MYRTLES AND ALOES. CHAPTER I. SALCOMBE. "Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen blüh'n? Göethe. "SALCOMBE! Where is Salcombe?" says one of my readers. "O!" rejoins a second, "I dare say it is one of those places which was never heard of till a railway came through it, and now the inhabitants are so proud that they must have a book all about themselves!" "I know," says a third; "it is the name of a large hill just beyond Sidmouth, which we used to climb on picnic excursions, and which, after all, never appeared to such advantage as when we were at its base!" No, my readers; you are all wrong. My Salcombe is much lower down in the map, and there is no railway to it at all. Look at the southernmost part of the county of Devon, and you will see a sort of lake, not unlike a splash on a tea tray, or at all events, which can be made like it, if you are artistically inclined. At the top of it you will see the town of Kingsbridge, and at the bottom you will not see, unless your map is a very good one, the B thriving little town, or rather semi-town, of Salcombe, which is to be the scene of our adventures. Had any one told me a few years before that I should ever find myself there, I should have looked on the prophecy as altogether apocryphal; but events did conspire to bring my husband and myself thither for a period; and this is how it came about. In the autumn of 1854, during a visit to our relatives in Dublin, it was considered necessary for me to seek a warmer climate for the winter; and circumstances with which I need not here trouble my readers took us to the spot which, of all others in England, is supposed to be the best suited to a person suffering from a bronchial affection. I need not weary my readers with the oft-told tale of sea-sickness and other marine discomforts between Kingstown and Holyhead, excepting to remark that the weather, which had been for months very fine, suddenly changed about the time of our departure, and we had, in consequence, as unpleasant a crossing as most people meet with. We slept the first night at Birmingham, and after another day's journey, found ourselves at the Kingsbridge Road Station on the South Devon Railway. Now began the only unpleasant part of the land journey. The coach in which we were to travel was heavily loaded, and the extremely hilly nature of the road added to the fast approaching darkness, I confess, made me rather nervous. However, it is always well not to seem afraid, so I kept my terrors to myself, until after a drive of ten miles we reached, quite in the dark, the town of Kingsbridge. Here we had to change into a fly, which we shared with two captains' wives, who had been respectively to Liverpool and Cardiff, to take leave of their husbands, and a little boy, who told me that he had once been in his father's schooner to "Ale," which, after some perseverance, I discovered to mean Hayle on the Cornish coast. I endeavoured to glean what information I could from my fellow travellers as to the sort of place which Salcombe might prove; and I learned that if not a "city of kings," it was at least a town of lords." Two Lords and an Honorable were mentioned as having houses there; so we immediately conjectured, in spite of what we had previously heard, that Salcombe must be a distingué place. At length, after much ascending and descending of hills, which gave one a lively notion of going upstairs and downstairs in a sedan chair, we reached the house in which lodgings had been taken for us, and having, in order to facilitate the unloading of the vehicle, put out the little boy first, we were greeted by the long and surprised face of our future landlady, and the exclamation" A little boy! I never heard there was a little boy!" She was, however, appeased by my protestations that the little stranger, who was so unwelcome, was none of ours, but she was evidently not quite comfortable until he was safely deposited in the fly which was to take his mother and her friend to the further end of the town. The blazing fire and clean apartments looked comfortable enough after our two days' journey; and we retired, thankful to Him who had protected us throughout, and rather impatient to see what should greet our eyes on the morrow. It was on the 18th of November, before seven o'clock in the morning, that we arose to look out of the window, and thus gain some notion of the place on which we had alighted. Do not be disappointed, nor take a dislike to my book, when I tell you that it was the dreariest prospect my eyes ever beheld. Dull, cloudy weather to begin with-a large sort of salt water lake lay stretched before us, from the sides of which the tide had receded, and left the most filthy mud, with boats and anchors set fast in all positions, as if they had been bemired there on their return from a drunken frolic. A ship yard exactly under our house, from which it was divided only by a very narrow street and low wall, containing an unfinished vessel, gave promise of abundance of noise as soon as the carpenters should be sufficiently awake to make it. A few gray sea gulls and black shags were the only living creatures to be seen, and they were evidently making the best of their time before the rest of the world was stirring. Everything seemed to be "Washed with a cold gray mist, the vapoury breath of the east wind." Things looking so unpromising did not conduce to early rising, so we shrunk back, and strove to dissipate the unpleasant impression which we had received. The promise of carpenters' rappings, which had been given to the eye was not "cheated to the sense:" the noise made by their industry soon rendered further repose out of the question; for now "Throughout the ship yard's bounds, Were heard the intermingled sounds Of axes and of mallets, plied With vigorous arms on every side;" and all this long before it was fairly daylight. The morning proved one of those slate-coloured, pepper-andsalt days, with which we, in this island home of ours, are so frequently favoured. Nevertheless, we took a survey of the place, and unpromising enough it appeared. The town seemed to be a mere cul de sac, and to end in nothing; but by dint of perseverance we discovered a walking way to a piece of land which appeared to have been reclaimed from the mud by some sort of Dutch process, and to have acquired some dwelling-houses on it. But how they came there was a mystery, for all business looked as if transacted by means of donkeys and boats. This place we afterwards learned was called The Island. There was in the aforementioned street a regular stone staircase leading to the top of the cliff, on which other houses were built, thus enjoying the ascending smoke from their lower neighbours in great perfection. Donkeys went up this Via Mala so quietly that it was evident they were used to it; and, indeed, the loads which these patient creatures carried on their wooden saddles were astonishing. Following their lead, we reached the Post Office, which contained nothing worthy of notice save two troughs of very promising-looking auriculas, for which I observed the situation was remarkably favourable. From the Post Office we found our way to the Church, which was to be my husband's charge, and were agreeably surprised to find it newly built of white brick and stone, and the churchyard planted with aloes and yuccas, (the largest I had then ever seen) myrtles, and a great deal of the thick-leaved Chinese Veronica, which flourishes profusely in this almost frostless climate. We returned by another way to our lodgings, and both agreed in the opinion that Salcombe was, in spite of all that had been said in its favour, the most unprepossessing place we had ever seen. Still I admit there was something about the greenish gray colour of the stones and fern-grown walls which pleased my eye, and which I expected would tell well in a brighter atmosphere. In the afternoon we again sallied forth, and took the road by which we had entered from Kingsbridge, and after a long walk between walls and high banks, emerged suddenly into a more open space, and for the first time beheld the open sea, or at least as much of it as can be seen between the two prominent bluffs which form the mouth of the harbour. I am not to be understood as usurping the office of the Guide Book makers, whose inflated descriptions amuse us all so much; nor have I any vested interest in Salcombe, beyond what every lover of the picturesque may legitimately feel; but I will attempt to put my readers in the possession of a few facts to start with. Salcombe, then, is built on the western side of what appears to be a wide river, but which is in reality an arm of the sea, enclosed on both sides by lofty hills, but which, after having been confined in this way for about a mile and a half, expands itself into an estuary, running up to Kingsbridge and branching off in various |