"Such was the fight at Flores in that August, 1591, without its equal in such of the annals of mankind as the thing which we call history has preserved to us. At the time England and all the world rang with it. It struck a deeper terror, though it was but the action of a single ship, into the hearts of the Spanish people, it dealt a more deadly blow upon their fame and naval strength, than the destruction of the Armada itself, and in the direct results which arose from it it was scarcely less disastrous to them. Hardly, as it seems to us, if the most glorious actions which are set like jewels in the history of mankind are weighed one against the other in the balance, hardly will those three hundred Spartans, who in the summer morning sat combing their long hair for death in the passes of Thermopylæ, have earned a more lofty estimate for themselves than this one crew of modern Englishmen. After the action there ensued a tempest so terrible as was never seen or heard the like before. A fleet of merchantmen joined the armada immediately after the battle, forming in all one hundred and forty sail; and of these one hundred and forty, only thirty-two ever saw Spanish harbour; the rest all foundered or were lost on the Azores. The men-of-war had been so shattered by shot as to be unable to carry sail; and the _Revenge_ herself, disdaining to survive her commander, or as if to complete his own last baffled purpose, like Samson, buried herself and her two hundred prize crew under the rocks of St. Michael's." [Illustration: CLOVELLY] Bideford is the starting-point for the north coast of Devon, from the mouth of the Torridge to the Cornish border, and thence to Bude. The beauty of this coast is almost unrivalled, equalled only by that from Ilfracombe to Minehead. Clovelly, with the Hobby Drive, is something to be seen, and one's education is incomplete without it. And one can combine archæology with the quest of beauty, if a visit to Clovelly be combined with one to the "Dykes," sadly mutilated by roads cut through the embankments. Nevertheless, sufficient remains of Clovelly Dykes to make it a fair representative of a British king's _Dun_. Beyond Clovelly, somewhat spoiled by being a place of resort, but always maintaining much picturesqueness, is Hartland, the settlement of S. Nectan, reputed son, but probably grandson, of King Brychan of Brecknock. He is represented in a niche on the tower. His name is Irish; Nectans were not uncommon in the Green Isle. Very little is known of S. Nectan. He is said to have been killed, his head cut off--not improbably by the chief at Clovelly Dykes, who cannot have relished having the country overrun and appropriated by a horde of half Irish half Welsh adventurers. And this took place precisely at the time when the Irish grip on Britain was relaxing.