The great hilly range to the west, in full view across the valley from the Ouantocks, is an outlying rampart of Exmoor, and the brown peak in the distance is Dunkery Beacon, the highest point in Somersetshire. Our road leads between these heights and the sea, by Dunster, with its great ivied castle overhanging the quaint feudal-looking little town, and Minehead, a cheerful unpretending watering-place, to Porlock, where the ascent of what the country people call a "terràble long hill," by a zigzag moorland road, leads to a height from which, on looking back, we have a prospect of surpassing grandeur. Let us gaze our fill: if the day be fine, and the atmosphere clear, we shall see nothing nobler in the west of England. To the south the huge masses of Dunkery, brown with heather, rise from a foreground of woods and glens; below, to the east, lies a fair valley, surrounded with hills of every picturesque variety in form, prominent among which is the rugged side of Bossington Beacon. Towards the south-east, heights on heights arise, some richly wooded, others majestic in their bareness; while to the north and north-east stretches the Bristol Channel, with the Welsh mountains dimly seen beyond. [Illustration: 0134] Then we go southwards over a reach of wild moorland, and come upon the indescribable loveliness of Lynmouth and Lynton. Far beyond railways, accessible only by long walking or driving over hilly roads, or by small boats from steamers on their way up and down the Channel, this fair spot can never attract the crowd; but those who have wandered by its streams, or climbed its heights, are singularly unanimous in pronouncing it the most charming spot in England. Lynmouth is in the valley, on the shore; Lynton on the height. The name is derived from the _lyns_, or torrents, which descend separately, each through a wooded gorge or combe, until they meet beside the sea. Great mossy rocks everywhere break the course of the torrents, and the luxuriant foliage which lines the banks, the ferns and flowers, with the overhanging trees, combine to make a succession of perfect pictures. [Illustration: 0135]