The coastguard path ascends steeply from Dartmouth Castle and follows a rough course along a deeply indented headland of dark slate-rock, that plunges almost everywhere, without hesitation, into deep water. Patches of sands are few and inaccessible; and, confronting every good ship making from the south-west for Dartmouth, the black Ham Stone rises with an ugly menace from sunshiny seas, ringed around with its own little circle of foam. Thus you come, round Hollowcombe Head and Redlap Cove to Stoke Fleming, past rocky bastions, where the rival yellows of sea-poppy and yellow toad-flax enliven the dark slate, and the Devon “wall-flower” the spur valerian, not the gilly-flower—flourishes bravely in occasional masonry walls. [Illustration: STOKE FLEMING.] Stoke Fleming, standing high and wind-swept, is of a Cornish sternness, and its great dark church tower is so bleak-looking, that not even the sunniest day can put a cheerful complexion upon it. It was built in the Perpendicular period, and is just about as complete an example of long-drawn perpendicularity as can be imagined, rising, stage upon stage, until at last it ends, for all the world as though the old-time architect of it had gone on, like a child building with a “box of bricks,” as far as he dared. A perky little banneret vane on the roof aids this impression. Ferns grow plentifully in the joints of the masonry, to the very summit, and are every now and then removed, but they always reappear. The tower is said to have been built as a mark for sailors, but however that may be, it is certainly one of a very numerous type in South Devon, and own brother to that of Halwell, quite six miles from the sea. Below Stoke Fleming lies the charmingly sequestered glen of Blackpool, where a little stream comes out of an emerald valley and oozes away through a perfect semicircle of sands, guarded by pinnacled rocks. Dense masses of trees, some of them strangely exotic in appearance, overhang the road. This quiet and beautiful spot was the scene of a descent by the Bretons in 1403. An expedition set out from across the Channel, under the command of one Du Chatel, and after raiding Tenby and Plymouth came ashore at Blackpool with the object of taking Dartmouth in the rear. Unfortunately for them, the Devonshire folk had got wind of what was in store, and when the raiders landed they happened unexpectedly upon some six hundred defenders, lying hid until the supreme moment, behind entrenchments. Among these valiant defenders of hearth and home were many women, who fought like devils and slew great numbers of Breton knights and men-at-arms with catapults. Only a sorry remnant of the invaders escaped those gentle creatures, and Dartmouth was on that occasion saved. But, bolder and with the reward of boldness, others came the next year and sailed in to Dartmouth town and burnt it to the ground. [Illustration: BLACKPOOL SANDS.]