COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



interlaced by others, and circle round again under the blue 

 spring sky, like the fabled stream that never blent its waters 

 with the ocean. Passing beautiful, too, are they, filled with a 

 changeful loveliness of bright-coloured flowers and pendent 

 ferns and darting dragon-flies ; while creeping bindweeds knot 

 themselves round gnarled oak-stems, with leaves more artisti- 

 cally cut than those of the acanthus, and berries, green, black, 

 and red, like the wampum on an Indian warrior. Here the 

 hedges almost meet overhead, and graceful festoons of flowers 

 depend like lianas in a tropical forest, as you will see them no- 

 where else in England. There the bank on one side falls gently, 

 and what a prospect opens on the view ! Fair meadows bathed 

 in sunshine, with the Otter river winding through them, lie 

 below; yonder are the red Devon steers, grazing up to their dew- 

 laps in buttercups ; beyond them dusky moors melt into purple 

 haze, and every here and there you catch a glimpse of the far- 

 off Tors on Dartmoor simmering in the mid-day glare. Then 

 again, the other side of our lane sinks abruptly, and the sea 

 spreads out far below, with a white sail specking it here and 

 there to take away from its impressive infinity. And birds sing 

 and bees hum amongst the bright-yellow furze-flowers, and a 

 stream that, like yourself, has lost its way, tinkles merrily adown 

 the bank from the coppice. The lazy hawk hovering on your 

 right does not even deem it needful to wheel off in alarm. So 

 irresistible is Devon in her beauty that you fall in love at first 

 sight, and may be quite sure that like every loveable maiden, 

 the more you see of her the more will her unobtrusive gentle- 

 ness endear her to you. 



A glance at the physical features of the country shows how 

 these picturesque lanes were formed. The aboriginal track-way 

 over hill and dale, rudely marked out by stones laid at intervals, 

 just as the Devon coastguardsmen still guide themselves over 

 the cliffs at night by lines of stones so deposited, sank gradually 

 into the soil. Mud from the path was flung on either side. 



