he applied for the post of parish clerk of a neighbouring village, where
his application was declined. He afterwards went to work at Oxford, and
while he was there made the acquaintance of a gentleman who recognised
his great talents, and obtained admission for him to one of the
colleges. He rose from one position to another until he became Bishop
of Worcester, and in after life often remarked that if he had been
appointed parish clerk he would never have become a bishop.

We recovered our luggage and walked quickly to Plymouth, where we
arrived in good time, after an easy day's walk. We had decided to stop
there for the night and, after securing suitable apartments, went out
into the town. The sight of so many people moving backwards and forwards
had quite a bewildering effect upon us after walking through moors and
rather sleepy towns for such a long period; but after being amongst the
crowds for a time, we soon became accustomed to our altered
surroundings. As a matter of course, our first visit was to the Plymouth
Hoe, and our first thoughts were of the great Spanish Armada.

[Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. _From the picture in the possession of
Sir T.F. Elliot Drake._]

The position of England as the leading Protestant country, with the fact
of the refusal of Queen Elizabeth when the King of Spain proposed
marriage, made war between the two countries almost certain. Drake had
also provoked hostilities, for he had sailed to the West Indies in 1587,
and after defeating the Spaniards there had entered the Bay of Cadiz
with thirty ships and destroyed 10,000 tons of shipping--an achievement
which he described as "singeing the whiskers of the King of Spain." In
consequence of this Philip, King of Spain, declared war on Elizabeth,
Queen of England, and raised a great army of ships to overwhelm the
English.

It was on Friday, July 19, 1588, that Captain Thomas Fleming, in charge
of the pinnace _Golden Hind_, ran into Plymouth Sound with the news that
the Spanish Armada was off the Lizard. The English captains were playing
bowls on Plymouth Hoe when Captain Fleming arrived in hot haste to
inform them that when his ship was off the French coast they had seen
the Spanish fleet approaching in the distance, and had put on all sail
to bring the news. This was the more startling because the English still
believed it to be refitting in its own ports and unlikely to come out
that year. Great excitement prevailed among the captains; but Drake, who
knew all that could be known of the Spanish ships, and their way of
fighting, had no fear of the enemy, and looked upon them with contempt,
coolly remarking that they had plenty of time to finish the game and
thrash the Spaniards afterwards. The beacon fires were lighted during
the night, and--

  Swift to east and swift to west
    The ghastly war-flame spread;
  High on St. Michael's Mount it shone,
    It shone on Beachy Head.
  Far on the deep the Spaniards saw
    Along each southern shire
  Cape beyond cape, in endless range
    Those twinkling points of fire.

The Armada consisted of 131 large ships accompanied by galleys armed
with heavy guns, and many smaller vessels, carrying 27,345 men, of whom
8,050 were seamen and 19,295 soldiers. The twelve largest ships were
named after the twelve Apostles, and a hundred priests were distributed
through the fleet, for King Philip was a very pious man, and the Armada
had been blessed by the Pope. They were under the command of the Duke of
Medina Sidonia, and the Spaniards, who were proverbially cruel, were so
sure of victory that they had brought with them many strange instruments
of torture, some of which we had seen in the Tower of London on our
visit there the previous year.

The Lord High Admiral of England was Lord Charles Howard, a grandson of
the Duke of Norfolk and a cousin to Queen Elizabeth, besides being a
leader of the Court circle. He had, however, been trained as a sailor,
and the advice and assistance of such brave and experienced sailors as
Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher were sufficient to carry him through any
crisis.

Drake had inspired his people so that none had any dread of the
Spaniards or of their big ships, which were constructed for fighting at
close quarters only; while Drake pinned his faith on light ships, easily
managed and capable of quick manoeuvring, but armed with big cannon, so
that he could pound away at a safe distance. Compared with the small
English ships, the big ships of the Spaniards, with their huge
superstructures, looked like castles floating on the sea, and the ocean
seemed to groan beneath its heavy burden. But how astonished the English
must have been, both at the vast number and size of the ships composing
the Armada, proudly floating up the Channel in a formation resembling an
arc or segment of a circle extending nearly seven miles.

When the battle commenced, Lord Howard had only got together a fleet of
about a hundred ships, but it soon became evident that the light and
well-handled ships of the English, with their more rapid sailing and
clever manoeuvring, were more than a match for the much larger ships of
the Spaniards. Sir Francis Drake followed the Armada closely during the
night, and came up with a large galleon commanded by Don Pedro de Valdez
that had been damaged in the fight, and this he captured with all on
board. The weather now began to grow stormy, and the strong gale which
sprang up during the night caused some of the Spanish ships to foul each
other, and the English captured several of them the next day. The wind
now began to blow in all directions, and some of the Spanish ships
becoming unmanageable, their formation was broken, so that there was no
fixed order of battle. Meantime the shots from the English, whose boats
were lower in the water, had played havoc with the lofty hulls of the
Spanish ships, whose shot often passed over the English and damaged
their own vessels.

The following day Howard was unable, for want of ammunition, to carry on
the fight, so he took the opportunity to divide his fleet into four
parts: the first he commanded himself, in the _Ark Royal_; the second he
placed under Sir Francis Drake in the _Revenge_; the third under Sir
John Hawkins in the _Victory_; and the fourth under Captain Frobisher in
the _Triumph_.

[Illustration: SIR JOHN HAWKINS _Portrait from the "Horologia" published
in 1620_]

When they came opposite the Isle of Wight the storm ceased and there was
a calm; but Sir John Hawkins contrived to get his ship the _Victory_
alongside a large Portuguese galleon, the _Santa Aña_, and a single
combat ensued. Both fleets watched the progress of the fight, the
Spaniards being quite certain of their comrades' victory, while the
English placed their confidence in the bravery of their champion. It was
a stiff fight, in which many were killed and wounded, but at last the
English were seen swarming like ants up the sides of their opponents'
great ship, and in a few moments her brave captain was seen handing his
sword to Sir John Hawkins. The flag of Spain on the mast of the _Santa
Aña_ descended, and the white flag and red cross of St. George soon
floated in its place. Then arose a mighty cheer, and the triumphant
hurrahs of the English proclaimed the victory to the anxious watchers on
shore. But three huge Spanish galleons were rowed to the scene to
recover the Portuguese ship, and Howard towed the _Ark Royal_ and the
_Golden Lion_ to fight them. It was a desperately unequal fight, and the
boats were for a time hidden from view by the smoke, but in the end the
cheers of the English announced that the galleons had been driven off
and the _Santa Aña_ lost to Spain.

The Armada continued its progress towards the Straits of Dover, with the
English hanging on, and anchored off Calais; but by this time the
English fleet had been reinforced by many ships raised by private
gentlemen and others, which brought the number to about 140. Howard now
decided to draw the Spanish fleet from its anchorage, and Drake, turning
eight of his oldest ships into fire-ships, distributed them in the night
amongst the enemy, ordering the crews to set them on fire and then
return in their small boats. The ships were piled up with inflammable
material, with their guns loaded, and when these exploded, the Spaniards
were so terrified that they unfurled their sails, cut their cables, and
so lost their anchors. They fled in confusion, many being seriously
damaged in collision, but only to encounter the English ships _Revenge,
Victory, Mary Rose_, and _Dreadnought_, which immediately attacked. Some
of the Spanish vessels were captured and some were lost on the shores of
France and Holland; but the main body, much battered and with their
crews badly out of spirits, sailed on into the North Sea. Howard was
close up to them east of the Firth of Forth, but shortage of water and
provisions, as well as of munitions, kept him from attacking, and with
bad weather threatening he made for the Channel ports, and on August
7th, 1588, the Lord High Admiral returned to England with his victorious
fleet.

The remaining ships of the Armada encountered furious storms off the
coast of Ireland, where ten were sunk; and it was not until the end of
September that the battered remnants of the once great fleet reached the
coast of Spain.

Queen Elizabeth went in state to St. Paul's Cathedral to offer up thanks
to the Almighty for the safety of her Kingdom and herself, and caused a
medal to be struck bearing on it a fleet scattered by a tempest and the
words:

   He blew with His winds and they were scattered.

Plymouth Hoe is an elevation between that town and the sea, and its
history dates back to legendary ages, when Brutus and Corineus came to
Albion with their Trojan warriors, and found the land inhabited by great
giants, who terrified their men with their enormous size and horrid
noises. Still they were enabled to drive them away by hurling darts and
spears into their bodies. The leader of the giant race of Albion was
Gogmagog, who was the biggest of them all, but they wounded him badly in
the leg, as the story goes, and dragged him to Plymouth Hoe, where they
treated him kindly and healed his wounds. But the question arose who
should be king, and it was decided to settle the matter by a wrestling
match, the winner to be king. The giants selected Gogmagog as their
champion and the Trojans chose Corineus, brute strength and size on the
one hand being matched by trained skill on the other. On the day fixed
for the combat the giants lined one side of the Hoe and the Trojans the
other. At length Corineus succeeded in forcing Gogmagog to the ground.
He fell on his back, the earth shaking with his weight and the air
echoing with the noise of his mighty groan as the breath was forced
from his body. Then, after breathing a minute, Corineus rushed upon his
fallen foe, dragged him with a great effort to the edge of the cliff,
and pushed him over. The giant fell on the rocks below, and his body was
broken in pieces.

Michael Drayton, whose birthplace we had passed in the Midlands, wrote
in his _Polyolbion_ that there was a deadly combat between two giants
"upon that lofty place the Hoe," which took place after the arrival of
the Trojans under Brutus of Troy, and that the figures of the two
wrestlers, one bigger than the other, with clubs in their hands, were
cut out in the turf on Plymouth Hoe, being renewed as time went on. They
vanished when the citadel was built by King Charles II, though in the
digging of the foundations the great jaws and teeth of Gogmagog were
found.

It was supposed that the last of the giants were named Gog and Magog,
and were brought to London and chained in the palace of Bruté, which
stood on the site of the Guildhall there; their effigies were standing
in the Guildhall in the reign of Henry V, but were destroyed in the
Great Fire of London. The present Gog and Magog in the Guildhall, 14
feet high, were carved by Richard Saunders in 1708, and are known as the
"City Giants."

[Illustration: CITADEL GATE, PLYMOUTH.]

We had often heard and read about Brutus, one of those mysterious men
whose history we could not fathom, for as far north as York we read in a
book there that "Brutus settled in this country when the Prophet Eli
governed Israel and the Ark was taken from the Philistines, about 1140
B.C., or a century and a half later than when David was singing Psalms
in Jerusalem"; then the writer went on to say that a direct descendant
of Brutus, King Ebrancus, anxious to find occupation for his twenty sons
and thirty daughters, built two cities, one of which was York; so
possibly the other city might have been London.

Plymouth Hoe in the time of Drake was a piece of hilly common land with
a gallows standing at one corner, and nearer the sea a water tower and a
beacon to signal the approach of enemies. But it was also a place of
recreation, and used for drilling soldiers and sailors. There were
archery butts, and there must also have been a bowling green, on which
the captains of the fleet were playing bowls when the news reached them
of the approach of the Spanish Armada. Amongst the English captains were
one from Cheshire, George de Beeston, of Beeston, and a near relative of
his, Roger Townshend. Both had charge of leading ships, and were
knighted on board the _Ark_ by Lord Howard for their services.

When we visited Plymouth Hoe we found it laid out with broad walks and
large plots of grass, where sailors and soldiers were much in evidence.
In later years the greater portion of the old Eddystone Lighthouse was
re-erected there, from the cage on the top of which was a very fine view
over Plymouth Sound, one of the most beautiful in England. Besides the
town and the famous Hoe there could be seen, seawards, Drake's or St.
Nicholas' Island, the famous Breakwater, and the still more famous
Eddystone Lighthouse, while on the Cornish side were the beautiful woods
of Mount Edgcumbe reaching down to the water's edge. Then there was the
estuary of the River Tamar, called the Hamoaze, with the huge railway
bridge crossing it to Saltash, the frame of the general picture being
formed by the hills which surrounded Plymouth, including those of
Dartmoor in the background.

  O the fair Town of Plymouth is by the sea-side,
  The Sound is so blue and so still and so wide,
  Encircled with hills, and with forests all green,
  As a crown of fresh leaves on the head of a queen.
  O dear Plymouth town, and O blue Plymouth Sound!
  O where is your equal on earth to be found?

