Landslip

White Cliff, Seaton

Sidmouth, the "Baymouth" of Thackeray's Pendennis, set among beautiful hills, and one of the pleasantest of west-country watering-places, was once a port, with valuable pilchard fisheries. But its harbour has been destroyed by repeated falls of rock from its grand cliffs of deep red sandstone, the Sid is silted up with sand and shingle, and the pilchards have left this part of the coast. About a mile west of Sidmouth is the beautiful headland of High Peak, whose summit, 511 feet above the sea, is the most lofty point on the south coast of Devon. Just beyond it is the popular bathing-place of Ladram Cove, whose firm sands are fringed with brightly-coloured pebbles. Rather more than two miles farther on is the estuary of the Otter, a harbour 500 years ago, but now, like so many of these river mouths, barred with shingle. Close to the estuary lies the quiet little town of Budleigh Salterton, set in a beautiful valley, famous for its mild climate and its luxuriant vegetation. Some five miles of coast-line—broken half-way by Straight Point, beyond which the shore is low—extend from Budleigh to the mouth of the Exe, the widest of Devonshire estuaries, but almost closed by a long bar of grass-grown sand called the Warren, on which, during the Civil War, stood a Royalist fort mounting sixteen guns. Exmouth, at the east side of the estuary, formerly a fishing-village, is now a highly popular watering-place.

Parson and Clerk Rocks, Dawlish

Four miles farther on, in a little bay walled-in by lofty cliffs of deep red sandstone, is Dawlish, noted for its warm climate and its good sands. At the eastern end of the bay is a rock called the Langstone, and at the western end are the strange-looking pillars of red sandstone known as the Parson and Clerk. Teignmouth lies rather more than two miles S.S.W. of Dawlish, with picturesque red cliffs and firm sands all the way, at the mouth of the estuary of the river Teign, whose swiftly-flowing stream is here crossed by one of the longest wooden bridges in England. It is a small port and a very popular watering-place, with beautiful inland scenery behind it, and inside the Den—the dune or sand-bank which bars a great part of the river's mouth—is a good harbour for vessels of light draught. Teignmouth is one of the towns that in the past have suffered from the attacks of the French, who burnt it in 1347 and again in 1690.

Anstis Cove, near Torquay

Four miles south of the estuary of the Teign is Babbacombe Bay, in whose beautiful cliffs of red and grey is some of the richest colouring on the whole coast. The paler-toned cliffs round the picturesque little inlet of Anstis Cove are of limestone. Half a mile farther is the prominent cape called Hope's Nose, the northern limit of Torbay, and a spot of much interest to the geologist on account of the raised sea-beach which, at a height of some thirty feet above the present high tide-line, may be traced under the headland, and also, at a lower level, on the Thatcher Rock. Among the marine shells of the latter deposit is Trophon truncatus, an arctic species, whose presence here is another proof that the climate of Devonshire was once far colder than it is now.

Torquay from Vane Hill

Torbay, which extends from Hope's Nose on the north to Berry Head on the south—two prominent headlands nearly five miles apart—is one of the best known and most beautiful bays on the coast of England. In all except easterly winds it affords an excellent anchorage which was much used by ships of the Royal Navy in the old sailing days, and it is still a great yachting station. At the northern end of the bay, occupying, it is said, more ground in proportion to its population than any other town in the island, is the much frequented watering-place of Torquay, widely celebrated for the beauty of its situation and the mildness of its winter climate. Along the whole coast of Torbay, at a level which shows that the land has sunk some forty feet, lies a submerged forest, in which have been found bones of the wild boar, red-deer antlers, and mammoth's teeth. But proofs of an elevation on a still greater scale are to be found in the borings of sea-shells in the limestone cliffs above Kent's Cavern, within the limits of the town, at a height of 200 feet above the present sea level.

Half-way along the shore of Torbay is Paignton, another favourite seaside resort, famous for its fine beach, and on a steep slope at the head of an inlet rather more than a mile before coming to Berry Head stands Brixham, a town second only in importance to Plymouth among the fishing-stations of the south coast of England. Here, on the 5th of November, 1688, the Prince of Orange landed. And here, six weeks after the Battle of Waterloo, the Bellerophon anchored, with Napoleon Buonaparte a prisoner on board.