Other old houses are in Fosse Street and the Shambles. A peculiarity of the old Dartmouth houses is that they are covered with small slates, cut into various devices, and forming elegant patterns, that cover them as a coat of mail against the rain. Forty years ago there were many of these picturesque old houses, they are now woefully reduced in numbers. The "Ship Inn" is an old-fashioned hostel, very comfortable, and though modernised externally, yet has much that is characteristic of an old inn in the inside. I was dining there one evening when the train from town had arrived, and launched its passengers into Dartmouth. Among these happened to be a German, who was on his way by the Donald Currie boat to the Cape. He came into the dining-room of the "Ship," seated himself at a table at a little distance from me, and signed that he wanted something to eat. The courteous, elderly waiter bowed and said, "What will you have, sir, soup?" "Yesh! yesh!" "There is vermicelli." "Yesh! yesh!" "And Julienne." "Yesh! yesh!" "And ox-tail." "Yesh! yesh!" "And mulligatawny." "Yesh! yesh!" "And fish, sir. Would you like some?" "Oh, yesh! yesh!" "There is some turbot." "Yesh! yesh!" "And a nice pair of soles." "Yesh! yesh!" "And some brill." "Oh, yesh! yesh!" "And perhaps you would like, sir, a mayonnaise of lobster?" "Oh, yesh! yesh!" It was time for me to interfere. I jumped up and hastened to the assistance of the poor German, and said in his own tongue: "I beg your pardon for my interference, sir, but _are_ you ordering dinner for yourself or for the entire crew? You will, I know, excuse me, but I thought it advisable to speak before it came to the wine list." "Ach, du lieber Herr!" gasped the German. "I know but one English word, and that is Yesh. Will you be so merciful as to order dinner for me?" I at once entered into consultation with the waiter, and settled all matters agreeably. A charming walk may--no, must, be taken from Dartmouth to the sea; the street, very narrow, runs between houses for a long way, giving glimpses of the water, of old bastions and towers, of gardens hanging on the steep slopes, of fuchsias and pelargoniums running riot in the warm, damp air, of red rock and green foliage, jumbled together in the wildest picturesqueness, of the blue, still water below, with gulls, living foam-flakes swaying, chattering over the surface. Then the road has to bend round Warfleet, a lovely bay bowered in woods, with an old mill and a limekiln, and barges lying by, waiting for lime or for flour. When this has been passed, and, alas! a very ugly modern house that disfigures one of the loveliest scenes in South Devon, a headland is reached by a walk under trees, and all at once a corner is turned, and a venerable church and a castle are revealed, occupying the rocky points that command the entrance of Dartmouth Harbour.