It is by no means necessary to take Lynton on the way to the Valley of Rocks and the coast-walk to Wooda Bay and Heddon’s Mouth. The cliff-path known as the North Walk avoids Lynton, and, climbing up midway along the hillside, forms a secluded route of the greatest beauty. It was cut in 1817 by a public-spirited Mr. Sanford. Until that time, there was no path, and only the most hardy climbers, at the risk of falling headlong into the sea, ever attempted to make their way by this route. It is merely a footpath, and so not in any way injurious to the wild, romantic nature of the scenery. Were some injudicious person, or local authority, to conceive the idea of forming it into a broad road, not Nature herself could, short of a convulsion, remedy the scar that would be made for all the neighbourhood to see. Trees cannot grow on this stony hillside, to hide such things; the great gash made for the Lift, or Cliff Railway, which here runs at right-angles up hill, being only by good fortune screened through ascending by a route affording foothold for shrubs and undergrowth. It is now, indeed, hidden in a degree those who saw the raw wound in 1890 dared not hope for. Kindly Nature, dear, forgiving, long-suffering, immortal mother, to whom we all come, weary, for rest at last, to your ample bosom, how great soever be our enormities, you bear with them all and, smiling, resume your way. This rocky walk, winding past one grey crag after another, is rich in towered and spired masses and jutting pinnacles. Sometimes they rise up for all the world like pedestals rudely shaped to receive statues; but they would need to be statues of heroic size and pose to fit these surroundings. The eye ranges along the coast, past Castle Rock and Duty Point, to the softly rounded masses of woods covering the hillsides enclosing Wooda Bay; and only the restless, resistless spirit of exploration forbids long lingering here and there, on those occasional seats provided by the thoughtful Urban District Council that rules the twin places, Lynmouth and Lynton, and perseveringly tries to reconcile their jealousies. But one must needs rest awhile at that point where the North Walk, bending to the left, enters the Valley of Rocks. Here a convenient seat is placed, commanding a view backwards to Lynmouth and the Foreland, and looking down from a sheer height on to great emptinesses of blue, sunlit sea. Seagulls wheel and cry, or poise suddenly, on idle extended pinions, whimsically like a cyclist “free-wheeling”; excursion steamers, to and from Ilfracombe and other resorts, go by, and in the still August sea leave more than mile-long creamy wakes of foam traced in the blue, until they become indistinct in distance.