inclosing cliffs are of strangely fantastic forms, such as might be hewn out in the wildest dreams, and central in the foreground, rising from the edge of the sea, dark red masses of rock robed in ivy form striking points of view above, and a cove on either side below. Climb to the top of the highest, and you will be well placed to survey the scene in all directions. Seats are fixed in some of the best situations, and a path descends at long sharp angles from top to bottom. Two houses, which stand in the garden that occupies the upper portion of the hollow, overlook the pleasant spot; but the lower portion, cut off by a wall, is left free to the wanderer. A lane leads from it to the Torquay-road, a short distance over the hill.

To pursue the shore route: mount the opposite steep, and from thence by the path along the hill-side to the marble quarries at Mary Church and the little port of Petit Tor. The red sandstone is now left behind, and you tread on a diversity of strata, beautifully veined marble, gray limestone, and here and there intrusive masses of shale and slate, as shown in the next few miles of cliff. If you wish to know what Devonshire can produce in the shape of marbles, call at the works in Mary Church, and you will see specimens surprising for their number and beauty.

Babbacombe Bay is in sight, its narrow, white, crystalline beach glistening in the sun, backed by the variegated cliffs sprinkled with wood. I had scrambled through two or three hedges on my way down to it, when the impenetrable fences of private grounds barred

the passage to the very edge of the cliff, and there was nothing for it but to tack about and find a lane. This brought me to a road bordered by villas, and formal gardens and shrubberies, looking almost too nice and new to be inhabited; dainty dwellings provided by enterprising builders for the accommodation of those compelled by want of health to hybernate on a southern shore. Ere long the road descends steeply between scarped rocks, and trees, and walks running off on either side to houses perched here and there on a shelf in the cliff, and lower down something like a village street, and ends at last on the beach. Here the curving line of cliffs comes well into view, in some places perpendicular and smoothly polished, but not by hand; in others sloping away above, as if to make room for the hanging woods that fill every recess. A short time suffices to walk from end to end of the bay, and to climb over the rocks into the curious hollow at its western extremity; and then, to leave it, you must return some distance up the road again, and turn to the left by a rough path rising to the lofty downs, from the farther side of which you look down on Anstis's Cove, said to be the most beautiful indentation on all the coast. One who has footed the cliffs all the way from Lyme, and intends to continue, may be permitted to demur to this conclusion. It is a sloping, irregular hollow, seemingly formed by a subsidence or the action of water, made romantic by a wooded undercliff, stunted trees, gorse and lichens, and shining precipices and limestone crags hung with ivy and creepers. At the

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point nearest to Babbacombe is a marble quarry in full work; and from the other point, Hope's Nose, there are paths running along the face of the cliffs to Torquay. Or you may go round by the road, and see the marine residence of the Bishop of Exeter, a handsome edifice in the Italian style, so situated as to command prospects over land and sea which have a perpetual beauty. The sight of its towers, peering above the surrounding mass of umbrageous foliage, suggests to the mind the well-known couplet about the churchmen of old who never built "in barren land." Why should they? Farther on, too, is that famous cavern, Kent's Hole, which excited so much surprise when Dr. Buckland described the fossil bones of bears, hyenas, and elephants he found inside some thirty years ago. To visit it you must have an order from the keeper of the Torquay Museum, and a guide with torches, and then you may penetrate the hill for about six hundred feet till stopped by a small lake. The width of the cavern varies from one to twenty-five yards, and the height from five to fifteen feet. Except to a scientific explorer such a cavern presents little of interest.

I had torn my coat badly when creeping through the hedges above Babbacombe, and seeing a tailor sitting on his board at a shop in Torquay, I resorted to him for the needful repair. While he sewed he talked affectionately of the town and neighbourhood: he was a Devonshire man, had once lived in London, thought no place like it; but having revisited his native county, could not resist staying there, and now he wondered

the smoky metropolis had ever been endurable. Here he had beautiful scenery, fresh air, and the open sea, and what could London offer in comparison to a man in business? Here was something that smacked of philosophy. The honest tailor, indeed, worked himself up to a pitch of enthusiasm, and nothing would do but he must go with me and be my guide to the places I had not yet seen. He knew all the short cuts, and away we went up long flights of stairs from one street level to another, to the top of Beacon Hill, to Daddy's Hole, to Meadfoot Cove, he pointing out what was most remarkable, and making me observe that the rows of detached houses were so placed that each house had an uninterrupted view of the sea. There was Walden Hill, there the Heytor Rocks, there Hope's Nose, and the Thatcher; there the town, terrace above terrace, alternate ranges of bright pretentious houses and belts of green from the beach to the summit of the heights behind, and on all sides new buildings in course of erection. Imagine portions of "Paddingtonia," detachments of shops from Piccadilly and Regent-street, and a few churches and chapels, migrated to the warm wooded slope of a high Devonshire hill looking forth on the sea, and you have Torquay. That sea, be it remembered, is Torbay a noble expanse, Berry Head its farther horn, some eight miles distant. A little within lies Brixham; there is Paignton, and the whole semicircular sweep of the shore. The scene is one striking in itself, and in the memories of great events which it recals.

The evening shadows were thrown far across the bay when I went on towards Brixham. The road may be seen describing a bold curve within a few yards of the sea for miles, and the farther you proceed, Torquay, relieved by distance of its somewhat Cockney aspect, is brought more and more into view, until at last the whole town opens-the white houses in strong relief against the green background-and you can see how completely it is sheltered from all northerly points by the bold heights in the rear, and from the east wind— that scourge of invalids-by the jutting cliffs. To this protection, and, as Sir James Clark shows, to being less damp than any other part of the Devonshire coast, the place owes its continuous prosperity; continous, because no sooner do the hundreds retire who come hither for their summer holiday, than they are succeeded by as many more of delicate lung and feeble limb seeking the blessed healing influence of a mild winter temperature.

This south-western coast generally is two degrees warmer in winter than the favourite resorts on the Hampshire and Sussex shores, and from three to five degrees warmer than Middlesex; the greatest difference being in the months of November, December, and January. But the relaxing effects of a humid atmosphere must not be lost sight of, nor the visitations of south-westerly gales which blow at times for weeks together with very uncomfortable consequences. To some persons the narrow limits of the space really sheltered, as at Teignmouth, Sidmouth, and other