Eddystone Lighthouse, the top of which could just be seen from the Hoe,
stood on a group of rocks nine miles from the Cornish Coast and fourteen
miles from Plymouth. These rocks were covered at high water by the sea,
and were so dangerous to ships moving in and out of Plymouth or along
the coast, that a lighthouse of wood was built on them in the year 1700,
which was washed away by a great storm three years afterwards, when the
lighthouse people perished as well as the unfortunate architect,
Winstanley, who happened to be there on a visit at the time. In 1709 a
second and a stronger wooden lighthouse was built by Rudyard, but the
progress of the work was delayed owing to the workmen being carried on
to France by a French ship and lodged in a prison there. King Louis XIV,
when he heard of this, chivalrously ordered the Englishmen to be
liberated and their captors to be put in the prison in their places,
remarking that "though he was at war with England, he was not at war
with mankind." So the lighthouse was completed, and remained until 1755,
when it was destroyed by fire. It was the work of years to construct and
build a lighthouse on a rock in the midst of the stormy seas, but a
third was built by Smeaton in 1759, this time made of granite and
Portland stone, and modelled after the shape of the trunk of an old oak
tree. The stones had been prepared on land, and were sent to the rock as
required for the various positions, and so the lighthouse was raised in
about four months.

This one was strongly built, and braved the storms for more than a
hundred years, and was still in position when we visited Plymouth; but
a portion of the rock on which it was built was causing some anxiety, as
it showed signs of giving way. A fourth lighthouse was therefore
prepared during the years 1879-82, being built wholly of granite, the
old lighthouse doing duty meanwhile. This was designed and carried out
by Sir James Douglas, at a cost of about £80,000. It was a substantial
structure, and built on a different foundation 133 feet high, being 50
feet taller than its predecessor, and containing a number of rooms. It
had two 2-ton bells at the top to sound in foggy weather, and the
flash-lights could be seen from a distance of many miles.

The greater portion of the old lighthouse built by Smeaton was carefully
taken down and removed to Plymouth, where it was re-erected on the Hoe
as a lasting memorial to the man whose wonderful genius had conferred
such a benefit on the sailors of all nations--for it was impossible to
calculate how many lives had been saved during the 120 years his
lighthouse had been protecting the ships of all nations from the
dangerous reef on which it stood. The old lighthouse now forms a
conspicuous object on the Hoe, and contains some interesting relics, and
in the lantern are the candlesticks in which the lights were placed that
guided the mariners across the stormy ocean in past ages. Over the
lantern are the words "24 August 1759" and "Laus Deo" (Praise to God),
for the goodness of the Almighty was always acknowledged in those days
both in construction of great works and otherwise, and another
inscription also appears which seems very appropriate:

   Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.

Plymouth at first sight had the appearance of a new town, with so many
new buildings to attract the eye of a stranger. Elihu Burritt, however,
when he, like ourselves, was journeying to Land's End, described it as
"the Mother Plymouth sitting by the Sea." The new buildings have
replaced or swamped the older erections; but a market has existed there
since 1253, and members have been returned to Parliament since 1292,
while its list of mayors is continuous from the year 1439. It was to
Plymouth that the Black Prince returned with his fleet after his great
victories in France in the reign of Edward III.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Plymouth was the port from
which expeditions were sent out to explore and form colonies in hitherto
unknown places abroad, and in these some of the most daring sailors the
world has ever known took part.

Sir Martin Frobisher, the first navigator to attempt to find the
north-west passage to India, and from whom comes the name Frobisher's
Strait, to the south of Baffin Land, was knighted, along with Townshend
and Beeston, for his services in the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Sir Francis Drake, the great Admiral of Queen Elizabeth's time, made
many adventurous voyages, partly for discovery and partly for plunder,
and was the first Englishman to sail round the world. He brought news of
the existence of gold in some places where he had been, and when he
returned his well-filled ship stimulated others to emulate the Spaniards
in that direction.

Sir Walter Raleigh, who was described as a scholar, courtier, soldier,
sailor, and statesman, discovered Virginia in 1584. He was in great
favour at Court, but he quarrelled with Queen Elizabeth, who had granted
him a Patent for the discovery and settlement of unknown countries in
the West. When James I ascended the throne he was suspected of being a
conspirator and was sentenced to death, but the sentence was altered to
imprisonment in the Tower of London, where during his twelve years'
confinement he wrote his _History of the World_. In 1615 James set him
at liberty, and put him at the head of an expedition to Guinea to find
gold, but, being unsuccessful, on his return he was beheaded in Old
Palace Yard in 1618--a sad ending to a great career. It was at Virginia
that he discovered tobacco, and possibly the potato, for he introduced
both these plants into England; and "Virginia Leaf" tobacco is still the
finest produced in America. Sir Walter explored the place when it was
named Pamlico Sound, but it was afterwards named "Virginia" by Queen
Elizabeth herself, and to Sir Walter Raleigh's efforts to colonise this
and other places we owe many of our possessions to-day. In the struggle
for independence Virginia took the lead, and the first Representative
Assembly in America was held there, while in the war between the North
and South it was the scene of the last battle and the final surrender.

Captain James Cook, whose book _Voyages round the World_ is now a
classic, made many discoveries for Great Britain, including that of the
Sandwich Islands; and he sailed from Plymouth on two occasions, 1768 and
1772. He made three voyages round the world, but on the third was
murdered by natives at Hawaii. He discovered Botany Bay in New South
Wales in 1770, which was afterwards made a penal colony, whither early
in the year 1787 eleven ships sailed from Plymouth, with 800 criminals,
over 200 officials, and many free settlers.

But the most important departure from the port was in 1620, when the
_Mayflower_ sailed for America with the "Pilgrim Fathers" on board. She
was only a little barque of 180 tons, and was sadly tossed about by the
big waves in the Atlantic. But after enduring many hardships, the
emigrants landed on the barren shores of Massachusetts Bay, and named
the spot where they landed "New Plymouth," that being no doubt what
Elihu Burritt had in his mind when he described Plymouth as "the Mother
Plymouth sitting by the Sea," for so many emigrants had gone from there
to America and other places that there were now quite forty places named
Plymouth in different parts of the world. The place whence the "Fathers"
left the port on their perilous journey was afterwards marked with a
stone. This we went to see, but we were driven off the Hoe by a heavy
shower of rain.

[Illustration: THE "MAYFLOWER STONE," PLYMOUTH HARBOUR.]

Plymouth was also the last port of call in Europe of the ship
_Northumberland_ bound for St. Helena, with Napoleon Bonaparte on board;
and we thought it a strange incident of travel that the list of
distinguished visitors here in 1871 should have included (in addition to
ourselves of course!) the names of the unfortunate Emperor Napoleon III,
and his still more unfortunate son, who had been there about a fortnight
before we arrived. During that year the French agreed to pay the great
indemnity which the Germans demanded, and which it was said laid the
foundation of the prosperity of the German Empire.

(_Distance walked twenty-three and a half miles_.)

_Wednesday, November 15th._

We left our hotel at daylight this morning, having made special
arrangements last night for a good breakfast to be served in time for an
early start, for we had a heavy day's walk, before us. We were now in
sight of Cornwall, the last county we should have to cross before
reaching Land's End. We had already traversed thirteen counties in
Scotland and fourteen in England since leaving John O' Groat's. But an
arm of the sea named the Hamoaze separated us from Cornwall, and as our
rules prevented us from crossing it either by boat or train, the
question arose how we were to get across the water, which was one of the
greatest naval anchorages in the world, and near the great dockyards in
which the Government employed some thousands of men. We had come that
way in the hope of seeing some of the big warships near Devonport, and
at length we came to the great railway bridge at Saltash. The thought
occurred to us that we might reach the Cornish coast by walking over the
bridge to the other side. We had walked across a railway bridge on one
occasion in Scotland to enable us to reach Abbotsford, the former
residence of the great Sir Walter Scott, so why not adopt a similar plan
here? We were some time before we could find a place where we could
scale the embankment, but ultimately we got on the railway and walked to
the entrance of the bridge; but when we reached the path at the side of
the bridge it looked such a huge affair, and such a long way across the
water, that we decided not to venture without asking some advice. We
waited until we saw coming along the railway track a workman, to whom we
confided our intention. He strongly advised us not to make the attempt,
since we should run great bodily risk, as well as make ourselves liable
to the heavy fine the railway company had power to inflict. We rather
reluctantly returned to the road we had left, but not before seeing some
of the big ships from the bridge--the finest and last of the iron
tubular bridges built by the famous engineer Brunel, the total length,
including approaches, being 2,200 feet. It had been opened by H.R.H. the
Prince Consort in 1859, and was named after him the "Royal Albert"
Bridge. We had now to leave the main road and find our way across
country, chiefly by means of by-lanes, until we reached Tavistock, where
there was a bridge by which we could cross the River Tavy. We had become
quite accustomed to this kind of experience, and looked upon it as a
matter of course, for repeatedly in Scotland we had been forced to make
a circuit to find the "head of the loch" because we objected to cross
the loch itself by a ferry.

[Illustration: THE "ROYAL ALBERT" BRIDGE, SALTASH]

We had only proceeded a mile or two beyond the great bridge at Saltash,
when we came in sight of the village of St. Budeaux, at the entrance of
which we came upon a large number of fine-looking soldiers, who, we were
informed, were the 42nd Highlanders, commonly known as the Black Watch.
They were crossing a grass-covered space of land, probably the village
green, and moving in the same direction as ourselves, not marching in
any regular order, but walking leisurely in groups. We were surprised to
see the band marching quietly in the rear, and wondered why they were
not marching in front playing their instruments. The soldiers, however,
were carrying firearms, which quite alarmed my brother, who never would
walk near a man who carried a gun--for if there was one thing in the
world that he was afraid of more than of being drowned, it was of being
shot with a gun, the very sight of which always made him feel most
uncomfortable. He had only used a gun once in all his life, when quite a
boy, and was so terrified on that occasion that nothing could ever
induce him to shoot again. He was staying at a farm in the country with
a cousin, who undertook to show him how to shoot a bird that was sitting
on its nest. It was a very cruel thing to do, but he loaded the gun and
placed it in my brother's hand in the correct position, telling him to
look along the barrel of the gun until he could see the bird, and then
pull the trigger. He did so, and immediately he was on the ground, with
the gun on top of him. His cousin had some difficulty in persuading him
that the gun had not gone off at the wrong end and that he was not shot
instead of the bird. It was one of the old-fashioned shot-guns known as
"kickers," and the recoil had sent him flying backwards at the moment of
the noise of the discharge--a combination which so frightened him that
he avoided guns ever afterwards.

[Illustration: THE HAMOAZE, SEPARATING DEVON AND CORNWALL]

We were obliged to walk quickly, for we knew we had a long walk before
us that day and must get past the Highlanders, who fortunately were in
no hurry. We passed one group after another until we reached the narrow
road along which we had been directed to turn. Here we saw the soldiers
going the same way, now walking in twos and threes, and presently the
road developed into one of the deep, narrow lanes so common in
Devonshire. We continued to pass the soldiers, but there was now a
greater distance between the small groups. Presently we were accosted by
a sergeant, one of the most finely proportioned men we had ever seen--a
giant, as we thought, amongst giants, for all the soldiers were very big
men--who said to us, "Now, my lads! if you see any of the enemy, tell
them we are two or three miles away, will you?" We wondered what he
meant, but as he smiled, we considered it a joke, and replied, "All
right!" as we moved on. We had passed all the soldiers except the first
two, who were about fifty yards ahead. They had climbed up the high bank
on the left-hand side of the lane, and were apparently looking over the
country and shading their eyes with their hands so as to get a better
view, when we saw a number of others belonging to the same regiment file
quietly down-the opposite side. Crossing the lane, they ran up the bank
where the two soldiers were still standing, and almost before they
realised what was happening their bonnets had been taken off their heads
and they found themselves prisoners. It was a clever capture, and as it
took place immediately before our eyes, we remained standing there
looking on with astonishment, for we had no idea what was about to
happen.

