hill-tops than the hollows, if the innumerable indications of their
settlements be any guide, and there is every reason for believing that
many of the hollows in the folds of the heathery moorlands were rarely
visited by man. Thus, the suggestion has been made that a few of the
last representatives of now extinct monsters may have survived in these
wild retreats, for how otherwise do we find persistent stories in these
parts of Yorkshire, handed down we cannot tell how many centuries, of
strange creatures described as 'worms'? At Loftus they show you the
spot where a 'grisly worm' had its lair, and in many places there are
traditions of strange long-bodied dragons who were slain by various
valiant men.

On Easby Moor, a few miles to the south of Roseberry Topping, the tall
column to the memory of Captain Cook stands like a lighthouse on this
inland coastline. The lofty position it occupies among these brown and
purply-green heights makes the monument visible over a great tract of
the sailor's native Cleveland. The people who live in Marton, the
village of his birthplace, can see the memorial of their hero's fame,
and the country lads of to-day are constantly reminded of the success
which attended the industry and perseverance of a humble Marton boy.

The cottage where James Cook was born in 1728 has gone, but the field
in which it stood is called Cook's Garth. The shop at Staithes,
generally spoken of as a 'huckster's,' where Cook was apprenticed as a
boy, has also disappeared; but, unfortunately, that unpleasant story of
his having taken a shilling from his master's till, when the
attractions of the sea proved too much for him to resist, persistently
clings to all accounts of his early life. There seems no evidence to
convict him of this theft, but there are equally no facts by which to
clear him. But if we put into the balance his subsequent term of