in existence.  Its Charter was dated June 17th, 1599, and by it Queen Elizabeth incorporated certain merchants under the style of “The Governors Consuls, and Society of the Merchant Adventurers of the Citye and County of Exeter, traffiqueing the Realme of Fraunce and the Dominions of the French Kinge.”  The original canal was a small one and only adapted for boats carrying about fifteen tons:  afterwards it was enlarged to a depth of fifteen feet of water—­enough for the small ships of those days—­for even down to Tudor times a hundred-ton boat constituted a man-of-war.  This canal made Exeter the fifth port in the kingdom in tonnage, and it claimed to be the first lock canal constructed in England.  Its importance gradually declined after the introduction of railways and the demand for larger ships, and the same causes affected Topsham, its rival.

[Illustration:  POWDERHAM CASTLE.]

Leaving Exminster, we had a delightful walk to Powderham, the ancient seat of the Courtenay family, the Earls of Devon, who were descended from Atho, the French crusader.  The first of the three branches of this family became Emperors of the West before the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, the second intermarried with the royal family of France, and the third was Reginald Courtenay, who came to England in the twelfth century and received honours and lands from Henry II.  His family have been for six centuries Earls of Devon, and rank as one of the most honoured in England.

We called to see the little church at Powderham, which stood quite near the river side, and which, like many others, was built of the dark red sandstone peculiar to the district.  There were figures in it of Moses and Aaron, supposed originally to be placed to guard the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments; and there were the remains of an old screen, but the panels had suffered so severely that the figures and emblems could not be properly distinguished.  There was also under an arch a very old monument, said to be that of the famous Isabella de-Fortibus, Countess of Devon, who died in 1293.  She was the sister of the last Earl Baldwin de Redvers, and married William de-Fortibus, Earl of Albemarle, in 1282.  Her feet rested on a dog, while on either side her head were two small child-angels, the dog and children being supposed to point to her as the heroine of a story recorded in a very old history of Exeter: 

An inhabitant of the city being a very poor man and having many children, thought himself blessed too much in that kind, wherefore to avoid the charge that was likely to grow upon him in that way absented himself seven years together from his wife.  But then returning, she within the space of a year afterwards was delivered of seven male children at a birth, which made the poor man to think himself utterly undone, and thereby despairing put them all in a basket with full intent to have drowned them:  but Divine Providence following