But immediately the scene changed, and soldiers appeared in front, both
in the lane and high up above the road. But the worst feature was that
they began firing their guns; so here we were in a deep lane from which
there was no escape, and, as we afterwards ascertained, between the two
halves of one of the most famous regiments in the British army, one
ambuscaded by the other! We were taken completely by surprise, as we had
never seen or heard of a sham fight before, and it appeared a terrible
thing to us, as the fiery eyes and fierce countenances of the soldiers
were fearful to see, and we became greatly alarmed, expecting every
minute to be taken prisoners. I consoled my brother by telling him the
guns were only loaded with blank cartridges, but his only remark was,
"But suppose one of them isn't, and we get shot," and he began to walk
onwards more quickly than I had ever seen him walk before. Keeping as
near one side the road as possible, and dodging between the soldiers,
with myself following closely behind his heels, perspiring profusely
with fear and exertion until there was scarcely a dry thread upon us, we
managed at last to escape, and were profoundly thankful when we got
clear of the Black Watch and so ended one of the most exciting
adventures we ever had. It reminded my brother of the Charge of the
Light Brigade, a story he was very familiar with, an Irish friend of his
named Donoghue being one of the trumpeters who sounded it, and of
Tennyson's words:

  Cannon to right of them.
  Cannon to left of them,
  Cannon in front of them,
    Volley'd and thundered.

In our case, he said, we had guns at our back in addition.

We did not know at that time that the 42nd Highlanders were so famous,
but a friend of ours, an officer in the army, has since handed us a
description of that regiment, bringing its history down to a later
period.

   The 42nd Highlanders were originally formed from the independent
   companies raised in the year 1729 to keep the King's peace among the
   Highland Hills; the Black Watch, so called from the dark hue of its
   tartan, was first paraded as a regiment of the British army in 1740.
   They had distinguished themselves in all parts of the world: America,
   India, Flanders, Egypt, Corunna, Waterloo, Sevastopol, Indian Mutiny,
   Ashantee, Egypt, Nile, and South Africa, and lost heavily at
   Ticonderago, Toulouse, Waterloo, and afterwards in the Boer War. They
   were amongst our bravest soldiers, and were famous as being one of
   the four regiments named for distinction by Wellington at Waterloo;
   twice they had been specially called upon, once at the Battle of
   Alexandria, when the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Ralph Abercromby, called
   for a special effort at a critical period in the fight, saying, "My
   brave Highlanders! Remember your forefathers! Remember your country!"
   and victory immediately ensued; and again at the Battle of Corunna,
   when Sir John Moore in the thick of the fight, before being mortally
   wounded, exclaimed, "Highlanders! Remember Egypt!" and the foe was
   scattered in all directions. In Egypt, after storming Tel-el-Kebir
   and taking part in the battles that followed, such was the conduct of
   the Black Watch that Lord Wolseley sent the following telegram:

   "Well done, old comrades of the Black Watch."

Such we may venture to say were the men among whom we found ourselves on
that occasion. In after life we always took a deep interest in the
doings of that famous regiment, and we noticed that when any hard
fighting had to be done, the Black Watch nearly always assisted to do
it--so much so that sometimes we regretted that we had not had the
honour of having been taken prisoner by them on that ever-memorable
occasion!

The next village we came to was Tamerton Foliot, in a lovely situation,
standing at the end of a creek which fills with the tide. At that point
the waters of the Tavy join those of the larger River Tamar, and
eventually assist to form the Hamoaze. Tamerton was a very old
settlement, as Gilbert Foliot, who was Bishop of London from 1163 to
1188, and one of the most prominent opponents of Thomas a Becket,
Archbishop of Canterbury, was a native of that village. There was a
recumbent effigy in the church dating from the year 1346; but beyond
that the great object of interest in the village was an old oak tree
named the Coppleston Oak, because of a very sorrowful incident which
occurred near the church one Sunday morning many centuries ago. It
appeared that a local squire named Coppleston, a man of bad temper and
vile disposition, when at dinner made some gross remarks which were
repeated in the village by his son. He was so enraged when he heard of
it, on the Sunday, that as they were leaving the church he threw his
dagger at the lad, wounding him in the loins so that he fell down and
died. An oak tree was planted near the spot, and was still pointed out
as the Coppleston Oak. The father meanwhile fled to France, and his
friends obtained a conditional pardon for him; but to escape being
hanged he had to forfeit thirteen manors in Cornwall.

[Illustration: TAMERTON CHURCH AND THE FATAL OAK]

We were now fairly off the beaten track, but by devious ways, with
lovely wooded and river scenery to the left and the wild scenery of
Dartmoor to the right, we managed to reach Buckland Abbey. This abbey
was founded in 1278 by the Countess of Baldwin-de Redvers, Earl of
Devon, and we expected to find it in ruins, as usual. But when Henry
VIII dissolved the monasteries, he gave Buckland to Sir Richard
Grenville, who converted it into a magnificent mansion, although some
few of the monastic buildings still remained. He formed the great hall
so as to be under the great central tower of the old abbey, and the
dining-room he formed out of a portion of the nave, while the
drawing-room was at the end of a long gallery upstairs; so that
altogether it formed a unique structure. In 1581, however, it was sold
to Sir Francis Drake, and the mansion contained some relics of his,
amongst which were two drums; there were also a chair and a table made
out of one of his old ships, the _Pelican_, and a fine portrait of Sir
Francis by Jansen, dated 1594. The gardens were very beautiful, as the
trees in this sheltered position grew almost without let or hindrance;
there were some of the finest tulip trees there that we had ever seen.
We were informed that when Sir Francis Drake began to make some
alteration in his new possessions, the stones that were built up in the
daytime were removed during the night or taken down in some mysterious
manner. So one moonlight night he put on a white sheet, and climbed a
tree overlooking the building, with the object of frightening any one
who might come to pull down the stones. When the great clock which
formerly belonged to the old abbey struck the hour of twelve, he saw the
earth open below, and about twenty little black devils came out and
started to pull down the wall. Sir Francis began to move his arms about
and flap them as if they were wings, and then crowed like a cock. The
devils, when they heard the white bird crowing, looked up, and, thinking
the morning must be close at hand, immediately disappeared to the
regions below. We could not learn if or how often these performances
were repeated, but it seemed a very unlikely thing for Sir Francis Drake
to do, and the story sounded as if it belonged to a far remoter period
than that of the Spanish Armada.

[Illustration: DRAKE'S STATUE, TAVISTOCK.]

Drake was idolised in Plymouth and the surrounding country, where his
name was held in everlasting remembrance, and his warlike spirit
pervaded the British navy. At a much later period than that of our visit
even his drum was not forgotten. Whether it was one of those that were
preserved in the old abbey or not we did not know, but it is the subject
of a stirring poem by Sir Henry Newbolt.

                    DRAKE'S DRUM

  Drake he's in his hammock, an' a thousand mile away,
    (Capten, art tha' sleepin' there below?),
  Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,
    An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
  Yarnder lumes the island, yarnder lie the ships,
    Wi' sailor lads a-dancin' heel-an'-toe,
  An' the shore-lights flashin', an' the night-tide dashin',
    He sees et arl so plainly as he saw et long ago.

  Drake he was a Devon man, an' ruled the Devon seas,
    (Capten, art tha' sleepin' there below?),
  Rovin' tho' his death fell, he went wi' heart at ease,
    An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
  Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore,
    Strike et when your powder's runnin' low;
  If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port o' Heaven,
    An' drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago.

  Drake he's in his hammock till the great Armadas come,
    (Capten, art tha' sleepin' there below?),
  Slung atween the round shot, listenin' for the Drum,
    An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
  Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound,
    Call him when ye sail to meet the foe;
  Where the old trade's plyin' an' the old flag flyin'
    They shall find him ware an' wakin', as they found him long ago!

In olden times there existed a much older abbey than Buckland, named
Buckfast Abbey, but it was right on the other side of Dartmoor, and the
abbots and monks formerly crossed from one to the other. In those remote
times there were no proper roads, and the tracks between the two places
were mainly made by the feet of the monks, with crosses placed at
intervals to prevent their losing the way, especially when the hills
were covered with snow. The track still existed, being known as the
"Abbots' Way." The distance between the two abbeys was about sixteen
miles as the crow flies, but as the track had to go partially round some
of the tors, which there rose to an elevation of about 1,500 feet above
sea-level, and were directly in the way, it must have involved a walk of
quite twenty miles from one abbey to the other. Buckfast Abbey is one of
the oldest in Britain, and ultimately became the richest Cistercian
house in the West of England. The last abbot was Gabriel Donne, who
received his appointment for having in 1536 captured Tyndale the
Reformer, who was in the same year put to death by strangling and
burning.

[Illustration: BUCKLAND ABBEY.]

One of the earliest stories of the "lost on the moors" was connected
with that road. Childe, the "Hunter of Plymstock," had been hunting in
one of the wildest districts on Dartmoor, and was returning home at
night, when a heavy snowstorm came on and the night became bitterly
cold. Having completely lost his way, and as his tired horse could go no
farther, he stopped at one of the ancient crosses and dismounted. His
blood, however, began to freeze within him, and to try to save his own
life he killed his horse, and, cutting a great hole in its body, crept
inside. When daylight came in the morning, knowing he was dying, and
that some of the monks would probably find his body when they came to
the cross, he dipped his fingers in his horse's blood and scribbled on
the stone:

  They fyrste that fyndes and brings mee to my grave,
  The Priorie of Plymstocke they shall have.

His body was found by the "monks of Tavystoke," and buried in their
abbey at Tavistock; and from that time to the dissolution of the
monasteries the Abbey of Tavistock had possession of the manor of
Plymstock, Childe having no children to follow him.

We were sorry that we had been unable to explore Dartmoor itself instead
of only its fringes, so we decided to make an effort to see Dartmoor
Prison, which we were given to understand was only a few miles away. We
changed our course a little and passed on to Walkhampton, where we were
advised to follow the by-road above the Walkham river, from which the
village took its name, this being the easiest and most pleasant way. We
had a nice walk along the valley until we reached Merridale, but there
we succumbed to the attractions of the small inn. We felt that we should
never be able to wait for food until we reached Tavistock, as the
mountain air and the exertion of climbing up the hill had been too much
for us, so we ordered refreshments there instead of at Tavistock, as
originally intended. We had loitered a little on our way up the hill,
stopping to look at the views behind us, which were better than those in
front--a necessary procedure, for we were rather inclined at times "to
keep our noses too near the grindstone," or perhaps, like Othello, to be
"led by the nose as asses are," and to toil up the hills with the
wilderness before us, in total forgetfulness of the lovely scenes
behind. We therefore advise all tourists on a walking expedition to look
back occasionally, since much of the pleasure and beauty of the tour may
otherwise be lost.

[Illustration: VIXEN TOR, TAVISTOCK.]

We had a short walk in the direction of Princetown, where the prison was
situated, but we were not at all favourably impressed by the appearance
of the country, without a house in sight except the inn where our
refreshments were being prepared. Presently we met an official in
uniform, who told us the prisoners were not always kept inside the
prison, but were employed in making and repairing roads and fences and
in cultivating land. He pointed out some men a long distance away who
were so employed, and strongly advised us not to go any farther in that
direction. The only objects of interest on the Moor, beyond the tors and
the views from their summits, were the antiquities, which in that part
were particularly numerous, for without leaving the road between the
prison and Merridale there could be seen a cluster of hut circles, a
kistvaen, a menhir, and a double line of stone rows, and within a short
radius many other relics of prehistoric man, as well as one or two
logans or rocking-stones. We therefore returned with him to the inn--for
even an antiquary cannot live on stones; he ought to be well supported
with both food and clothing to enable him fully to explore and
appreciate the ancient relics of Dartmoor. Our refreshments were quite
ready and were soon put out of sight, and, as we had a downward gradient
to the River Tavy, we had made up for our delay when we crossed the
bridge over the river and entered the town of Tavistock.

The earliest history of Tavistock was no doubt associated with the
prehistoric remains on the hills above, if that had been written; but as
early as the tenth century Orgarius, Earl of Devon, in consequence of a
dream, decided to build a magnificent abbey there, and to dedicate it to
St. Mary. He began to build it in 961, but as he died before it was
completed, his son Ordulph completed it in 981 and endowed it with the
manor of Tavistock and others. Ordulph was also a nephew of King
Ethelred, and, according to tradition, was a giant able to stride across
a river ten feet wide. Orgarius had not only left a gigantic son, but he
had also left a daughter of such surpassing beauty that her fame spread
all over England; and Edgar, who by that time was king, hearing of the
wonderful beauty of Elfrida, sent his favourite--Athelwold--to her
father's castle to ascertain if her beauty was such as had been
reported. Athelwold went on his mission, but was so struck and
bewildered with Elfrida's beauty that he fell violently in love with her
himself, and when he returned he told Edgar that Elfrida was not so
beautiful, but was rich and more fit to be the wife of a subject than a
king. Edgar therefore consented to his favourite's marriage with her;
but the king, discovering that he had been deceived, insisted on paying
Athelwold a visit at his home in Devonshire. Athelwold craved permission
to go home and prepare for the king's visit, which was granted, and with
all possible haste he went and, kneeling before his wife, confessed all,
and asked her to help him out of his difficulties by putting on an old
dress and an awkward appearance when the king came, so that his life
might be spared. Elfrida was, however, disappointed at the loss of a
crown, and, instead of obscuring her beauty, she clothed herself so as
to appear as beautiful as possible, and, as she expected, captivated the
royal Edgar. A few days afterwards Athelwold was found murdered in a
wood, and the king married his widow. But the union, beginning with
crime, could not be other than unhappy, and ended disastrously, the king
only surviving his marriage six or seven years and dying at the early
age of thirty-two. He was buried at Glastonbury, an abbey he had greatly
befriended.

