There is little within the old church, with the exception of some fine old characteristic West Country bench-ends, one of them bearing, boldly carved, the heraldic swan of the Bohuns and the bezants of the Courtenays. We here come to that great projection, Countisbury Foreland, past the school-house and by footpaths. A lighthouse, very new, very glaring, with white paint and whitewashed enclosure-walls, near the head of the point, sears the eye on brilliant sunshiny days. It was built so recently as 1899, and equipped with the latest things in scientific apparatus. It casts a warning ray on clear nights, it moans weirdly in foggy weather, like the spirits of the damned; and, in addition, it has machinery for exploding charges of gun-cotton at regular intervals. It is wound up once in four hours, and then proceeds to automatically produce thirteen explosions in the hour. So, in one way and another it will be allowed the shipping of the Bristol Channel is well looked after. From this point, the coast of South Wales is distinctly seen, or is supposed to be. Visitors to Lynmouth have no desire to see it, for the sight is a prelude to rainy weather. The Mumbles is twenty-three miles distant, and yet the hoarse bellowing (or mumbling, if you like it better) of the lighthouse siren there in thick weather is distinctly heard, like the voice of a cow calling her calf. Like all approaches to modern lighthouses, the cart or carriage-road made to this at the Foreland is a stark, blinding affair of glaring rock and loose stones, very trying to wheels, hoofs, or feet; and the hillsides are covered with an amazing litter of loose stones that have resided there ever since the very beginning of things. The place looks like Nature’s rubbish-heap. The way to Glenthorne by the coast-path, therefore, looks more enticing. Something was wrong with the explosive-signal machinery, the day when this explorer chanced by; something that refused to be speedily set right, and the lighthouse man who was attending to it was not averse from ceasing work to give directions and, incidentally, to get a rest. So, quitting awhile his labours with refractory cogs, winches, and springs, he gave elaborate guidance by which one might keep the path along the rugged cliffs to Glenthorne. Not often does he find a stranger to hold converse with, and his directions were so long and full of parentheses that one quite forgot the beginning by the time the end was reached. But the burden of it was, “You go through those woods--they don’t look like more’n bracken from here, but they’re fair-sized trees, really--or else you can get to the road at the top.” “I’ll take the woods,” said I, having had enough of the glaring sunshine; “they’ll be shady.” “Yes--and full of flies,” returned the lighthouse man, “the place fairly ’ums with ’em.”