guard a tiny cove. Upon this precipitous headland is an
ancient camp, and it overlooks Ilfracombe, the chief watering-place of
the northern Devonshire coast. Here a smart new town has rapidly
developed, with paths cut upon the cliffs and encroachments made along
the shore. High upon a pyramidal headland stands the ancient chapel
where in the olden time the forefathers of the village prayed to St.
Nicholas for deliverance from shipwreck. Now a lighthouse is relied on
for this service. The promontory is connected with a still bolder and
loftier headland, the Capstone Rock. The town is built on the slope of
the hills overlooking these huge round-topped crags, but its streets do
not run down to sand-beaches. There is little but rocks on the shore and
reefs in the water, worn into ridges of picturesque outline, over which
the surf breaks grandly in time of storm. We are told that in a cave
near by, Sir William Tracy, one of the murderers of St. Thomas a Becket
at Canterbury, concealed himself while waiting to escape from England.
He and his accomplices were ordered to purge themselves by a pilgrimage
to the Holy Land, but Tracy was not able to accomplish it. The winds of
heaven always drove him back whenever he tried to embark, for he had
struck the first blow at Becket. He was buried in Morthoe Church beyond
Ilfracombe.

MORTE POINT AND BIDEFORD.

[Illustration: MORTE POINT.]

A few miles westward the coast-line suddenly bends to the southward, the
angle being marked by a wild, rocky headland known as Morte Point, which
the Devonshire proverb describes as "the place on earth which Heaven
made last and the devil will take first." It is a chaos of rock-ridges,
the sea washing against it on three sides, and is a noted place for
wrecks. Far out at sea can be seen a half-submerged black rock which the
Normans christened the Morte Stone, or "Death Rock." To the southward
sweeps a fringe of yellow sand around Morte Bay, and behind the headland
is the little village of Morthoe, where Tracy is buried. Beyond the
boundary of the bay, at Baggy Point, is another and broader bay, whose
shores make a grand sweep to the westward again. This is Barnstaple Bay,
into which flows a wide estuary forming the outlet of two rivers: the
northernmost is the Taw, and at the head of its estuary is Barnstaple.
The other is the Torridge, and upon it, at about nine miles distance
from Barnstaple, is the small but prettier town of Bideford. This is