At the Dissolution the lands of Tavistock Abbey were given by King
Henry VIII, along with others, to Lord John Russell, whose descendants,
the Dukes of Bedford, still possess them. Considerable traces of the old
abbey remained, but, judging from some old prints, they had been much
altered during the past century. The fine old chapter-house had been
taken down to build a residence named Abbey House, which now formed the
Bedford Hotel; the old refectory had been used as a Unitarian chapel,
and its porch attached to the premises of the hotel; while the vicarage
garden seemed to have absorbed some portion of the venerable ruins.
There were two towers, one of which was named the Betsey Grinbal's
Tower, as a woman of that name was supposed to have been murdered there
by the monks; and between that and the other tower was an archway which
connected the two. Under this archway stood a Sarcophagus which formerly
contained the remains of Ordulph, whose gigantic thigh-bones we
afterwards saw in the church. The ruins were nearly all covered with
ivy, and looked beautiful even in their decay; but seeing the purpose to
which some of them had been applied, we thought that the word "Ichabod"
(the glory hath departed) would aptly apply, and if the old walls could
have spoken, we should not have been surprised to hear a line quoted
from Shakespeare--"to what base uses do we come at last."

[Illustration: THE STILL TOWER, TAVISTOCK ABBEY]

The old abbey had done good service in its time, as it had given
Tavistock the claim of being the second town in England where a printing
press was erected, for in 1524 one had been put up in the abbey, and a
monk named Rychard had printed a translation of Boethius' _De
Consolatione Philosophiæ_, and a Saxon Grammar was also said to have
been printed there. The neighbourhood of Tavistock was not without
legends, which linger long on the confines of Dartmoor, and, like
slander, seemed to have expanded as time went on:

  The flying rumours gathered as they rolled,
  Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told,
  And all who told it added something new,
  And all who heard it made enlargement too!
  On every ear it spread, on every tongue it grew.

Fitzford was the name of one of the river suburbs of Tavistock, and was
once upon a time the residence of the Fitze family. According to some
ancient histories of Devon, one of which had the significant title of
_The Bloudie Book_, Sir John Fitze was noted as a turbulent, dangerous
man, ever ready with his sword on all occasions. Meeting with many of
his neighbours at a noontide dinner at Tavistock, he was vaunting his
free tenure and boasting that he did not hold a foot of land from any
but the "Queene of England," when his neighbour, "Maister Slanning,"
reminded him of a small piece of land he had of his for which he was
liable for rent, but for which no payment had been asked by reason of
"courtesie and friendshippe." Upon hearing these words Fitze flew in a
furious rage and told Slanning with a great oath that he lied,

   and withal gave fuel to his rage and reines of spight in the
   unjustness of his anger--offering to stab him. But Maister Slanning,
   who was known to be a man of no less courage, and more courtesie,
   with a great knife that he had, warded the hazard of such
   threatenings.

The quarrel was stopped by the intervention of friends, and Slanning,
thinking the matter was at an end, shortly afterwards rode home in
company with only one servant.

   Long had they not ridden but commanding the man to walk down his
   horses in the way, himself the while taking the greene fields for his
   more contented walking; he might behold Sir John Fitze, with four
   more, galloping amane after him, which sight could not but be a great
   amazement to Maister Slanning.

The quarrel was renewed, and Slanning, who was, by the way, a brave man,
perceived that Fitze was determined to kill him; but he had no chance
against live swords, and when he got to Fitzford gateway he received a
blow from behind which staggered him, and Fitze, seizing the
opportunity, ran his sword through his body, and poor Slanning fell to
the floor a murdered man.

Fitze fled to France, and his friends obtained some kind of a pardon for
him; but when he returned they all gave him the cold shoulder; he was
avoided by everybody, and to add to his discomfort the children of
Slanning sued him in London for compensation.

Meanwhile the guilt in blood weighed heavily upon him, increasing in
intensity as years went on, and the shade of Slanning never left him day
or night, until finally he could not sleep, for the most horrid dreams
awoke him and his screams in the night were awful to hear. Sometimes he
dreamt he was being pursued by the police, then by black demons and
other hideous monsters, while in the background was always the ghost of
the man he had so cruelly murdered.

Late one night a man on horseback, haggard and weary, rode up to the
door of the "Anchor Inn" at Kingston-on-Thames and demanded lodgings for
the night. The landlord and his family were just retiring to rest, and
the landlady, not liking the wild and haggard appearance of their
midnight visitor, at first declined to receive him, but at length agreed
to find him a room. The family were awakened in the night by the lodger
crying in his sleep, and the landlady was greatly alarmed as the noise
was continued at intervals all through the night. They had to rise early
in the morning, as the landlord had some work to do in his fields, but
his wife would not be left in the house with the stranger who had
groaned so horribly during the night. Their footsteps seem to have
awakened the man, for suddenly they were terrified to see him rush
downstairs with a drawn sword in his hand, throw himself upon a man
standing in the yard, and kill him instantly. It was thought afterwards
that he must have mistaken his victim for a constable; but when he came
to his senses and found he had killed the groom to whom he had given
orders to meet him early in the morning, he turned his sword against
himself and fell--dead! And such was the tragic end of John Fitze.

[Illustration: LYDFORD CASTLE.]

There is a saying, "Like father, like son," which sometimes justifies
itself; but in the case of Fitze it applied not to a son, but to a
daughter, who seems to have followed his bad example and to have
inherited his wild nature, for it was said that she was married four
times--twice before she reached the age of sixteen! She afterwards
married Lord Charles Howard, son of the Duke of Suffolk, and after she
had disposed of him--for the country people believed she murdered all
her husbands--she married Sir Richard Granville, the cruel Governor of
Lydford Castle, but preferred to retain the title of Lady Howard. It was
said that she died diseased both in mind and body, and that afterwards
she had to do penance for her sins. Every night on the stroke of twelve
a phantom coach made of bones, drawn by four skeleton horses and
ornamented with four grinning skulls, supposed to be those of her four
husbands, issued from under Fitzford gateway with the shade of Lady
Howard inside. A coal-black hound ran in front as far as Okehampton, and
on the return journey carried in its mouth a single blade of grass,
which it placed on a stone in the old courtyard of Fitzford; and not
until all the grass of Okehampton had been thus transported would Lady
Howard's penance end! The death-coach glided noiselessly along the
lonely moorland roads, and any person who accepted Lady Howard's
invitation to ride therein was never seen again. One good effect this
nocturnal journey had was that every one took care to leave the inns at
Tavistock in time to reach home before midnight.

  My Lady hath a sable coach,
    With horses two and four;
  My Lady hath a gaunt bloodhound.
    That goeth on before:
  My Lady's coach hath nodding plumes,
    The driver hath no head;
  My Lady is an ashen white
    As one that long is dead.

  I'd rather walk a hundred miles,
    And run by night and day.
  Than have that carriage halt for me
    And hear my Lady say:
  "Now pray step in and make no din,
    Step in with me to ride;
  There's room, I trow, by me, for you
    And all the world beside!"

The church at Tavistock was dedicated to St. Eustachius, for we were now
quite near Cornwall, a land of saints with all kinds of queer names. The
church had the appearance of having passed through the ordeal of some
severe restorations, but we saw many objects of interest therein. There
was a tomb with effigies of Judge Granville, his wife, and three sons
and four daughters, erected in 1615 by his widow after she had married
again--a circumstance that might give rise to some speculations. The
children's heads had all been knocked off, and the boys had disappeared
altogether; probably, we thought, taken prisoners by some of Cromwell's
men to serve as ornaments elsewhere. There was also a monument to the
Fitze family, including a figure of Sir John Fitze, the last of the
line, who was buried at Twickenham; but whether he was the hero of the
legend or not we could not ascertain.

Thomas Larkham, who was vicar from 1649 to 1660, stood out against the
Act of Conformity, and was dismissed. But he kept a diary, and a page of
it had been preserved which referred to the gifts presented to him after
being deprived of his stipend.

   1653, _Nov. 30th._--The wife of Will Hodges brought me a fat goose;
   Lord, do them good! Edward Cole sent by his daughter a turkey; Lord,
   accept it! _Dec. 2nd._--Sara Frowt a dish of butter; accept, Lord!
   _Dec. 6th._--Margaret Sitwell would not be paid for 2-1/2 lbs. of
   butter; is she not a daughter of Abraham? Father, be pleased to pay
   her. Walter Peck sent me, _Dec. 14th_, a partridge, and Mr. Webb the
   same day pork and puddings; Lord, forget not! Mrs. Thomasin
   Doidge--Lord, look on her in much mercy--_Dec. 19th_, gave me 5s.
   _Jan. 25th._--Mrs. Audry sent me a bushel of barley malt for
   housekeeping; Lord, smell a sweet savour! Patrick Harris sent me a
   shoulder of pork,--he is a poor ignorant man. Lord, pity him!

There was a curious thirteenth-century chest, trapezium in form, and
said to be the only one of that shape in the West of England. It was of
carved oak, and called a treasure chest, because it had a secret recess
at the back where the priest kept a jewel with which he fastened his
robes. Another old chest contained some ancient Latin writings, the
earliest of which bore the dates 1285, 1325, and 1370, written in old
lettering with what was known as "monk's ink," made from vegetables.
Some of the documents bore seals with rush rings attached, and there was
a black-letter Bible, and a chained book dated 1588, the year of the
Spanish Armada. We were also shown four pewter flagons for Communion
wine, all of the time of Charles I, two churchwardens having each given
one in 1633 and two other wardens one each in 1638. Asked why so many
were required, we were informed that in those days all the people were
compelled to come to church, and it was nothing unusual for quarts of
wine to be used at one Communion, at a cost of several pounds! But in
those days Holy Communion was only administered four times a year!

[Illustration: BRENT TOR, TAVISTOCK.]

Tavistock was one of the four Stannary towns in Devonshire, where
Stannary Courts were established to deal with all matters relating to
tin and the tinners who produced it. Under a charter of Edward I tin was
ordered to be officially weighed and stamped in the towns so appointed.
But while the tinners had the privilege of digging for tin on any
person's land without payment for rent or damage, they were subject to
heavy penalties and impositions in other ways, and especially in the
case of adulteration of tin with inferior metal. The forest laws also in
those early times were terrible and barbarous. To enforce the authority
of the Stannary Courts a prison was constructed in the thirteenth
century out of the keep or dungeon of Lydford Castle, about nine miles
north of Tavistock; and in the sixteenth century this prison was
described as "one of the most annoyous, contagious, and detestable
places in the realm." When Sir Richard Granville, who was noted for his
extremely cruel disposition, was Governor, prisoners were known to be
compelled to swallow spoonfuls of the molten metal they were supposed to
have adulterated. William Browne, a poet born at Tavistock in 1590, in
one of his pastorals perpetuated the memory of Lydford Castle:

  I oft have heard of Lydford law--
  How in the morn they hang and draw.
    And sit in judgement after.

[Illustration: KIT HILL, CALLINGTON.]

