TORBAY 
165 
We skirt the buy and mount its opposite side, passing the 
coastguard station, and through its garden continuing our 
way along the coastguard path. Away on our left the slate- 
rock cliffs steeply shelve down to the sea, and present a grand 
and peculiarly striking appearance. Here the coast is much 
indented, the waves roaring and foaming on split fragments 
of rock, whilst above these the stony sides are spotted with 
grass, and Fern, and gorse. From the high ground above 
the coastguard station at Mansands our path for some distance 
passes along the cliffs, which are here clothed in every 
variety of manner with graceful Brake. Now from the path 
to within a few feet of the sea the cliff-side, steeply sloping, 
is densely clothed with graceful, waving fronds. Anon, for a 
little way from the path, there is a steep and precipitous 
descent to a level platform clothed with grass and shrubs, and 
then from this point the unbroken surface of Brake continues 
shelving to the sea. For a long way the cliff-side presents 
this ever-changing aspect of Bracken, which reigns almost 
supreme along the cliff-side. Our path, meanwhile, rises and 
falls, presenting an ever-changing course. 
Now we approach another inlet of the sea, and our path 
steeply descends to the beach below us. Here for a moment 
the cliffs on our left rise sheer from the beach. As we 
descend to the latter we cross a stream, which rushes through 
a tiny gully with narrow sides, between rocky banks almost 
subterranean in appearance, and then falls hissing over the 
cliff- side. Not a house is to be seen in this bay, nor a single 
human being in its strand of beautiful shingle. We skirt 
the beach on its landward side, and again mount the opposite 
cliff, the steeply-sloping side of which is darkly and densely 
clothed with graceful fronds of Bracken, interspersed with 
gorse and heather. 
Our path now lies through dense masses of Bracken, which 
almost close over our head as we brush between them. Wild 
