THE

ENTRANCE TO WHITBY HARBOR.

THE YORKSHIRE COAST. THE rain and the east wind have full swing in Yorkshire; but the inclemency is not greater than in many other parts of the stormy British Islands; and the coast from Hull, at which port Robinson Crusoe embarked on his memorable voyage, up to the Tees, has many watering-places upon it, to which thousands of operatives come every summer from the smoky towns of the county to breathe an air which, unlike their own, is pure and invigorating.

The view of the county which we get in crossing it from Manchester to Hull is one not to be forgotten. In all the distance we are scarcely ever out of sight of the high factory chimneys; scarcely ever out of sight of a town; scarcely ever under a sky undarkened by the snake-like coils of black smoke which are forever issuing from the chimneys. The people are pale and fatigued, and the earth, deprived of its proper sunshine, supports but a feeble

kind of vegetation; the leaves are begrimed, and even the dew seems inky. After dark, which is hurried on early in the afternoon by the accumulating smoke, the square, featureless workshops, with their many windows lighted, look like illuminated gridirons of a vast size, and a dull red glow in the mouths of some of the chimneys also shows the continuity of the labor.

The transition from this fetid and dismal atmosphere to the high white coast, with the German Ocean chafing against. it, stirs up those whose lot is not cast in these dark places; but the full effect is seen in the operative released for his holiday from the mills and foundries, who hurries down from the station to the shore, and when the clean sky and the crisp sea are opened to him, stands in rapture, and eagerly draws the salt air into his lungs. Under these circumstances, and in contrast with the sun-browned fisherman, the "tripper," as he is contemptuously called, with his sallow face and clothes of ugly pattern, becomes a pathetic figure, though later in the day he is prone to offend wellbehaved people by his noisy vulgarity.

But while the many watering-places are a great sanitary benefit to such as he, it is not to be supposed that they wholly owe their existence to poor excursionists of his class, nor is it to be supposed that all of Yorkshire is like the belt which includes

Leeds, Dewsbury, and Huddersfield. One of them is the most picturesque and brilliant of all British watering-places, and all of them attract visitors from the southern counties as well as from their own neighborhoods. The moorlands and hills are famous for their tonic air, and the county is rich in antiquities. The coast is for the most part bold. The chalk and limestone cliffs are high and precipitous, and sometimes weathered into grotesque images, and hollowed out into caverns suitable for use in sensational literature. The villages are paintable. The houses are roofed with the deep red tiles which illuminate many landscapes, and bits of wreckage are utilized with much picturesqueness of resource. The figure-head of the Eliza Jane smiles with wooden amiability over the door of a little tavern, though it is nearly a quarter of a century since that smack went to pieces on the rocks off Flamborough; and in a fisherman's garden, the outer fence of which is at the very edge of a cliff about two hundred feet high, we see what a capital porch can be | made of the stern of a boat raised up on end. The fauna includes many rare creatures. The marten is found in the northwestern fells, which also harbor the buzzard, the raven, and the peregrine falcon; and Flamborough Head claims to be the most densely populated breeding resort of sea-fowl in England. The local ornithologists put an additional feather in their caps forasmuch as the migratory birds include four which are not known to visit any other part of Great Britain.

The people of the county are simple, honest, and robust. Those among the dales of the northeast coast cling to the

belief in witchcraft even yet, and speak the language with a strongly marked dialect, of which we can give no better example than an extract from a local story of Mr. William Stonehouse, of Whitby, who was of great help to us in the preparation of this article. One Christmas-eve Deborah Pruss, the landlady of a way-side inn in Southland, and her pretty daughter Polly, were visited by two neighbors, one of whom, Paul Dowson, asked after a cow belonging to Deborah which had been ailing for many weeks.

"Hoo is t' hummeld coo gettin' on ?" "Whya," replied Deborah, "ah deeant kno what ti mak on her; she's sumtahms betther an' sumtahms warse. She nayther dees nor dows, as t' sayin' is." "She's failed sair leeatly, ah think," said Adam Herbert, the other neighbor.

"Failed, ay," said Deborah; "she's failed all away ti nowt bud skin an' beeans."

"What yoo'll hev had t' farrier fra Whidby tiv her?" queried Adam. "Ay," said Deborah; "he's been here twice."

"An' what diz he say aboot her?" resumed Paul.

"Whya, ah think he dizzent kno what te say," said Deborah.

Neea, ah deean't think he diz. Yoor aboot reeght there, Deborah," continued Paul; "t' farrier's o' neea kahnd o' yuse. Ah've seen that fra t' fust. An' noo ah'll tell yoo what, Deborah: 'f ah was yoo, ah wad just git oor oad neighbor Adam here ti gan te Stowsley, an' see t' wahse man aboot it, for yoo ma tak mah wod for't that coo o' yours is bewitched, as seear as we are sittin' here."

The local dealer in magic and spells had up to recent years a very lucrative business, and among his prescriptions was one to fill a cow's heart full of pins, and roast it before the fire at midnight-a savory operation which brought witches from their hiding-places. The witches usually accomplished their malicious work in the form of some animal. Thus, not many years ago, two old women were said to annoy their neighbors by assuming the form of cats, and against one family in particular they worked their evil art. They scratched the door, clattered against the window, and made the night hideous with their cries. On one occasion the people in the house, irritated beyond endurance, armed themselves with various domestic utensils, and, with the help of a sheep dog, rushed out upon the disturbers of the peace. The cats fled for their lives, but the dog got hold of one of them, and tore nearly all the fur off its back, and the other, in escaping up an apple-tree, received a blow from a garden rake which broke its leg. On the following morning one of the witches was found with a broken leg, and the clothes of the other were so torn that she looked like a bundle of rags when she came out of her house. An

other family had no luck in anything. The horses lamed themselves, and the cows died; the pigs caught all the illnesses to which pig-flesh is heir, and on churning days the butter refused to come unless assisted by the charm of a crooked sixpence. One day during the churning the coin was purposely kept out of the churn, and "t' maister o' t' hoose" took his gun and watched the garden from the loop-hole of an out-building. In the twilight he saw a hare creeping through the hedge, and he shot her. The butter came immediately. During the evening news arrived that the old woman whom they suspected of bewitching them and causing all their ill luck had died suddenly at the precise moment when the shot had been fired; and from that time forward the family prospered. In a neighborhood where such things are done it may readily be believed, as Mr. Stonehouse says, that astrological almanacs are great authorities, that there are persons who will not sow seed when the moon is waning, because, as they aver, seed sown under these circumstances never germinates, and that horseshoes are nailed behind outer doors to bar the entrance of all uncanny folks.

Another feature for which the Yorkshire