y places the sides of the cottages are coloured with an ochre wash,
while above them all the top of the cliff appears covered with grass. On
a clear day, when detached clouds are passing across the sun, the houses
are sometimes lit up in the strangest fashion, their quaint outlines
being suddenly thrown out from the cliff by a broad patch of shadow upon
the grass and rocks behind. But there is scarcely a chimney in this old
part of Whitby that does not contribute to the mist of blue-gray smoke
that slowly drifts up the face of the cliff, and thus, when there is no
bright sunshine, colour and detail are subdued in the haze.

In many towns whose antiquity and picturesqueness are more popular than
the attractions of Whitby, the railway deposits one in some
distressingly ugly modern excrescence, from which it may even be
necessary for a stranger to ask his way to the old-world features he has
come to see. But at Whitby the railway, without doing any harm to the
appearance of the town, at once gives a visitor as typical a scene of
fishing-life as he will ever find. When the tide is up and the wharves
are crowded with boats, this upper portion of Whitby Harbour is at its
best, and to step from the railway compartment entered at King's Cross
into this busy scene is an experience to be remembered.

In the deepening twilight of a clear evening the harbour gathers to
itself the additional charm of mysterious indefiniteness, and among the
long-drawn-out reflections appear sinuous lines of yellow light beneath
the lamps by the bridge. Looking towards the ocean from the outer
harbour, one sees the massive arms which Whitby has thrust into the
waves, holding aloft the steady lights that

'Safely guide the mighty ships
Into the harbour bay.'

If we keep to the waterside, modern Whitby has no terrors for us. It is
out of sight, and might therefore have never existed. But when we have
crossed the bridge, and passed along the narrow thoroughfare known as
Church Street to the steps leading up the face of the cliff, we must
prepare ourselves for a new aspect of the town. There, upon the top of
the West Cliff, stand rows of sad-looking and dun-coloured
lodging-houses, relieved by the aggressive bulk of a huge hotel, with
corner turrets, that frowns savagely at the unfinished crescent, where
there are many apartments with 'rooms facing the sea.' The only
redeeming feature of this modern side of Whitby is the circumscribed
area it