I don't know how long you stay in Newburyport!Okehampton Aug. 2 1922
Honey dear :-
I took some paper when in the Amer. Exp. in Paris with the thought of writing en route and then used my own - being some sleepy in that awful Dieppe station. I'll now use it up.
This has been a varied week, but I'm comfortable with a very good dinner - cost 5s - and feel quite cheerful. Indeed I have all the time.
Sunday we went to church at Exeter Cathedral - sat in the choir very near that extraordinary bishop's throne, carved I forget how many centuries ago, with veritable lacework of vine-leaves and queer little heads and such. We always aim for the choir now! I feel quite at home in canopied stalls with a prayer-book of quarto size resting on a velvet cushion! The first time in Magdalen I was somewhat overwhelmed. Exeter is lovely - vaulting later than Salisbury, but not perpendicular. The symmetry of it, and the tone of the stone is exquisite - a soft brown. Salisbury's contrast between the grey and the dark polished pillars is rather trying, also the painted vaulting in the choir.
After service we talked a long time with Charlotte's Wellesley friends, nice, enthusiastic girls who have given us some good addresses, and then walked about the town. It's very ancient, and one hill - Step-cote Hill - has a narrow flight of steps on each side a central roadway, mainly gutter, and the quaintest over-hanging houses, some timbered. The old castle grounds now a park, are lovely.
We ate a rather hasty dinner, served by a waiter who looked like a New England parson in a dress-suit, and then took a char-a-banc for a trip to the coast. First we went over a stretch of moor, where there was a real Tyrian purple heather, of which I'll put in a spring some-time, tonight if Charlotte hasn't gone to sleep when I go back to the room. We went fairly crazy over that color - and have seen no such mass of that particular kind since, though it is very common. Then we went on with wonderful wide clear views over country with fairly high hills, fields, woods, hedge-rows - a river valley. Less soft curves than around Salisbury, less fertile, but not abrupt anywhere. We came to the shore down the river Teign at Teignmouth, quite a populous sea-side place, though by no means as large as Torquay. The beach was wide, like Hampton, the tide was low - but the sand was less firm, though good, and the most amazing chocolate color! High cliffs were at either end of the mile and a half (?) of beach. I hope our pictures will come out, for we saw no cards. There were beach chairs with sunhats on them, and a whole row of tents which might be used as bathing houses, or apparently rented by a family for the day for shade, lunch-getting &c. Also bathing machines were there. We walked along the shore and when we got beyond the folks found some nice little shells and saw huge jelly fishes, oh, 2 feet or more across, blue, with tentacles which must stretch to 3 or 4 feet.
'Twas all very pleasant. The cliffs were brick red, as indeed most of the soil is, and a soft conglomerate, which weathers to curious shapes. We had about 3 hours there, and then came back such a lovely way through Dawlish, a smaller sea place, and up the Exe to Exeter. 'Twas 6 hours, all told, about 50-60 miles, and all for 4s. The char-a-bancs are so comfortable.
Oh - I forgot Chudleigh Cave! We stopped there, and walked some half mile or so and were guided by a nice little boy with a candle through some little distance of mild cave. The glen was very pretty, with English ivy over everything, so reckless!
Monday we went to the Exeter Guild-hall - where the carving of the panels is wonderful - maybe 'twas 13th or 14th cent, I forget! Anyhow there has been court every Monday in the city since 1200! We say the man wearing his silver chain, carrying a mace, and the mayor's gold chain, on his way to get the mayor to attend this function. The pride in the old city was very evident in the guide who showed us about, and the old carved door, so heavy and so elegant - and the portraits, the old furniture - it was all so fine. At the cathedral we turned up all the quaint miserere seats and adored the elephants on the ends of the rows, the dragons and angels - it's very simply done, so different from the intricacy of Amiens, but very engaging.
We did some hustling and engineered our luggage to an early train so that we got to Plymouth in time for dinner. An English train no longer fills me with trepidation! The trip was lovely, along the shore, and across pretty country. We got off twice, once in Totnes, where there was a sweet ruined castle and some old streets, and once at Ivybridge, very stupid. Charlotte met some nice Brown people in the bank in Exeter, and we saw them again in Plymouth.
As we went to the p.o. we saw a char-a-banc tagged for an evening trip to the place we had wanted to stay and where we could get no places, Yelverton! So we ate a hasty lunch and went. We happened to sit beside the owner of this line of vehicles, and he was most friendly. I really wanted to stay there a week to take his trips. He's a member of the Chamber of Commerce and goes to dinners where the Amer. Embassador speaks, I'd have you know.
Yelverton is absolutely heavenly! Out in the midst of moors - oh, so lovely! We spent half our time in a vain search for rooms - the place is full up and not cheap, though not very exptensive. But that sunset over the moors was a thing to remember. Another time I'd write to all these places from America in March, and then alter my dates a little! It is impossible to do what we wish.
Tuesday morning we went to the M.B.L. and had a beautiful time in the aquarium. It made me think of Naples - better than N.Y. in variety though not size. We stayed a long time, and there my college engraved cards - which have been most helpful - got me into the working lab. A nice Dr. Labour (?) (woman - permanent resident) took us around. She is working on jelly fishes and had just had a movie taken of a lovely little jelly fish eating a young pipe fish! The lab. can't touch even the old Woods Hole in space, but it has a most wonderful location. We went crazy over that Hoe where Drake played bowls, and over its view. We went piously to the Mayflower stone, and took a ferry across the harbor for a ride - and then assembled over possessions! All are with us. We've not had our tramping things open since the steamer - mailed them in a laundry-case from London, which we felt quite clever. We had heard of a possible place to stay here at Okehampton, so came to it. It's all right - grand food - but too expensive, and too hard to obtain the kind of information we want.
This forenoon it rained - it still rains every day, though not all the time - and we wrote letters diligently for lodgings as far as Scotland - 25 letters in all! It really is no joke, this finding of beds. This afternoon we walked about seven miles, along a golf course below the moors and under a very high bridge, Meldon Viaduct, and back up much higher over the moor. It is curious to see Jaeger colored sheep, some almost pink! We don't know whether they are natural or dyed! Lots of ponies and cattle loose on the moor, rounded up at intervals. We got rained on, but only a little, and had wide views. But the best Tors of the region are in an artillery range - we came down through the edge of the big camp - and access to a large region is forbidden. There was much firing today. We could even hear the shells scream in the air, albeit mildly.
There is any quantity of heather, but not quite out, save for the brilliant kind, which here is less characteristic, though present. We found one stretch of swamp full of orchids, a Habenaria I think - and so many lovely little things - and no botany! We just can't find a small book about flowers. It's dreadful. Tomorrow we hope to get some mail from the Amer. Exp. and I may hear from you! I'd like to.
I'll put in a revised itinerary, though we may have to change it again. I fear we can't connect with Mabel Hedge and L. Gregory, which grieves me. They'll be ahead of us in Scotland.
I'd like to see how our So. Hadley gardens look. I have seen a lot of gardens!
Much love to you, honey - I'd like to see you very much.
Abby -