cannot drive into Clovelly; that although an American president or
an English chancellor might, as a great favour, be escorted down on
a donkey's back, or carried down in a sedan chair if he chanced to
have one about his person, the ordinary mortal must walk to the
door of the New Inn, his luggage being dragged "down-along" on
sledges and brought "up-along" on donkeys. In a word, Clovelly is
not built like unto other towns; it seems to have been flung up
from the sea into a narrow rift between wooded hills, and to have
clung there these eight hundred years of its existence. It has
held fast, but it has not expanded, for the very good reason that
it completely fills the hollow in the cliffs, the houses clinging
like limpets to the rocks on either side, so that it would be a
costly and difficult piece of engineering indeed to build any
extensions or additions.

We picked our way "down-along" until we caught the first glimpse of
white-washed cottages covered with creepers, their doors hospitably
open, their windows filled with blooming geraniums and fuchsias.
All at once, as we began to descend the winding, rocky pathway, we
saw that it pitched headlong into the bluest sea in the world. No
wonder the painters have loved it! Shall we ever forget that first
vision! There were a couple of donkeys coming "up-along" laden,
one with coals, the other with bread-baskets; a fisherman was
mending his nets in front of his door; others were lounging "down
to quay pool" to prepare for their evening drift-fishing. A little
further on, at a certain abrupt turning called the "lookout," where
visitors stop to breathe and villagers to gossip, one could catch a
glimpse of the beach and "Crazed Kate's Cottage," the drying-ground
for nets, the lifeboat house, the pier, and the breakwater.