CLEAR WATERS 



Honiton portion of the county and a few others, look 

 almost where you will, from any inland hill-top, you 

 will see little but a succession of bare, humpy hills 

 criss-crossed with rectangular Hnes of bank fences, 

 and everywhere patched with square tillage fields. 

 A distant background of moor redeems in a measure 

 these long, rolHng, chequered ridges, neither wild nor 

 wooded, that nothing but a hardy superstition could 

 absolve from the reproach of monotony if not of 

 actual ugliness. Dreary outlooks are these beyond 

 dispute, yet not dreary enough to touch the imagina- 

 tion with a redeeming sense of mystery. A survey 

 of the same kind in Hereford or Monmouth, let us say 

 for example, because the colouring there also is De- 

 vonian, is rich, broken, and beautiful. But one cannot 

 truly say that such outlooks over the average inland 

 Devon landscape is anything of the kind, and the many 

 exceptions are not to the point, for the valleys are 

 hidden, and it is down in the valleys that most of the 

 beauty of non-moorland inland Devon assuredly lies, 

 and of this beauty the trout fisherman most un- 

 doubtedly sees the most and the best. 



244 