We had now to return towards the coast-line from which we had diverged
after leaving Plymouth, and we decided to walk from Tavistock to
Liskeard and stay there for the night. The country was rather hilly, and
in about three miles we crossed the River Tamar, at the same point
passing from Devon into Cornwall, for the river here divided the two
counties. It had made for itself in the course of ages a deep passage
through the hills, which for the pedestrian involved a deep descent and
a sharp ascent on the other side to and from the river. Our way now
crossed the Hingston Downs, where we came to one of the chief landmarks
of Cornwall, named the Kit Hill, at an elevation of 1,067 feet above
sea-level, standing quite near our road. This hill marked the site of a
desperate battle in 835, between King Edgar of Wessex on the one side
and the Danes combined with the men of Cornwall on the other. The Saxons
lost heavily, but they won the battle, and the neighbouring barrows, or
tumuli, were supposed to have covered the remains of those who fell on
that occasion. We were now amongst the tin mines, of which there were
quite a number, used and disused, in sight, some right on the top of the
hills; and from these highlands we could see the two Channels, the
English on one side and the Irish on the other. It was supposed that the
Irish had originally inhabited the whole of Cornwall, but the old
Cornishmen were in reality Celts of a different tribe. One of the miners
told us that on his return from South Africa he could see Kit Hill
distinctly from a long distance out at sea. Some of the tin miners, it
seemed, were emigrating to South Africa, while others were going to
America. Soon afterwards we reached the fair-sized village or town of
Callington, which under the old franchise returned two Members to
Parliament, one of whom had been Horace Walpole, the son of the famous
Robert Walpole. We looked through the church, where we saw a rather fine
monument to Lord Willoughby de Broke erected in 1503. He was represented
as wearing armour and the insignia of the Garter, and at his feet were
two curious figures of monks, said to be unique, for the figures in that
position were invariably those of lions or other animals. A lady from
the vicarage told us that his lordship was the steward of the Duchy of
Cornwall, and an important person, but there was some doubt about his
being buried there. There was another church in the neighbourhood, and
as both the villages belonged to him, he had a tomb made in each, so
that he could be buried in whichever part of his property he happened to
be in when he died, or, as he explained to his friends, "where you drop,
there you may be buried."

There were more temperance hotels, or houses, in Cornwall than in most
other counties we had passed through, almost invariably clean and good,
and it was to one of these that we adjourned at Callington for tea. We
found it quite up to the mark, and we had a splendid feed there both as
regarded quantity and quality, Devonshire cream being evidently not
confined to its own county. It would have been a grand place in which to
stay the night, but, though the weather was threatening, we must place
our average mileage in a safe position, especially as we were now
nearing the end of our long walk. It was nearly dark when we left
Callington, and, on our inquiring the way to Liskeard, a man we saw at
the end of the village said he could put vis in a nearer way than going
along the high road, which would save us a good half-mile in the
journey. Going with us to the entrance of a narrow lane, he gave us very
careful and voluminous instructions about the way we must follow.
Thanking him, we left him, and proceeded along the lane in search of a
farmhouse, or rather a gate at the end of the road leading towards it,
for he had told us we should not be able to see the house itself in the
dark, but should be sure to see the gate, as it was a large one, painted
white, and after passing this we were to make one or two turns which he
described. The sky was overcast and the night very dark, and although
there was a new moon, it was only three days old--too young to be of any
service to us. But we could not find either the gate or the farm, or any
turns in the road, nor could either of us remember distinctly the latter
part of the instructions given to us by the man, one thinking we had to
turn to the right and the other to the left. The fact was, we had
calculated upon meeting some one on the road from whom, we could inquire
further. We had been walking slowly for some time, stopping occasionally
to listen for the footsteps of some person from whom we could inquire,
but not a sound could we hear until we almost stumbled against a gate
that barred our further progress, for it reached right across our road,
and beyond this we could hear the sound of rushing water.

I knew now that we had come to a full-stop, as my brother would never
go beyond that gate after he had heard the roar of the stream, which
must have been quite near us. He had often rowed a boat on dangerous
rivers and on the sea; had been nearly lost one dark night in a high
spring-tide on the sandbanks of the River Mersey; had been washed out to
sea through the failure of an oar at Barmouth; had narrowly escaped
being swamped with his boat off the East Coast; and a few years before
had a hair-breadth escape from drowning by being drawn under the wooden
framework protecting the piles for a future famous bridge over the River
Thames near the heart of London; but, owing to a narrow escape from
drowning when he was almost a child, he had the greatest horror of
having his head under water and of being drowned, and even now he was
afraid of the sound of rushing water in the dark, for he could not swim
a yard; but he was a brave man nevertheless!

So there we stood on a pitch-dark night, leaning over a gate in an
unknown country, and on a by-road, listening to the rush of the water
beyond, wishing that some one might come that way to direct us; but it
was hopeless. When we struck a match and lit a piece of paper, we
discovered that there was no road beyond the gate, the lane having made
an abrupt turning towards the left upon reaching it. We walked along
carefully, striking a match occasionally, and at length came to a
finger-post, green with age; we could not, however, distinguish the
lettering on the arms at the top, so I knew that my turn had now come,
as when there was any climbing to be done during our journey, I had to
do it. I "swarmed up" the post to the arms at the top, while my brother
lighted a piece of newspaper below; but it was of no use, as the names
were partly obscured. Still I could see that Liskeard was not one of
them, so I dropped down again, nearly knocking my brother over, as the
ground was not level at the foot of the post and the light had gone out.
We had to stop a minute or two, for the glare of the light from the
burning paper had made the darkness more impenetrable than before; but
the narrowness of the road was an advantage to us, as we knew we could
not get far astray. Coming to a good hard road, we arrived at a bridge
where there were a few houses, and soon we were walking quickly again on
the right way to Liskeard; but how we blessed that countryman who with
the best of intentions had directed us the nearer way! In a few miles we
saw a light ahead, and found it came from a small inn by the roadside
where one road crossed another, and here we called to inquire our way,
and were informed we had arrived at St. Eve, which we thought must be
the name of some doubtful Cornish saint; but that impression was removed
when we found it was the local pronunciation for St. Ive. We could just
discern the outline of a small church to the right of our road, and as
there were so few houses we did not confound it with the much larger
place in Cornwall, St. Ives, nor, needless to say, with another place
named St. Ives in Huntingdonshire, which we passed through on our walk
from London the previous year.

It was getting unpleasantly near "closing time" when we reached
Liskeard, but we were just in time to be well entertained and housed for
the night.

(_Distance walked thirty-six miles_.)

_Thursday, November 16th._

Liskeard was visited in 1757 by John Wesley, who described it as "one of
the largest and pleasantest towns in Cornwall," a description with which
we agreed, but we were inclined to add the words, "and of no
occupation," for there was no outward or visible sign of any staple
industry. As in other similar places we had visited, the first question
that suggested itself to us was, "How do the people live?" Their
appearance, however, caused us no anxiety, as every one we saw looked
both well and happy. They had made a clean sweep of their old castle,
which was said to have been built in the thirteenth century by Richard,
Earl of Cornwall, and King of the Romans, the brother of Henry III; the
site they had formed into a public park, in which stood the old grammar
school where Dr. Wolcot was educated, who wrote a number of satirical
odes, letters, and ballads, under the name of "Peter Pindar," in the
time of George III, many of his satires being levelled at the king
himself. Eventually he sold his works for an annuity of £250.

Liskeard was remarkable for the spring of water round which the town had
been built, and which was described by Leland in his _Itinerary_ as "a
good conduit in the middle of the Town very plentiful of water to serve
the Town." Four pipes originally conveyed the water to different points,
and the street where the well existed was known as Pipewell Street.

The wells of Cornwall were famous, being named after the different
saints who had settled beside them in ancient times, appreciating the
value of the pure water they contained. We had often tested the water of
the wells and springs we had come to in the course of our long walk, and
the conviction had grown upon us that we owed much of our continued good
health to drinking water. We naturally perspired a good deal, especially
when we walked quickly, which of course created thirst; and the
different strata of the various rock-formations we had crossed must have
influenced the water and ourselves to some extent. We had come to the
conclusion that people who went on holidays and attributed the benefit
derived solely to "the change of air" might have equally benefited by
the change of water!

In one part of Cheshire, formerly in possession of the Romans, there was
a rather remarkable spring of water known as the "Roman Well," over
which appeared the following Latin inscription, difficult to translate,
but which had been interpreted thus:

  _Sanitate Sacrum_:     Sacred to Health!
  _Obstructum reserat_,  It removes obstruction.
  _Durum terit_,         It crushes the hard,
  _Humida siecat_,       It dries the moist,
  _Debile fortificat_,   It strengthens the weak,
  _Si tamen arte bibis_. Provided thou drinkest with knowledge.

The water rises from some subterranean source in the sandstone rock and
enters with considerable force into the receptacle prepared for it,
which is about five feet deep. The water was always beautifully clear
and cool, and visitors often amused themselves by throwing halfpennies
into the bath and watching them apparently being transformed into
shillings as they reached the bottom--a fact attributed to the presence
of lime in the water.

In striking contrast to this was the water afterwards brought through
the district from a watershed on the distant Welsh hills, which depended
for its supply almost entirely on the downfall from the clouds. The
difference between that and the water from the Roman well was very
marked, for while the rainwater was very soft, the other that contained
the lime was very hard, and therefore considered more conducive to the
growth of the bones in children. Our personal experiences also with the
water at Inverness, and in the neighbourhood of Buxton in the previous
year, which affected us in a similar way, convinced us that water
affected human beings very markedly; and then we had passed by Harrogate
and Leamington, where people were supposed to go purposely to drink the
waters. Even the water of the tin-mining district through which we were
now passing might contain properties that were absent elsewhere, and the
special virtues attributed to some of the Saints' Wells in Cornwall in
olden times might not have been altogether mythical.

Besides the four Stannary towns in Devon there were originally four in
Cornwall, including Liskeard, where all tin mined in their respective
districts had to be weighed and stamped. Probably on that account
Liskeard returned two members to Parliament, the first members being
returned in 1294; amongst the M.P.'s who had represented the town were
two famous men--Sir Edward Coke, elected in 1620, and Edward Gibbon, in
1774.

Sir Edward Coke was a great lawyer and author of the legal classic _Coke
upon Littleton_. He became Speaker of the House of Commons,
Attorney-General, and afterwards Chief Justice, and was the merciless
prosecutor of Sir Walter Raleigh, and also of the persons concerned in
the Gunpowder Plot; while his great speech against Buckingham towards
the close of the career of that ill-fated royal favourite is famous.

Edward Gibbon was the celebrated historian and author of that great work
_The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. The history of his
Parliamentary connection with Liskeard was rather curious. One morning
in 1774, when in London, he was asked if he would like to enter the
House of Commons, and when he consented, the "free and independent
electors" of Liskeard were duly "instructed" to return him. But it was
very doubtful whether he ever saw any of the electors, or had any
dealings with the Constituency whatever, although he acted as one of
their members for about eight years. Possibly, as there were two
members, the other M.P. might have been the "acting partner."

Liskeard church was the second largest in Cornwall, and in it we saw a
"Lepers' squint" and also a turret at the corner of the aisle from which
the priest could preach to the lepers without coming in contact with
them, for the disease was very infectious--so much so that the hospital
built for them was a mile or two from the town. "Lepers' squints" had
been common in some parts of England, and as the disease is often
mentioned in the Bible, we considered it must have been imported from
the East, perhaps from Palestine by the Crusaders. We had not seen or
heard of any cases of leprosy on our journey, and we concluded that the
disease could not have been natural to our colder climate, and had
therefore died out as a result of more cleanly habits. The pulpit was
dated 1632, the carving on it being the work of a local sculptor, whose
remuneration, we were told, was at the rate of one penny per hour, which
appeared to us to be a very small amount for that description of work.
Possibly he considered he was working for the cause of religion, and
hoped for his further reward in a future life; or was it a silver penny?

[Illustration: LISKEARD CHURCH.]

The houses in Liskeard were built of stone, and the finest perhaps was
that known as Stuart House, so named because King Charles I stayed there
for about a week in 1644. This was of course in the time of the Civil
War, when Cornwall, as it practically belonged to the King or his son,
did not consider itself as an ordinary county, but as a duchy, and was
consequently always loyal to the reigning sovereign. It was also a
difficult county for an invading army to approach, and the army of the
Parliament under the Earl of Essex met with a disastrous defeat there.

But we must not forget the Holy Wells, as the villages and towns took
their names from the saints who presided at the wells. That of St.
Keyne, quite near Liskeard, is described by Southey:

  A Well there is in the West Country,
    And a clearer one never was seen;
  There is not a wife in the West Country
    But has heard of the Well of St. Keyne.

  An oak and an elm-tree stand beside,
    And behind doth an ash-tree grow,
  And a willow from the bank above
    Droops to the water below.

