now write.

No cloud was in the sky. Far away, on the left, sloped inward the
winding shore; so clear, so fresh, so divinely tender in its blue and
purple hues, that it was the most inexhaustible of luxuries only to look
at it. Over the watery horizon, to the right, the autumn sun hung
grandly, with the fire-path below heaving on a sea of lustrous blue.
Flocks of wild birds at rest, floated chirping on the water all around.
The fragrant steady breeze was just enough to fill our sails. On and on
we went, with the bubbling sea-song at our bows to soothe us; on and on,
till the blue lustre of the ocean grew darker, till the sun sank redly
towards the far water-line, till the sacred evening stillness crept over
the sweet air, and hushed it with a foretaste of the coming night.

What sight of mystery and enchantment rises before us now? Steep, solemn
cliffs, bare in some places--where the dark-red rock has been rent away,
and the winding chasms open grimly to the view--but clothed for the most
part with trees, which soften their summits into the sky, and sweep all
down them, in glorious masses of wood, to the very water's edge.
Climbing from the beach, up the precipitous face of the cliff, a little
fishing village coyly shows itself. The small white cottages rise one
above another; now perching on a bit of rock, now peeping out of a clump
of trees: sometimes two or three together; sometimes one standing alone;
here, placed sideways to the sea, there, fronting it,--but rising always
one over the other, as if, instead of being founded on the earth, they
were hung from the trees on the top of the cliff. Over all this lovely
scene the evening shadows are stealing. The last rays of the sun just
tinge the quiet water, and touch the white walls of the cottages. From
out at sea comes the sound of a horn--blown from the nearest
fishing-vessel, as a signal to the rest to follow her to shore. From the
land, the voices of children at play, and the still fall of the small
waves on the beach, are the only audible sounds. This is Clovelly. If we
had travelled a thousand miles to see it, we should have said that our
journey had not been taken in vain.

On getting to shore, we found the one street of Clovelly nothing but a
succession of irregular steps, from the beginning at the beach, to the
end half way up the cliffs. It was like climbing to the top of an old
castle, instead of walking through a village. When we reached the
summit of the