is a popular resort, the villages
gradually expanding into towns as their populations increase.

EXETER.

[Illustration: EXETER CATHEDRAL, WEST FRONT.]

[Illustration: RUINS OF ROUGEMONT CASTLE.]

[Illustration: OLD HOUSES IN THE CATHEDRAL CLOSE.]

About eleven miles up the river Exe, before it has broadened out into
the estuary, but where it flows through a well-marked valley and washes
the bases of the cliffs, stands Exeter, a city set upon a hill. Here was
an ancient "dun," or British hill-fort, succeeded by a Roman, and then
by a Norman, castle, with the town descending upon the slope towards the
river and spreading into the suburb of St. Thomas on the other side. The
growing city now covers several neighboring hills and tributary valleys,
one of the flourishing new suburbs being named Pennsylvania. Upon the
ridge, where was located the old hill-fort, there still remain in a
grove of trees some scanty ruins of the Norman castle, while well up the
slope of the hill rise the bold and massive towers of Exeter Cathedral.
Unique among English municipalities, this is essentially a hill-city,
the ancient British name of Caerwise having been Latinized by the Romans
into Isca, and then changed to Exanceaster, which was afterwards
shortened into the modern Exeter. Nobody knows when it was founded: the
Romans almost at the beginning of the Christian era found a flourishing
British city alongside the Exe, and it is claimed to have been "a walled
city before the incarnation of Christ." Isca makes its appearance in the
Roman records without giving the date of its capture, while it is also
uncertain when the Saxons superseded the Romans and developed its name
into Exanceaster. They enclosed its hill of Rougemont, however, with a
wall of masonry, and encircled the city with ramparts built of square
stones and strengthened by towers. Here the Saxon king AEthelstan held a
meeting of the Witan of the whole realm and proclaimed his laws, and in
the first year of the eleventh century the Danes sailed up to the town
and attacked it, being, however, beaten off after a desperate struggle.
Two years later they made another attack, captured and despoiled it; but
it rose from its ruins, and the townsmen afterwards defied the Norman as
they had the Dane. William attacked and breached the walls, the city
surrendered, and then he built Rougemont Castle, whose venerable ruins
remain, to curb the stout-hearted city. It was repeatedly besiege