The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-09-03
THE NORTH COAST OF DEVON
PERIANDER WRITES ABOUT THE
 PEOPLE AND THE COUNTRY.

HEOPLE AND THE COUNTRY.
 A Description of the "Tors" of Dartmoor
 Cornish Hotel Keepers arc Thrifty
 Prof. Marsh in England-Pen Sketch of
 Senator Cullom and an Estimate of Gen.
 Hawley.
 Lynton, North Devon, England,
 August 2t, 1897.
 10 the Editor of the Journal and Courier:
 Lynton is on the north coast of De- yon Cornwall is the westernmost coun- ty of England. Devon is next to it. The two together are like the foot of 8 ballet girl when she sticks her toe straight out in front of her. Land s End will be the point of the toe; Ply mouth and Exeter will circumscribe the heel; Lynton is on top of the instep. North of Lynton is Bristol channel. On the other side of the channel forty odd miles away, is Wales, with it's coal mines. Devon is composed of tremend- ously high and tremendously broad hills. Along the southern border they slope gradually and leave space for field farms. towns, railroads and other marks of civilization. Along the instep on the north, from Bideford on the. west to BridgeWater on the east, nearly fifty miles, the hills come close up to the water and then, as if enlightened by their perilous approach, break up into fearful cliffs and gorges, precipitous crags and sunken valleys, through Which streams hurry away from the gloom to join the broad waters and the glad sunshine of the sea. Lynton is in the midst of the confusion. Five hun dred feet nearly perpendicularly below, the little river Lynn escapes from the tyranny of the hills and wags its happy way out into the channel. You may follow back it's divided streams through brush and brier and beneath overhang- ing peaks way up to the top of the moors fifteen hundred feet high and miles away. The surface of the upper moors wave like the swell of an enor- nous ocean. When not ascending, you are descending You imagine the roads might have been curved about the hills on comfortable levels; but when the roads were built the old-fashioned idea prevailed that the shortest distance be- tween two points is a straight line in spite of intervening depressions and ele- vations. The idea that it is just as short around hill as over it is very modern and has not been as yet thor oughly accepted even at home.
 Lynton is twenty miles away from the nearest railway station. That's blessing, or the opposite, as you are disposed to look at it,
 The up-to-date American citizen who would know every morning doings of the Turks at one end of civilization and workings of the tariff at the other, soon tires of the monotony of hilltops and longs for the whistle of news-bearing speed. Especially so if obliged to sub- ject himself to ways and manners un- accustomed and which go against his Yankee grain. As this hotel is typical house an account of the daily routine may prepare the New Havener who proposes visiting this part of England
 In the first place, it is almost impos- sible to get anything to eat before o'clock. Nine seems to be the regular hour for breakfast. Before that time you will find the breakfast room filled with walters in their shirt-sleeves flop ping long towels in general way and at nothing in particular; maids without their caps banging dishes while prepar- ing tables for the regular hour, and ex- changing loud compliments with the walters aforesaid. If you succeed in getting anything to eat you will have to eat it amid the uproar and flop aforesaid, intensified for the purpose of informing you of your breach of the domestic laws of the establishment. Breakfast 212shs,- that is, 62 cents consists of tea or coffee and some one thing. The thing" is two eggs, or one egg and bit of bacon, or the smallest bit of fish, or cold meat. To be very always take cold meat. Every thing beyond the "one thing" is charged extra. The bread is good; the butter is excellent; the coffee is muddy; the tea is as strong as lye; the eggs are cold; the toast, when there is toast, is colder. The true Englishman is tenn perate That, is, he desires neither ex- cess or warmth nor of chill He abhors ice and prefers tepid tea. After break fast you lounge. Then you walk or drive up and down the regulation num- Der of hills At one you lunch (2bs.). Lunch consists of cold fish with a vim egar sauce, followed by cold meat and cheese. If you call for chop you will be eyed as if you were a savage from Savageville. You will have to wait till your chop has been cooked and has been cooled-about half an hour-and | you will find an extra charge in your bill of 21ss per chop. The dining room | windows are always kept dramatically 1 sealed. The Englishman seems to con- slider that part of each meal is the odor | of all previous meals. If he can't af- | ford a chop he can smell some other fel- | lows chop of two days ago. However | fond he is of being out of doors, he ob- | jects to any air following him in. Don't | speak to him for a ten dollar bill. He | won't speak to you though you sit by | his side at table for a month. Not be- cause it is you. They are just the same | to one another. The British Empire | rests upon the preservation of class dis functions. A Britisher never speaks to | another Britisher till he knows that he and the other Britisher belong to the same cless. This is particularly the rule among the middle classes-the up- per middle as we'll. as the lower middle. It may be good rule It is certainly finding favor in the United States.
 After lunch you may peruse the Bris- tol paper for awhile and learn a little If the dOinpS of tha outsi3a xrorld <ro,, |