TORBAY 
161 
on the heights above Brixham, which in a few minutes more 
we reach. 
A singular old town is Brixham, with its houses rising 
on an amphitheatre formed by the hills which rise above and 
around its harbour. The town of itself is scarcely one that 
will be admired by the lovers of the picturesque. Yet it 
has a picturesque aess of its own, and though it is the abode 
of a poor population of fisherfolk, it does not forget that it is 
a Devonshire town. Far away, across and above the tops of 
its clustered houses, a little bit of truly Devonshire scenery 
peeps out, meadow and tree looking down upon the hard 
lines of bricks and mortar below it, in their richest of verdant 
colouring. 
We pass away from the town to the jagged point of Berry 
Head at the south-eastern corner of Torbay, at which, ere 
we change our course, we take a farewell look from the 
grassy top of the rugged-sided cliff which in places descends 
sheer to the sea. 
And now we bend our steps away from Berry Head, and 
returning to Brixham by another road, make for Mewstone 
Bay, named as one of the habitats of the True Maidenhair 
( Adiantum capillus- Veneris). If we take this route to Mew- 
stone Bay, we have to follow a winding green lane, the Harts- 
tongue, both the normal kind and varieties with their apices 
cleft, peeping out at us from between the thick greenery of 
the hedge-banks on each side. Our lane ends at a stone stile 
ensconced under the protecting shelter of a spreading shrub, 
but it has not ended without giving us on our way from time 
to time peeps through gaps on the hedge-bank of the blue 
waters of the sea. Crossing the stile we pass into a meadow 
crowning the cliffs that rise above Mewstone Bay. Turning- 
now sharply round and downwards to our left, a winding- 
path will take us along the verge of the cliff for a short dis- 
tance in the direction of Berry Head. Pursuing this cliff- 
