Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1901-09-09
LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

following extract from letter from
her sister, who is spending the summer
! in England:
My dear sister:
think I wrote you last from Lyn
mouth in Devonshire and l have seen
SO much and done so much since then
j that it seems as if it must have been
years ago instead of only days.
Lynton was by far the most beauti-
full place that I have ever seen. I
eaid before l came here that I was
coming to look at churches, tombs
and abbeys and that never expected
to find any natural scenery in Eng
land as beautiful as the Royal Gorge
in the Rockies and Lake Tahoe in
the Sierras, but l have been COM
PEELED to acknowledge that the coast
of Devon is more beautiful than any
thing [ have seen in America. We
coached from Lynton to Ilfracombe,
where we stayed all night and from
there still farther along the coast to
Clovelly, the most interesting town
we have yet found. We were on
the bluff, hundreds of feet above the
ca and the water looked almost d.
rectly beneath US, with no sign of a
town or building of any kind, when
the driver stopped and said that the
coach went no farther; we would
have to go to the town on foot or
donkeys. There was a line of meek
looking little long cared beasts stand
ing there, but only about half enough
for the people in our coach. [ pre-
| ferred to trust my own feet down
that steep, stony pathway so I vol
unteered to walk and those who
walked had the best of it. It was very
amusing to see the people who passed
us-timid Old ladies who shrieked at
every step, and fat old men whose
feet touched the ground on each side
of the donkey.
The street was as nearly perpen-
dicular as a street we'll could be
sleeper even than the Twombly hill
in Barton. It was the former bed of
a mountain stream and wound about
the sides not more than six feet apart,
the dearest little white cottages COW
cred with climbing roses, geraniums
and vines. The housuS were two
stories high in front but the backs
were built right into the rock and
they were so tiny that they looked
like doll houses and one wondered
how grown men and women could
live in them.
This quaint little town, Clovelly, is
said to have been founded by the
Romans about the year 100 and it has
existed just as it is nova little fish
ing village-for hundreds of years.
There are many people there who
never have been even ten miles TO
Bideford, the nearest town, and they
are as quaint as the town itself. We
stayed in fsherman's cottage and
after dinner went down to the end of
the street and sat on the wharf with
the fishermen and they told Us excit
ing stories of their adventures on the
sea and Of the shipwrecks which had
occurred along the coast was up
at five O'Clock the next morning and
our fisherman took me out rowing
just at sunrise wnere we had a .beauti
ful view of the town and the cliffs for
miles on either side.
We took the coach again the next
day at noon and drove through the
beautiful country of Devon and Corn
wall. At Exeter we spent day Wis
iting the cathedral and Rougemont
Castle and we spent another day in
the cathedral at Salisbury and anoJh-
er at Canterbury. They are all mag
niicent and I have no words to de-
scribe them. | only know that they
gave me thoughts which will last as
long as my life does.
We have now been in London one
week and feel that have just begun
to realize what there is to be seen.
We really should spend the rest of
the summer here. We have spent
one day at st. Paul's cathedral, one
at Westminster Abbey and one in the
Tower, where so many of the horrible
deeds of history have been COM
mitted. We have seen the tombs of
kings and queens dating back even
before William the Conqueror, and of
all the great men who have made
English literature from Chaucer to
the present time. We stood on the
very spot where Anne Boleyn and
Lady Jane Gray we're beheaded, and
went up the staircase under which
were hidden after their uncle had