Then there were the great southern towns of Devonshire, with their beauties manifold,--Plymouth and Torquay, with the lovely little watering-places of Teignmouth and Dawlish, and stately Exeter itself. On previous occasions we had visited them all, had spent long dreamy hours in Anstey's Cove, then comparatively unvisited by excursionists, had tenanted humble lodgings at Babbicombe Bay, before the villas were built, and had sailed down the lovely winding Dart to Dartmouth, with its harbour among the hills. The natural beauties are still there, though art has done much of its best or its worst with them since those days. But we must now pass them all by, only in imagination breathing their soft southern airs, or casting hasty glances at one or other of them from the carriage windows of the romantic South Devon Railway. For we have tarried amid the attractions of the far west until the latest possible moment. At six in the morning we leave Penzance; at six in the evening we are in London. [Illustration: 0156] [Illustration: 0158] THE ENGLISH LAKES [Illustration: 0159] |ONE great attraction of the Lake district of Cumberland and Westmoreland lies in its singular compactness. Equal beauties, and greater sublimity, may be found elsewhere, but nowhere surely has such immense variety of natural charms been gathered within the same space. A good pedestrian might pass from the north of the district to the south--from Keswick to Windermere--in a single day; or in even less time might make his way from east to west--from Patterdale to the foot of Wastwater. True, in so hurried a journey he would lose much; for weeks may delightfully be spent among the mountains, in exploring their hidden nooks and wonders. But all that is most beautiful is within the compass of a short tour; and an observation which Mr. Ruskin has somewhere made about Switzerland is as true of this enchanting country. He says that the loveliest and sublimest scenes are to be witnessed from beaten roads and spots easy of access; that things as wonderful are open to the view of the traveller who cannot leave his carriage as to the Alpine mountaineer. There is no doubt an exhilaration of mountain air only to be enjoyed on the heights; and for the view of billowy uplands all around the spectator, like a Titanic ocean stricken into stillness, the visitor to the Lakes ought to ascend Helvellyn; but the views from the valleys, or from the roads that encircle the lower slopes of the mountains, are incomparable. Familiar as is the road from Ambleside to Grasmere, or, in another style of beauty, the drive to Red-bank and High Close, or, in yet another, the ascent to the Castle Hill at Keswick, they never lose their charm even to those who prefer to leave these easy ways for the toilsome walk over the Stake or Sty Head Pass, or up the shaley steeps of Scafell or the tremendous grassy slopes of Skiddaw. The glories of this district are, in a word, for all who have eyes to see