Ilfracombe a third; but, those excepted, the principal towns in
the county do all choose members of Parliament.

Honiton is one of those, and may pass not only for a pleasant good town,
as before, but stands in the best and pleasantest part of the whole
county, and I cannot but recommend it to any gentlemen that travel this
road, that if they please to observe the prospect for half a mile till
their coming down the hill and to the entrance into Honiton, the view of
the country is the most beautiful landscape in the world--a mere
picture--and I do not remember the like in any one place in England. It
is observable that the market of this town was kept originally on the
Sunday, till it was changed by the direction of King John.

From Honiton the country is exceeding pleasant still, and on the road
they have a beautiful prospect almost all the way to Exeter (which is
twelve miles). On the left-hand of this road lies that part of the
county which they call the South Hams, and which is famous for the best
cider in that part of England; also the town of St.-Mary-Ottery, commonly
called St. Mary Autree. They tell us the name is derived from the River
Ottery, and that from the multitude of otters found always in that river,
which however, to me, seems fabulous. Nor does there appear to be any
such great number of otters in that water, or in the county about, more
than is usual in other counties or in other parts of the county about
them. They tell us they send twenty thousand hogsheads of cider hence
every year to London, and (which is still worse) that it is most of it
bought there by the merchants to mix with their wines--which, if true, is
not much to the reputation of the London vintners. But that by-the-bye.

From hence we came to Exeter, a city famous for two things which we
seldom find unite in the same town--viz., that it is full of gentry and
good company, and yet full of trade and manufactures also. The serge
market held here every week is very well worth a stranger's seeing, and
next to the Brigg Market at Leeds, in Yorkshire, is the greatest in
England. The people assured me that at this market is generally sold
from sixty to seventy to eighty, and sometimes a hundred, thousand pounds
value in serges in a week. I think it is kept on Mondays.

They have the River Esk here, a very considerable river, and principal in
the whole county; and within three miles, or thereabouts, it receives
ships of any ordinary