the pleasant gardens of fruit and flowers,
and the overgrown hedges with their rich decoration of berries, crimson
leaves, and purple and golden flowers.

Directly north is the bit of coast that Kingsley so vividly described:
'What a sea-wall they are, those Exmoor hills! Sheer upward from the sea
a thousand feet rise the mountains; and as we slide and stagger lazily
along before the dying breeze, through the deep water which never leaves
the cliff, the eye ranges, almost dizzy, up some five hundred feet of
rock, dappled with every hue, from the intense dark of the tide-line;
through the warm green and brown rock-shadows, out of which the
horizontal cracks of the strata loom black, and the breeding gulls show
like lingering snowflakes; up to the middle cliff, where delicate grey
fades into pink, pink into red, red into glowing purple; up to where the
purple is streaked with glossy ivy wreaths, and black-green yews; up to
where all the choir of colours vanishes abruptly on the mid-hill, to
give place to one yellowish-grey sheet of upward down, sweeping aloft
smooth and unbroken, except by a lonely stone, or knot of clambering
sheep, and stopped by one great rounded waving line, sharp-cut against
the brilliant blue. The sheep hang like white daisies upon the steep;
and a solitary falcon rides, a speck in air, yet far below the crest of
that tall hill. Now he sinks to the cliff edge, and hangs quivering,
supported, like a kite, by the pressure of his breast and long curved
wings, against the breeze.'

About six miles west of Lynmouth is the lovely valley of Heddon's
Mouth--that is, 'the Giant's mouth; _Etin_, A.S., a giant.' It is a very
narrow green cleft, shut in by two precipitous cliffs rising eight
hundred feet straight out of the sea. Heddon's Mouth Water hurries along
the glen, buries itself in a bank of shingle, and flows out again lower
down the beach. Huge rocks tumbled together make great barriers that
block each side of the cove. On the eastern side, close to the mouth of
the valley, part of the towering wall seems to have fallen away, showing
bare rocks and soil of a warm light brown tempered by shades of pink.
The western side is very steep, but covered with short grass, sea-pinks
and thyme, and crowned by a great mass of boulders. The face to the sea
is slightly hollowed, suggesting that on this side also part of the
cliff has fallen. East and west, one great headland after another is
seen, misty but impre