CHAPTER XX. SOUTH DEVON AND TORQUAY. By one route from Southampton to Exeter, which I had previously taken, I passed through a portion of the "New Forest," looking like unsettled land in America, and stayed a night at the dull old town of Dorchester, in Dorsetshire. The new line of railway from Dorchester passes through the beautiful Axminster and Honiton Valley, near Ottery St. Mary, where Coleridge was born. His father was vicar of the Collegiate Church there. From this town of Dorchester the "Dorchester Adventurers Company" was formed, that settled Gloucester, Salem, Charlestown, Dorchester, and other towns in Massachusetts. Dorsetshire, and Devonshire, and all Southern England, in those days, contained a strong element of Puritanism, and formed perhaps the chief source of supply to the Massachusetts colonies, after the settlement of New Plymouth. In going to Exeter by the other route, I was obliged to wait an hour or two in the little agricultural town of Yeovil. It was a rainy cold day, and in the bit of the tap-room where I dried my wet clothes, the burly farmers and drovers came in to drink their hot mulled wine, and talk over the storm and cattle market, while paddling armies of sheep and frightened cows, and now and then an ugly red-eyed bull, went by the windows. It was "Fair Day." I walked through the cattle-stalls, and saw some noble Devonshire oxen and cows. The beef, with such layers and collops of yellow fat, that one sees hanging up in English butchers' stalls, I saw here in its sleek amiable living state. Devonshire cattle rather take the lead of fine cattle in England. Perhaps the finest specimens of them are found in North Devon on the Bristol side. They are thus described, and the very particularity of the description will show how much is thought of such points: "The Devonshire bull has the head small; the muzzle fine; the nostrils ample; the horns tapering, and of a waxy yellow; the eyes large and clear; the neck thick and arched above with little dewlap; the chest is broad and deep; the breast prominent; the limbs fine boned; the fore-arm muscular; the hips are high, and the hind-quarters well filled up; the thighs are voluminous; the tail long, slender, set on high, and tufted at the extremity. The ox is taller and more lightly made, with fine withers and a slanting shoulder; the breast is prominent; the limbs are fine-boned, muscular, and straight, but rather long; the neck, too, is thin and rather long, the head small, the muzzle fine; the horns longer than in the bull, slender and tapering. The whole form indeed indicates activity and freedom of action. The skin ན་ ་ ་ is moderate and covered with mossy or curling hair; but occasionally it is smooth and glossy. The color is universally red, chestnut, or bay, seldom varied with white; a paler space surrounds the eye, and the muzzle of yellow." The cow is lighter and full of action and life. Though they do not attain to the elephantine size of some of the larger breeds, they lay on flesh rapidly, and of the finest grain. The cows, grass-fed, weigh from thirty stone to forty stone. The oxen weigh from fifty stone to upwards of sixty stone. Hundreds of these fine red fellows may be seen along the railroad track, cropping the green meadows, or lying under the broad-armed trees. England is green all the year round; and no country in the world has such grass-feed as this misty island has. And in no other land have there been such persistent and scientific efforts for the perfection of domestic cattle. Breeds have been made over and over till they are as perfect for this or that quality as Nature seems willing to make them. A Yorkshire cow is as different from a Devonshire cow as are the dialects of the two counties, and a little Kerry ox by the side of a big, coarse Herefordshire ox, is a small rattling Pat, compared with a huge, slow-revolving, slow-motioned Englishman. In the ride from Durston, through Wellington, Tiverton and Hele, on the Bristol and Exeter Railroad, true Devonshire scenery began to make its appearance, and the rich green hill-slopes, narrow valleys, and the red clay, showed that we were in "Dark Devon." The long red cliffs rising from the Exe River, on which fair Exeter stands, gave a warm tint to the beautiful scenery around that old ecclesiastical city; and already the cold raw air and driving rain of the north began to be subdued into a moist drizzly mildness, as if one had come suddenly into a new zone. At the snug old-fashioned "Clarence Hotel," near the cathedral yard, I passed several days. It was now the beginning of the fox-hunting season, and the "Clarence" was the headquarters of a jovial young nobleman with his friends and retainers, who sallied forth to the "Grand Meet" in the morning, in great pomp of scarlet coats, whitetopped boots, velvet jockey-caps, yellow breeches, and heavy whips, to return well bespattered and hungry for a feasting, roaring night. All England is on horseback at this season. Every one is mad to break his neck, or at least his collar-bone. There seems to be no affectation in this love of hunting. A free-spoken Englishman told me that he had been to California and Australia, had traveled all ver the world, had seen all kinds of life, had gambled and fought, and there was but just one thing left now that roused him, and that was foxhunting! The days of "fox-hunting parsons" have not altogether gone by. I cut out a piece from an English newspaper about this time, describing the presentation of a testimonial to a clergyman in Devonshire, who, for many years, had discharged the duties of a master of hounds in his district. In every English town at this season large red hunting horses, with their sides literally flashing from high grooming, with quick-moving ears and springy step, may be seen ridden slowly through the streets by their diminutive grooms. Such gaunt greyhounds of horses, with pinched bellies and straight rail-necks, may have reached the maximum of speed, but they have also attained the minimum of beauty. How different the Arab's estimate of beauty and excellence in a horse, according to Dr. Barth, in the Oriental description which he translates of the steeds of heaven: "Sleek swift horses, coursers trained to run, tall piebalds, five-year olds, fleet, wide-stepping, applerumped, plump, long-boned, strong in back and neck, Arabian blood horses of El Hôdh, that are fed upon cooling milk." Exeter is a large and stately city. Devonshire and Cornwall form one Episcopal See, whose seat is at Exeter, and ecclesiastically, socially, and commercially, it is the principal city of these two counties, and of Southern England. It has been somewhat impoverished by railway speculation, as the road to Plymouth was enormously expensive. By means of "locks," small vessels can come up to Exeter, whose real port is Exmouth, ten miles below. High Street, which runs under different names through the whole length of the city, is a broad and in some parts elegant street, containing the most attractive art-shops, and book-shops, and |