St. Keyne introduced the rather remarkable belief that the first of a
newly married couple to drink of the water of her well, whether husband
or wife, should in future rule the home. We supposed that the happy pair
would have a race to the well, and the one who arrived there first
would ever afterwards play the first fiddle, if that instrument was in
use in the time of St. Keyne. But a story was related of how on one
occasion the better-half triumphed. No sooner had the knot been tied
than the husband ran off as fast as he could to drink of the water at
St. Keyne's Well, leaving his wife in the church. When he got back he
found the lady had been before him, for she had brought a bottle of the
water from the well with her to church, and while the man was running to
the well she had been quietly seated drinking the water in the church
porch!

[Illustration: ST. KEYNE'S WELL.]

The story was told by the victim to a stranger, and the incident was
recorded by Southey in his poem "The Well of St. Keyne":

  "You drank of the Well, I warrant, betimes?"
    He to the countryman said:
  But the countryman smiled as the stranger spake,
    And sheepishly shook his head:

  "I hastened as soon as the wedding was done,
    And left my wife in the porch;
  But i' faith! she had been wiser than me,
    For she took a bottle to church."

It was at Liskeard that we first heard of George Borrow, a tramp like
ourselves. Although we should have been pleased to have had a talk with
him, we should scarcely have been able to accompany him on one of his
journeys, for he was 6 feet 3 inches in height against our 5 feet 8
inches, and he would have been able to walk quicker than ourselves. He
was born in 1803 and died in 1881, so that he was still alive when we
were walking through Cornwall, and was for many years a travelling agent
for the British and Foreign Bible Society. In the course of his
wanderings, generally on foot, he made a study of gipsy life, and wrote
some charming books about the Romany tribes, his _Lavengro_ and _Romany
Rye_ being still widely read. He was a native of Norfolk, but his father
was born near Liskeard, to which place he paid a special visit at the
end of 1853. On Christmas Day in that year, which was also a Sunday, he
walked to St. Cleer and attended service in the church, Mr. Berkeley
being the preacher, and although there was no organ, he saw a fiddle in
the gallery, so fiddles must have then been in use in Cornwall. He would
also see the Well of St. Cleer, which was quite near the church, and
must in the time of the Saxons have been covered over with stone, as the
old arches and columns were Saxon work. Borrow's father was born at
Trethinnick Farm, near St. Cleer, which he also went to see. He left
Liskeard in January 1854 on a tramp through Truro and Penzance to Land's
End by almost the same route as that we were about to follow ourselves.
As he made many notes during his wanderings in Cornwall, his friends
naturally expected him to publish an account of his travels there, after
the manner of a book he had published in 1862 entitled _Wild Wales_, but
they were disappointed, for none appeared.

[Illustration: ST. CLEER'S WELL.]

It was said that Cornwall did not grow wood enough to make a coffin, and
the absence of trees enabled us to see a number of huge,
mysterious-looking stones: some upright and standing alone, others in
circles, or in groups named cists composed of upright stones, forming a
cavity between them in the shape of a chest covered at the top, and not
intended to be opened again, for they had been used as tombs.
Occasionally the stones stood quite near our road, some in the shape of
crosses, while we could see others in fields and on the top of small
hills.

There were some remarkable stones near St. Cleer, including the famous
"Cheesewring," formed of eight circular stones each resembling a cheese,
placed one on top of another and rising to a height of about eight
yards; but the strange part about this curious erection was that the
four larger and heavier stones were at the top and the four smaller ones
at the bottom. It was a mystery how in such remote times the builders
could have got those immense stones to the top of the others and there
balanced them so exactly as to withstand the storms of so many years.

[Illustration: THE CHEESEWRING]

Near this supposed Druidical erection was a rough cave known as "Daniel
Gumb's House," formerly inhabited by a man of that name who came there
to study astrology and astronomy, and who was said to have had his
family with him. He left his record by cutting his name at the entrance
to the cave, "D. Gumb 1735," and by inscribing a figure on the roof
representing the famous 47th proposition in the First Book of Euclid.

The Trethevy Menhir, a cromlech or "House of the Dead," which George
Borrow went to see, consisted of seven great hewn slabs which formed a
chamber inside about the height of a man; over the top was an enormous
flat stone of such great weight as to make one wonder how it could have
been placed there so many centuries ago. At one corner of the great
stone, which was in a slanting position, there was a hole the use of
which puzzled antiquarians; but George Borrow was said to have contrived
to get on the top of it and, putting his hand through the hole, shouted,
"Success to old Cornwall," a sentiment which we were fully prepared to
endorse, for we thought the people we saw at the two extremes of our
journey--say in Shetland, Orkney, and the extreme north of Scotland, and
those in Devon and Cornwall in the South of England--were the most
homely and sociable people with whom we came in contact.

[Illustration: "DANIEL GUMB'S HOUSE," LISKEARD.]

Some of the legends attached to the stones in Cornwall were of a
religious character, one example being the three stone circles named the
"Hurlers"; eleven in one circle, fourteen in another, and twelve in a
third--thirty-seven in all; but only about one-half of them remained
standing. Here indeed might be read a "sermon in stone," and one of them
might have been preached from these circles, as the stones were said to
represent men who were hurling a ball one Sunday instead of attending
church, when they and the two pipers who were playing for them were all
turned into stone for thus desecrating the Sabbath Day.

We crossed the country to visit St. Neot, and as the village was away
from the main roads and situated on the fringe of Bodmin Moor, we were
surprised to find such a fine church there. We were informed that St.
Neot was the second largest parish in Cornwall, and that the moor beyond
had been much more thickly populated in former times. We had passed
through a place of the same name in Huntingdonshire in the previous
year, when walking home from London, and had been puzzled as to how to
pronounce the name; when we appealed to a gentleman we met on the road
outside the town, he told us that the gentry called it St. Netts and the
common people St. Noots, but here it was pronounced as spelt, with just
a slight stress on the first syllable--St. Ne-ot, the letter "s" not
being sounded officially.

St. Neot, supposed to have been related to King Alfred, being either a
brother or an uncle, came here from Glastonbury and built a hermitage
near his well, in which he would stand for hours immersed up to his neck
in the water in order "to mortify his flesh and cultivate his memory,"
while he recited portions of the Psalter, the whole of which he could
repeat from memory. Though a dwarf, he was said to be able to rescue
beasts from the hunters and oxen from the thieves, and to live on two
miraculous fishes, which, though he ate them continually, were always to
be seen sporting in the water of his well!

St. Neot was the original burial-place of the saint, and in the church
there was a curious stone casket or reliquary which formerly contained
his remains; but when they were carried off to enrich Eynesbury Abbey at
the Huntingdon St. Neots, all that was left here was a bone from one of
his arms. This incident established the connection between the two
places so far apart.

[Illustration: TRETHEVY STONES, LISKEARD.]

The church had a beautiful Decorated tower and a finely carved
sixteenth-century roof, but its great glory consisted in its famous
stained-glass windows, which were fifteen in number, and to each of
which had been given a special name, such as the Young Women's Window,
the Wives' Window, and so on, while St. Neot's window in its twelve
panels represented incidents in the life of that saint. It was supposed
that these fine windows were second to none in all England, except those
at Fairford church in Gloucestershire, which we had already seen, and
which were undoubtedly the finest range of mediæval windows in the
country. They were more in number, and had the great advantage of being
perfect, for in the time of the Civil War they had been taken away and
hidden in a place of safety, and not replaced in the church until the
country had resumed its normal condition.

The glass in the lower panels of the windows in the Church of St.
Neot's, Cornwall, had at that time been broken, but had been restored,
the subjects represented being the same as before. Those windows named
after the young women and the wives had been presented to the church in
the sixteenth century by the maids and mothers of the parish.

On our way from here to Lostwithiel, which my brother thought might have
been a suitable name for the place where we went astray last night, we
passed along Braddock or Broad-oak Moor, where in 1643, during the Civil
War, a battle was fought, in which Sir Ralph Hopton defeated the
Parliamentary Army and captured more than a thousand prisoners. Poetry
seemed to be rather at a discount in Cornwall, but we copied the
following lines relating to this preliminary battle:

  When gallant Grenville stoutly stood
  And stopped the gap up with his blood,
  When Hopton led his Cornish band
  Where the sly conqueror durst not stand.
  We knew the Queen was nigh at hand.

We must confess we did not understand this; it could not have been
Spenser's "Faerie Queene," so we walked on to the Fairy Cross without
seeing either the Queen or the Fairy, although we were fortunate to find
what might be described as a Fairy Glen and to reach the old Castle of
Restormel, which had thus been heralded:

   To the Loiterer, the Tourist, or the Antiquary: the ivy-covered ruins
   of Restormel Castle will amply repay a visit, inasmuch as the remains
   of its former grandeur must, by the very nature of things, induce
   feelings of the highest and most dignified kind; they must force
   contemplative thought, and compel respect for the works of our
   forefathers and reverence for the work of the Creator's hand through
   centuries of time.

[Illustration: RESTORMEL CASTLE.]

It was therefore with some such thoughts as these that we walked along
the lonely road leading up to the old castle, and rambled amongst the
venerable ruins. The last of the summer visitors had long since
departed, and the only sound we could hear was that made by the wind, as
it whistled and moaned among the ivy-covered ruins, and in the trees
which partly surrounded them, reminding us that the harvest was past and
the summer was ended, while indications of approaching winter were not
wanting.

The castle was circular in form, and we walked round the outside of it
on the border of the moat which had formerly been filled with water, but
now was quite dry and covered with luxuriant grass. It was 60 feet wide
and 30 feet deep, being formerly crossed by a drawbridge, not now
required. The ruins have thus been described by a modern poet:

  And now I reach the moat's broad marge,
  And at each pace more fair and large
  The antique pile grows on my sight,
  Though sullen Time's resistless might,
  Stronger than storms or bolts of heaven,
  Through wall and buttress rents have riven;
  And wider gaps had there been seen
  But for the ivy's buckler green,
  With stems like stalwart arms sustained;
  Here else had little now remained
  But heaps of stones, or mounds o'ergrown
  With nettles, or with hemlock sown.
  Under the mouldering gate I pass,
  And, as upon the thick rank grass
  With muffled sound my footsteps falls,
  Waking no echo from the walls,
  I feel as one who chanced to tread
  The solemn precincts of the dead.

The mound on which the castle stood was originally of Celtic
construction, but was afterwards converted into one of the fortresses
which the Normans built in the eastern part of Cornwall as
rallying-points in case of any sudden insurrection among the "West
Welshmen." The occupation of the fortress by the Normans was the
immediate cause of the foundation of the town of Lostwithiel, to which a
charter was granted in 1196 by Robert de Cardinan, the then owner of the
castle and the surrounding country.

An exchequer deed showed how the castle and town of Lostwithiel came
into the possession of the Dukes of Cornwall:

   Know ye present and to come that I, Isolda-de-Tracey, daughter and
   heir of Andrew de Cardinan, have granted to Lord Richard, King of the
   Romans, my whole Manor of Tewington.... Moreover I have given and
   granted to the aforesaid Lord the King, Castle of Restormell and the
   villeinage in demesne, wood and meadows, and the whole Town of
   Lostwithiel, and water of Fowey, with the fishery, with all
   liberties, and free customs to the said water, town, and castle,
   belonging. Whereof the water of Fowey shall answer for two and a half
   knights fees (a "knight's fee" being equal to 600 acres of land).

In the year 1225 Henry III gave the whole county of Cornwall, in fee, to
his brother Richard, who was created Earl of Cornwall by charter dated
August 12th, 1231, and from that time Restormel became the property of
the Earls of Cornwall. Afterwards, in 1338, when the Earldom was raised
to a Dukedom, the charter of creation settled on the Duchy, with other
manors, the castle and manor of Restormel, with the park and other
appurtenances in the county of Cornwall, together with the town of
Lostwithiel: and it was on record that the park then contained 300 deer.
Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans, caused extensive
alterations and improvements in the castle at Restormel, and often made
it his residence, and kept his Court there. He was elected King of the
Romans or Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire at Frankfort on January 13th,
1256, and crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle, November 27th, 1257. Edward the
Black Prince, upon whom the Dukedom was confirmed when only seven years
old, paid two visits to Restormel. The first of these was in 1354,
possibly while his expedition to France was being prepared at Plymouth,
and the second in 1363.

