From the Exe onward, especially near Dawlish, the coast is exceedingly pretty, and it becomes more and more charming as one approaches Teignmouth, which lies chiefly upon a tongue of low land stretching from the wooded hills or cliffs to the mouth of the estuary, with Little Haldon’s crest 800 feet above sea level in the background, and the other hills sheltering the pretty little town from the north and north-east very effectively. The harbour of Teignmouth is a fair one, and might easily be much improved. Indeed, it seems a great pity that something has not been done to make it rank with that of Torquay, even though there are undoubted difficulties in the way, which do not exist with the famous yachting and holiday resort, in the shape of a shifting bar, and the heavy seas which sweep into the harbour mouth, more especially during easterly gales. Formerly the Den, which now affords so inviting an expanse of green lawn to the lately come ashore, can have been little more than a sand dune, or a sandy and muddy spit thrusting out southward into the river’s mouth and breaking the inrush of the sea. It is probably to the fact that Teignmouth consists of two distinct parishes--East and West Teignmouth--that the pleasing irregularity of architecture arises to which many writers have from time to time referred. The most picturesque portion of the town is that nestling under the wooded cliffs which gradually rise to the moorland beyond, and the slopes of Little Haldon. Teignmouth, which is a typical west-country port, from its low-lying situation has suffered in the past, and will doubtless suffer in the future, from inundations. In seasons of great rain the bogs of Dartmoor and the moorland surrounding Haldon, contribute miniature torrents to the Teign and the Tame, so that they are swollen, and when meeting the incoming seas are forced backwards like a bore with disastrous results for the owners of low-lying property. On such occasions as these the harbour, enticing as it seems in summer, becomes no place for the average yachtsman. But it is, nevertheless, an interesting and picturesque little port, built beneath the shelter of the hills, and situated right at the mouth of the estuary of the River Teign, which at low tide is left almost dry twice a day. In the harbour there is generally a good handful of craft of a fair tonnage, some of them with bowsprits almost in the windows of the stores and houses by the waterside, and all of them careening over at low water in picturesque impotence. As for Teignmouth folk, they are just Devonians to the heart’s core; a trifle slow of speech (as much as their forbears were quick of action), with kindly hearts, and a soft burr at times in their homely fisherman’s talk, dwelling in a sunny, favoured spot, where life goes on slowly, if steadily, and where as yet the commerce, such as it is, knows little of modern rush and competition.