We passed down the steep High Street of Exeter, crowded with ruddy-towered churches, and bordered, as to its farther end, with the low-lying slums of Exe Island. Across Exe Bridge is the suburb of St. Thomas, and we explored its one long street to its end, where it joins the Dunsford Road, from whose rise this prospect of Exeter is taken. Then we retraced our steps some distance, and set out for Teignmouth, coming in rather over a mile to Alphington, a pretty village, with tall and slim church tower looking straight down the road, making, with its red sandstone, a striking contrast with the vivid green of the rich foliage around, and the dazzling whiteness of the “cob” cottages, whose whitewash seems ever fresh. We glanced inside the church, but a christening was in progress, and we fled, pursued by the ear-piercing yells of the unhappy infant.

With Alphington were passed Exeter’s latest encroachments upon the country in this direction, and the road presently became perfectly rural. To the left was the rich level through which the Exe flows, now restrained by cunningly constructed canals, weirs, banks, and sluices from flooding the pastures, in some instances below its level, and intersected by little dykes for their better irrigation.

The road shortly descended into a pretty valley, where were some cottages beneath a peculiar isolated hill, crowned with a windy coppice; below were pools of water that reflected hurrying clouds. At the extremity of the valley the road was bordered by evergreen shrubs, firs, and larches, and a dense undergrowth of brambles and wild-flowers harmonised with the rich colour of a disused quarry, from whose red ledges dripped drops of water with hollow sound.

Then, past the huge building of the Devon County Lunatic Asylum, we came into Exminster, standing on somewhat high ground. For sketching purposes it does not group well: there are, though, some points of interest within the church, among them a recessed portrait effigy of Grace Tothill.

But the most interesting feature of Exminster church is the series of saints on the ceiling at the east end of the south aisle. The aisle has the “wagon” roof, so frequently met with in Devon, and it is divided into square panels by old carved woodwork. The panels are filled with plaster, on which are executed a series of saints and prophets, in low relief, conceived and wrought in the most grotesque vein. The ceiling, woodwork, and all, has been treated to a liberal coat of whitewash.

This figure, representing St. James the Less, takes the palm for eccentricity of appearance, though the others are not far short of his somewhat ungainly prominence. He is apparently in a great hurry, intent on some hot-gospelling expedition, but he has a wicked eye that ill beseems his errand, and a cudgel that seems out of keeping with the book.