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city of Mesopotamia. The church of the Holy Trinity (J. T. Rocke, P.C.) was built by Lord Rolle in 1820; the tower, 104 ft., forms a sea-mark; the Market-house was built in 1830. The old town lies in a hollow behind the Beacon Hill, along which, and down the descent, extend terraces of houses and broad walks; a shrubbery intervenes between these and the sea-wall, formed of limestone, 1800 ft. long and 22 ft. high, secured by piling, and built by Plewse, 18-11-2; the embankment, however, was begun by Mr. Hull at the beginning of the century. Beyond this are the dark waters of the Bight, the sands of the Warren (where Trichonema columnæ may be found), and the many little islands of the estuary, through which the shipping for Exeter thread their way, or lie at anchor in the lake-like expanse waiting for the turn of the tide in the midst of picturesque fishing-boats and small foreign craft. The more pleasing walks in the neighbourhood are—to Topsham (5 miles), where in the church of St. Margaret are the monuments by Chantrey of Admiral Sir John Duckworth, who died at Weir Park, 1817, and of Colonel George Duckworth, who fell at Albuera, 1811:-to St. Mary's Lympstone, where the tower was built 1409, and the manor belonged to the great Lord Heathfield :-to Orcomb Point and St. Margaret's, Littleham, the mother church (3 miles east), and to Withycombe (1 mile), with the ruined l'erpendicular church of St. Michael, known as St. John-in-theWilderness (23 miles), destroyed in 1748, except a western tower and north aisle.

Local tradition tells how Sir Hugh de Creveldt, of Littleham, and Sir Roger Whalingham, of Withycombe, whose house was haunted, cordially hated each other, having quarrelled touching the right to wrecks upon the coast. One night Sir Hugh heard the deep toll of the bell of St. John's, which was of Italian manufacture,— and like the dread tongue of iron that hangs in the tower of Saragossa, tolled by unseen hands,-ringing a knell for the departing soul of his old enemy. Day after day the spectre of a knight robbed him of his food, as it sat glowering on him from the chair set on the other side of his hearth.

Sir Hugh would have died of his Barmecide feasts but for the cunning of a Cadiz captain, who brought with him a charm to exorcise the ghost in the shape of a pipe of Indian tobacco, then unknown in England. Rawleigh, of Withycombe, preserved the secret, and his descendant, Sir Walter, for his pertinacity, had the honour of a royal "Counterblast."

There is a ferry to STARCROSS, (so called from a wayside cross which stood by the landing place,) one of the most recent of Devonshire watering-places on the South Devon Railway, to which it owes its prosperity. St. Paul's church (W. Powley) was built 1826. The places of interest in the neighbourhood are Mamhead, built by Sir P. Ball, 1680, and the seat of the first Lord Lisburne; it was the birthplace of Sir R. Newman, who fell at Inkerman; and in the grounds there is an obelisk 100 feet high set up by T. Balle, 1742 :— All Saints' Church, Kenton, of red Exminster stone (2 miles), with a tower 100 feet high, a Decorated screen and a structure mainly of the same period :—Alphington (6 miles), with St. Michael's Church, Perpendicular, a Tudor screen and Norman font; and Powderham Castle (3 miles), so called from its proprietor in the reign of Edward I., and now the seat of the Earl of Devon. Originally of Norman architecture, and restored in the 14th century, yet owing to the rough usage alternately of Cavalier and Roundhead during the civil war, and the hand of modern innovation, its exterior has few remains of antiquity. The castle contains some fine pictures by Wilson, the Five Senses by Teniers, Charles I. and Henrietta by Vandyke, and the Tribute Money by Rubens. From the Belvedere, built 1773, the towers of Exeter can be seen. The park is of great extent and well wooded. The rarer flowers of the neighbourhood are Targionia hypophylla, vicia Bithynica, euphorbia peplis, c. Portlandica, mentha viridis, Exmouth; M. rotundifolia, Mamhead; and lichen stictoceros on the warren; and Polycarpon tetraphyllum at Lympstone. St. Clement's Church is Perpendicular. From Exmouth and from all the stations on this line as far as Torquay, an excursion to EXETER (93 miles from Starcross) is very easily

made for an account of the cathedral see WALCOTT'S CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND AND WALES, published by G. Stanford in this series. Haldon Hall (Sir L. Palk, Bart), may also be visited: the house contains pictures by Ruysdael, Cuyp, Vandervelde, Snyders, Weenix, Teniers, and Claude.