In the time of the Civil War the commanding position of the castle
caused it to be repaired and held by the Parliamentarians; but after the
disastrous defeat of their army under the Earl of Essex in 1644 it was
garrisoned by Sir Richard Grenville for the King. In recent times it
was again visited by royalty, for on Tuesday, September 8th, 1846, the
royal yacht _Victoria and Albert_ sailed into Fowey and landed a royal
party, who drove to Restormel Castle. It revived old memories to read
the names of the party who came here on that occasion, for in addition
to Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, there were the
Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales, Lady Jocelyn, Miss Kerr, Mdlle.
Geuner, Lord Spencer, Lord Palmerston, Sir James Clark, Mr. Anson, and
Col. Grey.

The castle was not a very large one, and we were more impressed by the
loneliness of its situation than by the ruin itself, for there was a
long approach to it without a cottage or a friendly native in sight, nor
did we see any one in the lonely road of quite a mile along which we
passed afterwards to the town of Lostwithiel. But this road was quite
pleasant, following the tree-covered course of the River Fowey, and
lined with ferns and the usual flower-bearing plants all the way to that
town.

[Illustration: LOSTWITHIEL ANCIENT BRIDGE AND LANDING PLACE.]

Here we rejoined the Liskcard highway, which crossed the river by an
ancient bridge said to date from the fourteenth century. At this point
the river had long ago been artificially widened so as to form a basin
and landing-place for the small boats which then passed to and fro
between Fowey and Lostwithiel.

The derivation of the last place-name was somewhat doubtful, but the
general interpretation seemed to be that its original form was
Lis-guythiel, meaning the "Palace in the Wood," which might be correct,
since great trees still shut in the range of old buildings representing
the remains of the old Palace or Duchy House. The buildings, which were
by no means lofty, were devoted to purposes of an unimportant character,
but they had a decidedly dungeon-like appearance, and my brother, who
claimed to be an authority on Shakespeare because he had once committed
to memory two passages from the great bard's writings, assured me that
if these old walls were gifted with speech, like the ghost that
appeared to Hamlet, they "could a tale unfold, whose lightest word would
harrow up our souls; freeze our young blood; make our eyes, like stars,
start from their spheres; our knotted and combined locks to part, and
each particular hair to stand on end like quills upon the fretful
porcupine"; but fortunately "this eternal blazon must not be to ears of
flesh and blood," and so we hurried away up the town.

Lostwithiel, one of the Stannary towns, was at one time the only coinage
town in Cornwall, and traces of the old Mint and Stannary Court could
yet be seen. The town had formerly the honour of being represented in
Parliament by the famous writer, statesman, and poet, Joseph Addison.

[Illustration: LOSTWITHIEL CHURCH, SOUTH PORCH AND CROSS]

The church was dedicated to St. Bartholomew, and was described as "a
perfect example of the Decorated period" and the "glory of Cornwall." It
possessed a lantern spire "of a kind unexampled elsewhere in the West of
England"; but as our standard was high, since we had seen so many
churches, we failed to appreciate these features, and, generally
speaking, there were no very fine churches in Cornwall compared with
those in other counties. This church, however, had passed through some
lively scenes in the Civil War, when the Royalist army was driving that
of the Parliament towards the sea-coast, where it was afterwards
cornered and captured. A Provost named Marshall commanded the detachment
of the Parliamentary forces at Lostwithiel, and to show their contempt
for the religion of the Church of England, they desecrated the church by
leading one of their horses to the font and christening him Charles "in
contempt of his most sacred Majesty the King." Meanwhile two Cavaliers,
supporters of the King, and gentlemen of some repute in the county, had
hidden themselves in the church tower and drawn the ladder up after
them. When they saw the Provost preparing to depart, for he was now in a
hurry to get away from the approaching Royalist soldiers, they jeered at
him through a window in the tower. He called to them, "I'll fetch you
down," and sent men with some "mulch and hay" to set fire to the tower
into which the Cavaliers had climbed, but they only jeered at him the
more, which caused him to try gunpowder, intending, as he could not
smoke them out, to blow them out; but he only succeeded in blowing a few
tiles off the roof of the church. The font was a fine one, octagonal in
form, and carved on all the eight panels, though some of the figures had
been mutilated; but it was still possible to discern a horrible-looking
face covered with a wreath of snakes, a mitred head of a bishop, a
figure of a knight with a hawk, horn, and hound, and other animals
scarcely suitable, we thought, for a font.

The army of the Parliament was gradually driven to Fowey, where 6,000 of
them were taken prisoner, while their commander, the Earl of Essex,
escaped by sea. Fowey was only about six miles away from Lostwithiel,
and situated at the mouth of the River Fowey. It was at one time the
greatest port on the coast of Cornwall, and the abode of some of the
fiercest fighting men in the British Isles. From that port vessels
sailed to the Crusades, and when Edward III wanted ships and men for the
siege of Calais, Fowey responded nobly to the call, furnishing 47 ships
manned by 770 men. The men of Fowey were the great terror of the French
coast, but in 1447 the French landed in the night and burnt the town.
After this two forts were built, one on each side of the entrance to the
river, after the manner of those at Dartmouth, a stout iron chain being
dropped between them at nightfall. Fowey men were in great favour with
Edward IV because of their continued activity against the French; but
when he sent them a message, "I am at peace with my brother of France,"
the Fowey men replied that they were at war with him! As this was likely
to create friction between the two countries, and as none of his men
dared go to Fowey owing to the warlike character of its inhabitants, the
King decided to resort to strategy, but of a rather mean character. He
despatched men to Lostwithiel, who sent a deputation to Fowey to say
they wished to consult the Fowey men about some new design upon France.
The latter, not suspecting any treachery, came over, and were
immediately seized and their leader hanged; while men were sent by sea
from Dartmouth to remove their harbour chain and take away their ships.
Possibly the ships might afterwards have been restored to them upon
certain conditions, but it was quite an effectual way of preventing
their depredations on the coast of France.

They seem to have been a turbulent race of people at Fowey, for they
once actually became dissatisfied with their patron saint, the Irish St.
Finbar, and when they rebuilt their church in 1336 they dismissed him
and adopted St. Nicholas to guide their future destinies. Perhaps it
was because St. Nicholas was the patron saint of all sailors, as he
allayed a great storm when on a voyage to the Holy Land. What is now
named Drake's Island, off Plymouth, was formerly named St. Nicholas. It
would not be difficult to find many other churches dedicated to St.
Nicholas on the sea-coast from there to the north, and we remembered he
was the patron saint at Aberdeen.

St. Nicholas is also the patron saint of the Russians, some of the Czars
of that mighty Empire having been named after him. While St. Catherine
is the patron saint of the girls, St. Nicholas is the patron saint of
the boys, and strange to relate is also the patron saint of parish
clerks, who were formerly called "scholars."

When pictured in Christian art this saint is dressed in the robe of a
bishop, with three purses, or three golden balls, or three children. The
three purses represent those given by him to three sisters to enable
them to marry; but we did not know the meaning of the three golden
balls, unless it was that they represented the money the purses
contained. My brother suggested they might have some connection with the
three golden balls hanging outside the pawnbrokers' shops. Afterwards we
found St. Nicholas was the patron saint of that body. But the three
children were all boys, who once lived in the East, and being sent to a
school at Athens, were told to call on St. Nicholas on their way for his
benediction. They stopped for the night at a place called Myra, where
the innkeeper murdered them for their money and baggage, and placed
their mangled bodies in a pickling-tub, intending to sell them as pork.
St. Nicholas, however, saw the tragedy in a vision, and went to the inn,
where the man confessed the crime, whilst St. Nicholas, by a miracle,
raised the murdered boys to life again!

Sometimes he had been nicknamed "Nick," or "Old Nick," and then he
became a demon, or the Devil, or the "Evil spirit of the North." In
Scandinavia he was always associated with water either in sea or lake,
river or waterfall, his picture being changed to that of a
horrid-looking creature, half-child and half-horse, the horse's feet
being shown the wrong way about. Sometimes, again, he was shown as an
old black man like an imp, sitting on a rock and wringing the dripping
water from his long black hair!

On our way towards St. Austell we passed some very interesting places to
the right and left of our road, and had some fine views of the sea.
Presently we arrived at a considerable village inhabited by miners, the
name of which we did not know until my brother, who was walking with a
miner in the rear, suddenly called to me, and pointing to a name on a
board, said: "See where we've got to!" When my brother called out the
name of the place, I heard a man shout from across the road in a
triumphant tone of voice, "Yes, you're in it now, sir!" and sure enough
we had arrived at St. Blazey, a rather queer name, we thought, for a
place called after a saint! But, unlike the people of Fowey, the
inhabitants seemed quite satisfied with their saint, and indeed rather
proud of him than otherwise. Asked where we could get some coffee and
something to eat, the quarryman to whom my brother had been talking
directed us to a temperance house near at hand, where we were well
served. We were rather surprised at the number of people who came in
after us at intervals, but it appeared afterwards that my brother had
incidentally told the man with whom he was walking about our long
journey, and that we had walked about 1,300 miles. The news had
circulated rapidly about the village, and we eventually found ourselves
the centre of a crowd anxious to see us, and ask questions. They seemed
quite a homely, steady class of men, and gave us a Cornish welcome and a
Cornish cheer as we left the village.

[Illustration: SARCOPHAGUS OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON IN THE CRYPT OF ST.
PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.]

Just before reaching St. Blazey, however, we walked a short distance up
a very charming little valley, which has been described as a paradise of
ferns, wooden glades, and granite boulders, and possesses some of the
finest landscapes in the district, with the ground in springtime azure
with wild hyacinths. Some of the finest ferns grew in profusion in this
glen, including the "Osmunda regalis" and the graceful lady fern; but,
fortunately for the ferns, much of the valley passed through private
grounds, and the pretty Carmears waterfall could only be seen on certain
days.

The parish church of Luxulyan, after which village the valley was named,
stood at the head of the glen, and as the people of Cornwall had so many
saints, they had been able to spare two of them for Luxulyan, so that
the church was dedicated conjointly to St. Cyricus and St. Julitta,
while the name of a third was said to be concealed in the modern name of
the village, St. Suhan, a saint who also appeared in Wales and Brittany.
The name of the village well was St. Cyricus, which probably accounted
for the name appearing the first in the dedication of the church. The
church tower at one time contained the Cornish Stannary Records, but in
the time of the Civil War they had been removed for greater safety to
Lostwithiel, where they were unfortunately destroyed. There were many
ancient and disused tin workings in the parish of Luxulyan, but a
particularly fine kind of granite was quarried there, for use in
buildings where durability was necessary--the lighthouse and beacon on
Plymouth Breakwater having both been built with granite obtained from
these quarries. There was also a very hard variety of granite much used
by sculptors called porphyry, a very hard and variegated rock of a mixed
purple-and-white colour. When the Duke of Wellington died, the Continent
was searched for the most durable stone for his sepulchre, sufficiently
grand and durable to cover his remains, but none could be found to excel
that at Luxulyan. A huge boulder of porphyry, nearly all of it above
ground, lying in a field where it had lain from time immemorial, was
selected. It was estimated to weigh over seventy tons, and was wrought
and polished near the spot where it was found. When complete it was
conveyed thence to St. Paul's Cathedral, and now forms the sarcophagus
of the famous Iron Duke. The total cost was about £1,100.

We had now to walk all the way to Land's End through a tin-mining
country, which really extended farther than that, as some of the mines
were under the sea. But the industry was showing signs of decay, for
Cornwall had no coal and very little peat, and the native-grown timber
had been practically exhausted. She had therefore to depend on the coal
from South Wales to smelt the ore, and it was becoming a question
whether it was cheaper to take the ore to the coal or the coal to the
ore, the cost being about equal in either case. Meantime many miners had
left the country, and others were thinking of following them to Africa
and America, while many of the more expensive mines to work had been
closed down. The origin of tin mining in Cornwall was of remote
antiquity, and the earliest method of raising the metal was that
practiced in the time of Diodorus by streaming--a method more like
modern gold-digging, since the ore in the bed of the streams, having
been already washed there for centuries, was much purer than that found
in the lodes. Diodorus Siculus, about the beginning of the Christian
Era, mentioned the inhabitants of Belerium as miners and smelters of
tin, and wrote: "After beating it up into knucklebone shapes, they carry
it to a certain island lying off Britain named Ictis (probably the Isle
of Wight), and thence the merchants buy it from the inhabitants and
carry it over to Gaul, and lastly, travelling by land through Gaul about
thirty days, they bring down the loads on horses to the mouth of the
Rhine."

