Shall we explore the sands to-day? A bright sandy beach well exposed to
the sea is no bad hunting-ground for the naturalist, bare as it looks,
and proverbial as is its character for sterility,--“barren as the sand
on the sea-shore.” And specially is it likely to be productive, when,
as is often the case, the wide reach of yellow sand is interrupted by
one or more isolated areas of rough rocks. Goodrington Sands, lying in
the hollow of Torbay, afford just these conditions; and thither will we
bend our steps this April morning.
So we make our way along the dusty highroad, that leads from Torquay
southward, skirting the shore, now and then getting peeps of the rocks
and the retiring tide, over the massive sea-walls, as the successive
coves open and again shut-in by bounding hedgerows as we cross the
bases of the intervening headlands. Wild hyacinths are peeping among
the rank foliage of the arums and nettles; and harts-tongue ferns, and
primroses are everywhere, clustering in great masses, or studding the
green banks in single stars; the bright rose-campion smiles, and the
ever lovely germander speedwell, brightest, sweetest of spring flowers,
gladdens us here and there, like “angels’ eyes,” as our rustics
poetically call these pretty azure flowers.
As we proceed, we pause to wipe our foreheads, and turning round,
see Torquay behind us, covering and crowning its amphitheatre of
hills, like a queenly city, surely the most beauteous of all our
watering-places;--and beyond it on the left, we see the old church
tower of Marychurch, on its elevated plateau, standing out massive and
dark against the sky.
We pass through the outskirts of the long straggling village of
Paignton, and mark how picturesquely it is embosomed in the midst of
its apple orchards; the old-fashioned cottages buried in the trees, so
that only the time-stained roofs of brown thatch rise here and there,
like islets in a wide sea of blushing blossom. And now extensive osier
grounds lie on either side; the young tender-green shoots, the hope of
the harvest, rising thickly from the uncouth pollard stumps; while the
still water glimmers everywhere around their roots.
A narrow lane leads off abruptly on our left, into which we turn, and
in a moment are in a mossy, flowery, ferny region. The open gate of a
villa reveals a little girl “perambulating” a baby amid the bowers and
blossoms of a sweet garden, whose numerous old tamarisk trees, rough
and bristling, guard the wall, just breaking into their plumy foliage.
And then we open the expanse of shore and sea, and the wheels of the
carriage are suddenly six inches deep in the soft sand. How brightly
the wide silver sea is glancing and sparkling under the climbing sun!
Scarcely a breeze breaks its mirrory face, though far out in the offing
lines and bands of deep blue show that there are intermitting puffs
ruffling the water; and the craft that creep along the horizon have
evidently got a working breeze, though the yachts in the half-distance
sit like white swans, their motionless prows pointing every way, and
“floating double,” on the molten looking-glass.