Page:Letters from England.djvu/161

 were also just being held with song and preaching, and finally an old hospital, where I drew a bearded caryatid, a chimera with a beard, which was quite an interesting thing for Bristol.

At Exeter I was beset by an English Sunday coupled with rain. An Exeter Sunday is so thorough and holy that the very churches are closed, and as regards creature comforts, the wayfarer who despises cold potatoes must go to bed with an empty stomach; I do not know what particular joy this causes to the Exeter God. In other respects it is a nice town with pleasant and quiet rain, and old English houses, to which I shall return on another occasion; for now I am hurrying to Dartmoor Forest.

The journey there is along prettily winding roads across curved hills through that shaggiest of green regions, which contains the