stone circles, 'over forty feet in diameter,' have been wickedly removed
from the Valley of Rocks 'for the purpose of selling them as
gate-posts!...' Spindle-wheels, or pixie grinding-stones, as the natives
call them, have been found in the neighbourhood, as well as arrow-heads
and 'a skinning knife with a ground edge of black flint.'

The winding valley of the West Lyn is very beautiful, but not so wild as
that of the East Lyn; it lies deep down beneath fir-woods, whose serried
spires mount higher and higher on the steep hill-side. A little way from
Lynton, along this lovely road, is Barbrook Mill, and close by a cottage
covered with purple clematis, among trees loaded with rosy apples.

Following up the East Lyn from Lynton, the fitness of Dean Alford's
words is realized:

LYN-CLEAVE.

This onward deepening gloom; this hanging path
Over the Lyn that soundeth mightily,
Foaming and tumbling on, as if in wrath
That might should bar its passage to the sea;
These sundered walls of rock, tier upon tier,
Built darkly up into the very sky,
Hung with thick wood, the native haunt of deer
And sheep that browse the dizzy slopes on high.

These 'walls of rock' are now and again cleft by the narrow openings of
steep and wild ravines. It is intensely solitary; there is scarcely any
sound or movement, but perhaps a buzzard high in the air may hang over
the valley for a few moments. About two miles from the harbour is
Watersmeet, where the Farley Water rushes into the Lyn. When the leaves
are on the trees the stream can hardly be seen from the road, for it
lies below a high, steep bank. By the water's edge in the shaded light
there is a suggestion of mystery, and the bed of the stream is so shut
in that but for the stirring of the leaves, the shifting gleams of
sunlight in the waters, and the freshness of the air, one could almost
imagine oneself underground. The glossy leaves of festoons of ivy and
wild-flowers cover the red rocks. The Farley Water falls over a
succession of little waterfalls, swirling and foaming in the pools
between, and then slips over little rocky ridges and slopes covered with
duck-weed so wide that the 'stream covers it like no more than a thin
film of glancing emerald.' Below, the valley opens enough to allow space
for a tiny lawn, overhung with oak-trees; and here it is joined by the
Lyn, which has raced along the farther side of a steep tongue of land.

The