Leaving the Otter to pursue its pleasant, but not exciting, course to the English Channel, we pass at a bound from the sunny south to one of the weirdest parts of Exmoor, where the most important of the streams that rise in the northern "forest" have their birth. The chief of them, and, indeed, the longest of all the Devonshire rivers, the /Exe/, which has a course five-and-fifty miles long, oozes out of a dismal swamp known as The Chains, in Somerset county, some two or three miles north-west of Simonsbath; and within a space of not more than two miles square are the sources of three other streams--the Barle, which merges with the Exe near Exbridge; the West Lyn, which flows northwards to the finest spot on the Devon coast; and the Bray, a tributary of the Taw. Looking around, one sees in every direction a waste of undulations rolling away to the horizon like a deeply-furrowed sea. Far away eastwards rises Dunkery, his mighty top now, as often, obscured by clouds which the western winds are slowly driving before them; on the other hand stretches the North Molton Ridge, culminating in Span Head, which comes within about fifty feet of the stature of Dunkery himself. [Illustration: _Photo: H. T. Cousins, Exmouth._ EXMOUTH, FROM THE BEACON (_p. 34_).] The infant Exe and the Barle are both brown, peaty streams, and their valleys, separated from each other by one of the Exmoor ridges, and following the same general south-easterly trend, have much in common, though that of the Barle is the less regular and more picturesque of the two. It is when they have each sped in the merriest-hearted fashion somewhere about a score of miles that they meet, forming a current which, as it rushes tumultuously beneath the arches that give to Exbridge its name, must be a full fifty yards wide. Now the Exe becomes a Devonshire stream, with a predominantly southerly course; but as it approaches Oakford Bridge it bends to the west, then curving round to the east to meet the Batherm, fresh from its contact with Bampton, an old market town celebrated all over the West Country for its fairs and markets, whereat are sold the shaggy little Exmoor ponies and the bold and nimble Porlock sheep. The main stream still shows no disposition to play the laggard, but by this time it has left the moorland well behind, and, as we follow it among luxuriantly timbered hills, it presently brings us to Tiverton, agreeably placed on its sloping left bank. Here it takes toll of the Loman, which has been in no haste to complete its course of ten miles, or thereabouts, from the Somerset border.