The tourist from Dorsetshire will contrast with the country beyond the Golden Cap the lovely Devonshire lanes as Charles V. said of Florence, “too pleasant to be looked on, but only on holidays." They are generally deep sunk between high banks, musical with the songs of birds, shaded by overhanging oaks and the branching elms, quivering ash, with its pendulous burs of brown mast, and mantled with drooping bramble, the wild convolvolus and creeping woodbine, fragrant honeysuckle, with the honeybee humming drowsily in the blossom, tall ferns and blushing briar-rose, blue harebell, and purple dappled folk's glove. Besides these are orchards which a recent traveller, a rambler through many lands, himself a native of the West of England, tells us are more charming, in the white and roseate bloom of spring, or the ruddy hues of their autumnal fruit, than the far-famed vineyards of the South. Breaks in these, sloping over lawn and grassy meadows varied with silent church-tower and pleasant farm-house, open on nooks of green under the swelling hills, and, ever and anon, a glassy brooklet gliding with a merry song and laughing waters down to the dark blue sea. The colourless sculpture does not differ more from the life-like painting than the ruddy cliffs of Devon from the bare chalk ramparts, and the picturesque confusion of the rich and varied scenery of the western country, from the waste of Dorsetshire sward and its solitary unenclosed grass-land,

"Where simple nature reigns, and every view
Diffusive spreads the pure Dorsetian downs

In boundless prospect, yonder shagged with wood,
Here rich with harvest, and there white with flocks."

DAWLISH,

Three and a half miles from Starcross, means the "rich water-mead;" a picturesque description of this delightful valley, through which a small rapid stream, crossed by bridges and parted by broad belts of lawn from the houses on either side of its course, runs clear and rippling to the sea. The mouth of the valley is now closed by the viaduct and strong sea-wall of the South Devon railway, a mile and a half in length and affording a broad and level footpath. The mode of traction originally adopted on this railway was that of the atmospheric system, which here, as at Croydon, proved a perfect failure. The engine-house still forms a picturesque feature in the landscape. Southey mentions that he witnessed on the beach, November 29, 1836, the terrible hurricane and rising of the sea which threatened the destruction of the place. The church of St. Gregory (E. Fursdon, V.), which is cruciform, and 120 feet long, was rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, by A. Patey, at a cost of 40001, in 1825; it contains monuments by Chapman, in memory of Mrs. Hunter, and of Lady E. Pennyman, who died 1801. On Feb. 8, 1855, at night, mysterious footprints were left upon the light snow which lay over an extent of 30 to 40 miles from Exmouth and Dawlish to Torquay and Totness; they appeared like the hoofmarks of an ass in single line, measuring 4 by 23 inches. The footprints have been attributed to the otter, the bustard, and the rat, to kangaroos escaped from Mr. Fish's garden at Sidmouth, and by Professor Owen to the badger!

Luscombe (2 miles), the seat of C. Hoare, Esq., was built by Nash 1800-4, and contains pictures by Sir T. Lawrence, Loutherbourg, and Northcote. On the north of the town (1 mile) is the Langstone. On the south

(1 mile) are the two rocks of new red sandstone in the sea, fancifully called the Parson and Clerk; the latter was terribly shattered by the storm of 1824.

According to the legend, there was a pluralist and ambitious priest of the east country who frequently rode, followed by his clerk, through Exmouth and the Warren to inquire after the health of the Bishop of Exeter lying sick at Dawlish, and whose succession to the diocesan throne he secretly coveted. One stormy night, while threading the labyrinth of lanes on Haldon Hill, the priest, having lost his way, petulantly summoned the demon to help him. A simple peasant shortly appeared and led them down the steep to the manor-house, where chaplain and serving-men duly invited the priest to sup. But when the feast was spread it all was glamoury; the sea began to boom nearer than was wont, fish that seemed to swim was the only fare, and the floor became all afloat. At length, with the welcome tidings that the good bishop was passing out of life by means of a poisoned cup, the parson and clerk set out on their return; the demon house vanished amidst screams and wild laughter as of fiends mocking, the foam burst over their heads, the waves rose; two horses were found straying in the morning on the shore, and two huge loosened masses of sandstone became at once their riders' grave and monument; and when the storm-wind blows, the cry of the imprisoned spirits is heard quivering on the gale.

Among the walks in the neighbourhood, one will lead to Little Haldon (2 miles), a hill with its greensand summit strewn with porphyry and quartz; rich in shells of mollusca changed into an opaque or yellow jasper, and having a circular camp called Castle Ditch, with a single vallum and enclosure of 1 acre. There are several barrows adjoining. Here Hoel and the West Britons, in 926, made their last stand against King Athelstane. They were defeated, but in the Saxon army ever after, while the Kentish men led the van, the brave soldiers of Devon held the responsible duty of guarding the rear. Being 818 feet high, the hill commands a magnificent panorama of the valleys of the Exe

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