1891.
July 6
England.
Wells to Lynton. Most of the day cloudless with strong W.
wind. A few light showers in the afternoon.
  Left Wells this morning and went to Minehead by
sail, thence to Lynton by coach. The railroad passes
the supposed site of Avalon and crosses an immense
extent of perfectly level, low country once fens, now
ditched and cross-ditched very thoroughly and devoted
to pastures thickly sprinkled with cattle and sheep,
meadow-like mowing fields, and cultivated fields.
There are a few bits of the original fens remaining,
just enough to give one some idea of what they
may have been like, stagnant pools covered with duck
weed crossed in every direction by the faint trails
of Moorhens or Water Rats and bordered by dense
beds of cat-tail flags very like ours. In fact I
saw several stretches which almost exactly resembled
the cat-tail swamp at Pout Pond. There were also
bits of marsh of a somewhat drier character covered
with a species of sedge and sprinkled with low
bushes. I watched eagerly in hopes of seeing a
Bittern but probably there are none remaining.
  Leaving these fens the road at once enters a
very hilly country with much gorse and some
heather in the fields and occasional rapid and
very pretty tree-embowered brooks. I saw a 
pair of Partridges in one of the fields feeding quite
at ease on the short turf within less than
20 yards of the track. At another place a
female Mallard fluttered from a reedy spot in
a ditch at the very foot of the railway embankment
and reaching the turf of the bordering field tumbled