438 Clovelly. 



not, while many of the poorest cottages display fuchsias growing" 

 up their walls that would be highly honoured in less favoured 

 climes. The Clovelly stairs are puzzling formations for stran- 

 gers to walk up or down. They are much too broad to be taken 

 in single successive steps, one for each descent. Each stair 

 measures some variable and unequable multiple of a pace, and is, 

 moreover, a steep inclined plane, diversified by gutter arrange- 

 ments, the stones of which stand up like snags, and trip up any 

 one who does not take heed unto his ways. Visitors stumble 

 and boggle up and down Clovelly town, and feel disgusted 

 with themselves, and envious of the natives, who — the women 

 especially — glide skyward or seaward as though possessed of 

 some mode of motion unknown to mortals born upon the flats. 

 We lodge very comfortably at Mrs. Marshall's, on stair num- 

 ber 33, and opposite us is a little opening called the " Square," 

 across which we see hanging woods and the richly varied coast 

 on the eastern side of Bideford Bay, with the Exmoor range in 

 the distance, about twenty-six miles off in a straight line. In 

 another direction our view is over the sloping roofs and gable 

 ends of cottages lower down the stairs, and then across the 

 sea to Baggy Point, and Morte, the end of the latter promon- 

 tory with its " stone," terrible in the annals of shipwreck, being 

 out of sight. Commencing above the village, and winding 

 across several hill sides and valleys, is the road called the 

 " Hobby," cut out of the rock, and traversing woods of remark- 

 able luxuriance and beauty, composed of oak, beech, sycamore, 

 firs, etc. To the west lie other woods, the park of Clovelly 

 Court, and fine headlands with precipitous or sloping cliffs, in 

 which the stratification is well displayed. 



Clovelly is a charming place for a landscape artist, as it 

 exhibits more colours than " Iris purfied scarf can show," 

 and they vary magically under the changing influences of sun 

 and cloud. A few days 5 residence in such a spot ought to 

 be sufficient to emancipate any one, who has eyes to see, from 

 the conventional prejudices and silly criticisms that hamper 

 and damage our landscape art. One very striking fact, equally 

 noticeable in many other parts of Devon, is the distance at 

 which local colour is distinctly seen. When the sun catches 

 the cliffs of crimson marl five or six miles off, they literally 

 glow with the deeply-tinted light. Patches of spring corn 

 shine like strips of pale green velvet at twice that distance, 

 and fields on the slope of Exmoor, five and twenty miles away, 

 are frequently to be discerned of a dull green hue, varied by 

 dark lines of stone hedge-rows* and trees. In other and 



* The fences are a mixture of hedge and stone wall. The latter is the funda- 

 mental structure, but so taken possession of by vegetation as to give it a hedge- 

 like aspect. 



