EXETER 303 



Exeter in coaching times. Lonely the road remains, 

 passing the scattered cottages of Rockbeare, and the 

 depressing outlying houses of Honiton Clyst, situated 

 on the little river Clyst, with the first of the charac- 

 teristic old red sandstone church-towers of the South 

 Devon looking down upon the road from the midst of 

 embowering foliage. Then the squalid east end of 

 Exeter and the long street of Heavitree, where 

 Exeter burnt her martyrs, come into view, and there, 

 away in front, with its skyline of towers and spires, 

 is Exeter, displayed in profile for the admiration of 

 all Avho have journeyed these many miles to where 

 she sits in regal grandeur upon her hill that descends 

 until its feet are bathed in the waters of her ood- 

 mother, the Exe. Her streets are steej) and her site 

 dignified, although it is jiartly the level range of the 

 surrounding country, rather than an intrinsic height, 

 wdiich confers that look of majesty which all travellers 

 have noticed. The ancient city rises impressive in 

 contrast with the water-meadows, rather than by 

 reason of actual measurement. Wayfarers approach- 

 ing from any direction brace themselves and draw 

 deep breaths preparatory to scaling the streets, w^hich, 

 at a distance, assume abrupt vistas. Villas, with 

 spacious gardens, and snug, prebendal-looking houses, 

 eloquent of a thousand a year and cellars full of old 

 port, clothe the lower slopes of this rising ground, 

 to give place, by degrees, to streets wdiich, as the 

 traveller advances, grow narrower and more crooked, 

 their lines of houses becoming ever older, more j)ic- 

 turesque, and loftier as they near the heart of the 

 city. Modernity inhabits the environs, antiquity is 



