. The North Devon coast. s of rock that everywhere prodigallystrew the cliff-paths. Midway between WoodaBay and Heddons Mouth, a lovely waterfallcomes spouting down the face of the cliff, in a littlebight, the sides of it fringed with moss and ferns,and at the foot a tangle of trees and bushes thathave found a precarious foothold. Here frag-ments of rock, like some prehistoric rubbish-heap,threaten unstable ankles. These cliffs are simply huge masses of looselycompacted rubbish—laminated stone embeddedin ochreous, friable earth—held together largely bysurface vegetation : gorse, grass, and roc
. The North Devon coast. s of rock that everywhere prodigallystrew the cliff-paths. Midway between WoodaBay and Heddons Mouth, a lovely waterfallcomes spouting down the face of the cliff, in a littlebight, the sides of it fringed with moss and ferns,and at the foot a tangle of trees and bushes thathave found a precarious foothold. Here frag-ments of rock, like some prehistoric rubbish-heap,threaten unstable ankles. These cliffs are simply huge masses of looselycompacted rubbish—laminated stone embeddedin ochreous, friable earth—held together largely bysurface vegetation : gorse, grass, and rock-plants,and in places the hillsides resemble engineers 62 THE NORTH DEVON COAST spoil-banks. But the horned breed of sheep thatbrowse here keep a wonderful foothold, in placeswhere no human being would dare trust himselfon the slopes, covered with slippery grass. Thecliff-path is usually solitary, and the occasional,nearly human cough of these only living creatures istherefore at first somewhat startling, in its ap-. parently half-apologetic note, like that of somePaul Pry, who hopes he dont intrude. Theirclattering walk along the loose flakes of stone, soplentifully strewn about, is oddly like unseenpeople roughly handling piles of dinner-plates. Presently Heddons Mouth bursts upon theview, with all the force of a revelation. To observethe coast-line from the deck of a vessel—for ex-ample, from one of the big steamers that pass HEDDONS MOUTH 63 quite close in, on the way to Ilfracombe—mayseem (and is) a luxurious way of seeing these cliffsand their openings. No foot-soreness, no scram-bling amid incredible rocks : only a patronisingpassing in review from an easeful attitude ofobservation. But then, strangely enough, thismajestic succession of headlands, of bays, and mouths is flattened and fore-shortened anddepreciated in a degree incredible to those whohave not tried both methods. Heddons Mouth,for example, looks by no means remarkable fromthe sea. But viewed from ei
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectdevonen, bookyear1908
