There were a number of monuments in the church, the principal being that of Christopher Blacall, who died in 1635.  He was represented as kneeling down in the attitude of prayer, while below were shown his four wives, also kneeling.

The conductor showed us the very fine organ, which before being placed there had been exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851; and we also saw the key of the church door, which, as well as the lock, had been in use for quite four hundred years.

[Illustration:  SEXTON’S COTTAGE, TOTNES.]

We then paid a hurried visit to the ruins of the old castle, which in the time of Henry VIII was described by Leland the antiquary as “The Castelle waul and the strong dungeon be maintained; but the logginges of the Castelle be cleane in ruine”; but about thirty years before our visit the Duke of Somerset, the representative of the Seymour family, laid out the grounds and made of them quite a nice garden, with a flight of steps of easy gradient leading to the top of the old Norman Keep, from which we had a fine view of the country between Dartmoor and the sea.

Totnes was supposed to have been the Roman “Ad Darium,” at the end of the Fosse Way, and was also the famous harbour of the Celts where the great Vortigern was overthrown by Ambrosius.  As the seas were infested with pirates, ports were chosen well up the estuaries of rivers, often at the limit of the tides; and Totnes, to which point the Dart is still navigated, remained of importance from Saxon times, through the struggles with the Danes until the arrival of the Normans; after this it was gradually superseded by Dartmouth.

At Totnes, when we asked the way to Dartmouth, the people jocularly told us that the only direct way was by boat down the river; but our rules and regulations would not permit of our going that way, so we decided to keep as near to the river as we could on the outward journey and find an alternative route on our return.  This was a good idea, but we found it very difficult to carry out in the former case, owing to the streams which the River Dart receives on both sides on its way towards the sea.  Relieved of the weight of our luggage, we set off at a good speed across fields and through woods, travelling along lanes the banks of which were in places covered with ferns.  In Cheshire we had plenty of bracken, but very few ferns, but here they flourished in many varieties.  A gentleman whom we met rambling along the river bank told us there were about forty different kinds of ferns and what he called “fern allies” to be found in the lanes and meadows in Devonshire.  He said it was also noted for fungi, in which he appeared to be more interested than in the ferns, telling us there were six or seven hundred varieties, some of them being very beautiful both in colour and form; but we never cared very much for these, as we thought them too much akin to poisonous toadstools.  We asked him why the lanes in Devonshire were so much