But morning in Ilfracombe is more endurable for such an one. Bustling, democratic Ilfracombe has, then, none of that illuminated vulgarity and would-be, shop-soiled wickedness that characterise it overnight. Nature gets her chance again in the light of day, and in the long, narrow High Street you see the crowds in pursuit of natural enjoyments. Some are shopping, some are making for the bathing-coves; others are going on one or other of the many coaching excursions to “places of interest in the adjacent country,” as the notices have it. It may be observed that not yet have motor waggonettes and the like replaced the coaches and other horsed vehicles at Ilfracombe, and that drivers and guards still affect the traditional red-coats associated of old with coaching. More than ever are there popular joys attendant upon one of these coaching-trips to Berrynarbor, to Combemartin, or Lynton; for in these fiercely enterprising times the local photographers take views, day by day, of the laden coaches as they prepare to set out; and so, at trifling cost, you have a permanent pictorial voucher as to the way in which you fleeted the sunny hours at Ilfracombe. Not, by any means, that all hours are sunny, this especial spot in North Devon being notoriously rainy; but it is at worst but an April-like raininess, and even as the showers come down, the sun that is to dry them up smiles through the watery sky. Thus, no one minds the “soft weather” of Ilfracombe. It is many, many years since Charles Kingsley wrote of Ilfracombe in this manner: “Be sure, if you are sea-sick or heart-sick, or pocket-sick either, there is no pleasanter place of cure than this same Ilfracombe, with quiet nature and its quiet luxury, its rock fairyland and its sea walks, its downs and combes, its kind people, and, if possible, its still kinder climate, which combines the soft warmth of South Devon with the bracing freshness of the Welsh mountains.” The climate is the only thing that has not suffered change since that description was penned. The kind people are, doubtless, at bottom, as kind as of old--such of them as are Devonshire folk--but they are now urban (which, despite the etymology of the word, does not now indicate what is in these times understood by “urbanity”)--and to be urban in these days is to be, colloquially, “on the make.” Ilfracombe, in fact, like any other large seaside resort, has turned its scenery and its climate to commercial account, and, as the local Urban District Council frankly acknowledges, exists for, and on, the visitor. It is a town of hotels, lodging-houses, and boarding-houses, few of whose proprietors can be natives. All the natural features are exploited, and, lest the visitor be in doubt what there is to see and do, the Council has taken in hand the task of placing notices in prominent places, indicating the things to be seen and to be done. Thus, kindly shepherded, you lose all personal enterprise, and do, like an obedient fellow, what you