I left off somewhat abruptly last night, you may say, but indeed I think there is nothing which it would be profitable to set down in this place of what befell at Starcross. Referring to my diary, I find a mention of cockles (upon which Starcross prides itself), which some kindly stranger invited us to partake of as we were having tea, all three of us, in the hotel coffee-room. But cockles (if you will excuse the Irishry) are very small beer, so I do not propose to trouble you with an account of them. I will merely say that we had tea and went to bed, and rose and breakfasted in the morning, and presently set out for Teignmouth.

Starcross has aspirations. It is a little village, whose fishers, in a whimsical manner of shorthand, paint their boats *+ by way of informing the world at large whence they hail. It fancies itself a watering-place, but it is just a quiet settlement, with a ferry to Exmouth, and a fishing jetty by the station, and, riding out at anchor in the Exe, a curious pleasure-boat, fashioned in the shape of a huge swan. This little town was, and possibly remains, dependent upon the Courtenays. The chief of the two hotels, the Courtenay Arms, exhibits the heraldic devices of that ancient family and its mournful motto—Quid feci? ubi lapsus.

The railway here runs beside the road, and presently crosses Cockwood Creek on a wooden viaduct. Then came a notice, warning all and sundry of what dreadful things should be done to all them that trespassed upon the line. We therefore crossed over here, and on the other side found ourselves on the Warren, a broad expanse of sand, partly covered at high water. Above high-water mark the sand is held together by rank grasses and tufts of furze; and beneath are the thickly populated burrows of innumerable rabbits. In shallow pools herons were patiently waiting; while, as we walked along, we disturbed plovers, which rose up and flew away with whirring wings. Wild ducks and sea-gulls were plenty.

At the western end of the Warren we came upon Langstone Point, the eastward boundary of the port of Teignmouth. At top of it is a trim coastguard station, and across the line rise the red cliffs of Mount Pleasant, fronted with a chalÊt-like inn. Then we came upon the sea-wall that leads into Dawlish.

When the excursionist from London sees the yellow sands and rippling sea, the red rocks, the green lawns, and the sliding rivulets and miniature cascades of Dawlish from the railway platform, he is unhappy, because the place looks so charming, and he is going to leave it for places he knows not, but which (he thinks) cannot begin to compare with this fairyland. But Dawlish is seen at its best from the railway station and under such hurried circumstances. The place affords little satisfaction when one comes to the exploration of it. The town is bright and lively, and the sands crowded in summer, and the sea-wall well frequented, but Dawlish lives only for and on the visitor; when its short season is done and the visitors have departed, there is (consequently) no business of any kind. It is just a little town, bandbox neat, called into existence by these touring times, and in the spring, autumn, and winter it is as deserted and woebegone as any dead city of the plains. For here is no port, nor river, nor any anchorage, and, for all that is doing in winter months, the inhabitants might hibernate like the dormouse and not miss anything.

Dawlish Station is built on the sands, and the Great Western Railway runs along under the cliffs, on a sea-wall of solid masonry, from Langstone Point, through the five tunnels of Lee Mount and Hole Head, to Teignmouth.

Dawlish did not detain us long. We dusty pilgrims shunned the spick-and-span society of summer frocks and immaculate blazers, and fared forth up the steep paths of Lee Mount on to the highroad for the distance of a mile, when we walked down Smugglers’ Lane to the sea again, where the Parson and Clerk stand at the extremity of a precipitous headland—the Parson on the face of the cliff, the Clerk cooling his heels in the water. For the recognition of the faces supposed to be seen on the sandstone rock, the Eye of Faith is imperative: but many folk possess that.