There was no doubt in our own minds that the mining of tin in Cornwall
was the most ancient industry known in Britain, and had existed there in
the time of prehistoric man. We often found ourselves speculating about
the age, and the ages of man. The age of man was said to be seventy, and
might be divided thus:

  At ten a child, at twenty wild,
    At thirty strong, if ever!
  At forty wise, at fifty rich,
    At sixty good, or never!

There were some curious Celtic lines which described the age of animals
compared with that of man:

  Thrice the age of a dog is that of a horse;
  Thrice the age of a horse is that of a man;
  Thrice the age of a man is that of a deer;
  Thrice the age of a deer is that of an eagle.

The ages of man were divided into three by Lucretius as:

  (1) "The Stone Age," when celts or implements of stone were employed.
  (2) "The Bronze Age," when implements were made of copper and brass.
  (3) "The Iron Age," when implements were made of iron, as in the present
          day.

This being the order of antiquity and materials employed in making the
implements, it was therefore safe to conclude that the mining of tin
must have dated back as far as the Bronze Age, for there could have been
no bronze made without tin, since bronze is produced by the mixing of
copper and tin.

Appliances for crushing and smelting the ore were already in existence
in very early times, as well as blowing-houses and moulds in which to
run the molten metal. The ingots of tin were in the form of an astragal,
and an ancient ingot of large size dredged up in Falmouth Harbour,
weighing 150 lbs., resembled the letter H in form. This was the most
convenient shape for carriage, either in a boat or slung across the back
of a horse, and horses were employed in that way to convey the tin along
the steep and narrow roads from the mines to the sea-coast.

The Romans made use of the Cornish mines, for an ingot of tin bearing a
Roman stamp and inscription was preserved in the Truro Museum, and Roman
coins had been found in the mines.

With St. Austell's Bay to our left, we soon came in sight of the town of
St. Austell, behind which were the Hensbarrow Downs, rising over 1,000
feet above sea-level. From the beacon on the top the whole of Cornwall
can be seen on a clear day, bounded by the Bristol Channel on one side
and the English Channel on the other; on the lower reaches, and quite
near St. Austell, were the great tin mines of Carclaze, some of the
largest and most ancient in Cornwall.

Another great industry was also being carried on, as in the year 1768 W.
Cookworthy, a Plymouth Quaker, had discovered an enormous bed of white
clay, which had since been so extensively excavated that the workings
now resembled the crater of an extinct volcano. This clay, of the finest
quality, was named China clay, because it was exactly similar to that
used in China, where porcelain was made many centuries before it was
made in England, the process of its manufacture being kept a profound
secret by the Chinese, whose country was closed to Europeans.

A story, however, was told of an Englishman who succeeded in entering
China and obtaining employment at one of the potteries, where he
eventually became acquainted with the secrets of the whole business. The
difficulties he experienced in getting out of the country again, and his
adventures and hairbreadth escapes from death, were thrilling to listen
to. The pattern on the famous Willow plates, which he was afterwards
able to produce in England, was commonly supposed to represent some of
his own adventures, and he was thought to be the man pictured as being
pursued across a bridge and escaping in a boat. This, however, was not
correct, as all the views had been copied from the original Chinese
willow pattern, the interpretation of which was as follows:

   To the right is a lordly Mandarin's country-seat, which is two
   storeys high to show the rank and wealth of the possessor. In the
   foreground is a pavilion, and in the background an orange-tree, while
   to the right of the pavilion is a peach-tree in full bearing. The
   estate is enclosed by an elegant wooden fence, and at one end of the
   bridge stands the famous willow-tree and at the other is the
   gardener's cottage, one storey high, and so humble that the grounds
   are uncultivated, the only green thing being a small fir-tree at the
   back.

   At the top of the pattern on the left-hand side is an island with a
   cottage; the grounds are highly cultivated and much of the land has
   been reclaimed from the water. The two birds are turtle-doves, and
   the three figures on the bridge are the Mandarin's daughter with a
   distaff, nearest the cottage, the lover with a box is shown in the
   middle, and nearest the willow-tree is the Mandarin with a whip.

[Illustration: THE LOVE-STORY OF LI-CHI AND CHANG.]

The written history of China goes back for 4,000 years, a period more
than twice that over which English history can be traced; and it is
about 2,600 years since Confucius wrote his wonderful laws. Since that
time his teachings have been followed by countless millions of his
countrymen, and temples have been erected to him all over that great
country, whose population numbers more than 300 millions.

The origin of the legend represented on the willow pattern must
therefore have been of remote antiquity, and the following is the record
of the tradition:

   The Mandarin had an only daughter named Li-chi, who fell in love with
   Chang, a young man who lived in the island home represented at the
   top of the pattern, and who had been her father's secretary. The
   father overheard them one day making vows of love under the
   orange-tree, and sternly forbade the unequal match; but the lovers
   contrived to elope. They lay concealed for a while in the gardener's
   cottage, and thence made their escape in a boat to the island-home
   of the young lover. The enraged Mandarin pursued them with a whip,
   and would have beaten them to death had not the gods rewarded their
   fidelity by changing them into turtle-doves.

   The picture is called the willow pattern not only because it is a
   tale of disastrous love, but because the elopement occurred when the
   willow begins to shed its leaves.

Much of the clay at Carclaze was being sent to the Staffordshire
potteries, to be used in the production of the finest porcelain. It was
loaded in ships and taken round the coast via Liverpool to Runcorn, a
port on the River Mersey and the terminus of the Duke of Bridgewater's
Canal, where it was transhipped into small boats, which conveyed it to
the potteries in Staffordshire, involving a carriage of about fifty
miles, After being manufactured into porcelain, it was packed into
crates and again consigned by canal to many places inland and to
Liverpool for shipment abroad, the carriage being cheaper and safer than
if consigned by rail, owing to the fragile nature of the goods. Some of
the earthenware had of course to be sent by rail, but the breakages in
shunting operations and the subsequent claims on the railway companies
caused the rate of carriage to be very high.

In later years the pottery trade became rather depressed owing to
competition from abroad, and a story was told of a traveller from the
Staffordshire Potteries who called at a wholesale house in London where
he invariably got some orders, but on this occasion was unsuccessful.
When he inquired the reason, he was taken to the warehouse and shown a
small china tea service. "Do you know that?" asked the manager. "Yes!"
quickly replied the traveller; "that comes from so-and-so in the
Potteries, and is their favourite pattern and design!" "And what did I
pay for it?" "Twelve and six," promptly replied the traveller. "Ah,"
said his customer, "you are wrong this time; that set cost us 10s. 6d.,
and came from Germany!" The traveller reported the matter to his firm,
who on inquiry discovered that the Germans had erected a pottery on
their sea-coast and, by taking advantage of sea carriage both ways, were
able to undersell the British manufacturer with pottery for which the
clay had been found in his own country.

Arriving at St. Austell, we had a look round the town, and visited the
church, which was dedicated to St. Austell. But in the previous year it
had undergone a restoration, and there appeared to be some doubt whether
the figure on the tower was that of the patron saint or not. There were
other figures, but the gargoyles were as usual the ugliest of the lot.

There was formerly a curious clock there which was mentioned in an old
deed of the time of Edward VI recording that St. Austell's tower had
"four bells and a clok," but the bells had been increased to eight and a
new clock placed in the tower, though the face of the old one,
representing the twenty-four hours in as many circles, could still be
seen. When the old clock had been made, it was evident there was no
repetition in the afternoon of the morning's numerals, as the hours
after twelve noon were the thirteenth and fourteenth, and so on up to
twenty-four. The church porch was quite a fine erection, with a chamber
built over it, at one time used as a sleeping-room by travelling monks,
and, like the nave, with a battlement along the top, an old inscription
over the porch, "Ry du," having been interpreted as meaning "Give to
God." The carving over the doorway represented a pelican feeding its
young with blood from its own breast, and a sundial bore the very
significant motto:

   Every hour shortens man's life.

Inside the church there was a curiosity in the shape of a wooden tablet,
on which was painted a copy of a letter of thanks from King Charles I to
the county of Cornwall for its assistance during his conflict with the
Roundheads, It was written from his camp at Sudeley Castle on September
10th, 1643, and was one of several similar tablets to be found in
various churches in Cornwall.

[Illustration: REV. JOHN WESLEY. (_The Founder of Methodism in
England._)]

The Wesleyan chapel at St. Austell, with accommodation for a
congregation of 1,000 persons, also attracted our attention, as it had a
frontage like that of a mansion, with columns supporting the front
entrance, and was situated in a very pleasant part of the town. John
Wesley laboured hard in Cornwall, and we were pleased to see evidences
of his great work there as we travelled through the Duchy; and as
Cornishmen must surround the memory of their saints with legends, it did
not surprise us that they had one about Mr. Wesley. He was travelling
late one night over a wild part of Cornwall when a terrific storm came
on, and the only shelter at hand was a mansion that had the reputation
of being haunted. He found his way into the hall and lay down on a bench
listening to the raging elements outside until he fell fast asleep.
About midnight he awoke and was surprised to find the table in the hall
laid out for a banquet, and a gaily dressed company, including a
gentleman with a red feather in his cap, already assembled. This person
offered Wesley a vacant chair and invited him to join them, an
invitation which he accepted; but before he took a bite or a sup he rose
from his chair, and said, "Gentlemen! it is my custom to ask a blessing
on these occasions," and added, "Stand all!" The company rose, but as he
pronounced the sacred invocation the room grew dark and the ghostly
guests vanished.

We should have liked to hear what followed, but this was left to our
imagination, which became more active as the darkness of night came on.
As we walked we saw some beautiful spar stones used to repair the roads,
which would have done finely for our rockeries.

Late that night we entered Truro, destined to become years afterwards a
cathedral town.

(_Distance walked thirty-three miles_.)

_Friday, November 17th._

Truro formerly possessed a castle, but, as in the case of Liskeard, not
a vestige now remained, and even Leland, who traced the site, described
the castle as being "clene down." He also described the position of the
town itself, and wrote, "The creke of Truro afore the very towne is
divided into two parts, and eche of them has a brook cumming down and a
bridge, and this towne of Truro betwixt them both." These two brooks
were the Allen, a rivulet only, and the Kenwyn, a larger stream, while
the "creke of Truro" was a branch of the Falmouth Harbour, and quite a
fine sheet of water at high tide. Truro was one of the Stannary Towns as
a matter of course, for according to tradition it was near here that tin
was first discovered.

The discoverer of this valuable metal was said to have been St. Piran,
or St. Perran--as the Roman Catholic Church in Truro was dedicated to
St. Piran we agreed to record that as the correct name. The legend
stated that he was an Irish saint who in his own country had been able
by his prayers to sustain the Irish kings and their armies for ten days
on three cows! But in spite of his great services to his country,
because of his belief in Christ his countrymen condemned him to die, by
being thrown over a precipice into the sea, with a millstone hung about
his neck. The day appointed for his execution was very stormy, but a
great crowd of "wild Irish" assembled, and St. Piran was thrown over the
rocks. At that very moment the storm ceased and there was a great calm.
They looked over the cliffs to see what had become of him, and to their
intense astonishment saw the saint calmly sitting upon the millstone and
being carried out to sea. They watched him until he disappeared from
their sight, and all who saw this great miracle were of course
immediately converted to Christianity. St. Piran floated safely across
the sea and landed on the coast of Cornwall, not at Truro, but on a
sandy beach about ten miles away from that town, the place where he
landed being named after him at the present day. When the natives saw
him approaching their coasts, they thought he was sailing on wood, and
when they found it was stone they also were converted to Christianity.
St. Piran built an oratory and lived a lonely and godly life,
ornamenting his cell with all kinds of crystals and stones gathered from
the beach and the rocks, and adorning his altar with the choicest
flowers. On one occasion, when about to prepare a frugal meal, he
collected some stones in a circle and made a fire from some fuel close
to hand. Fanned by the wind, the heat was intensified more than usual,
with the result that he noticed a stream of beautiful white metal
flowing out of the fire. "Great was the joy of the saint when he
perceived that God in His goodness had discovered to him something that
would be useful to man." Such was the origin of tin smelting in
Cornwall. St. Piran revealed the secret to St. Chiwidden, who, being
learned in many sciences, at once recognised the value of the metal. The
news gradually spread to distant lands, and eventually reached Tyre, the
ancient city of the Phoenicians, so that their merchants came to
Cornwall to buy tin in the days of King Solomon. The Britons then,
fearing an invasion, built castles on their coast, including that on St.
Michael's Mount, while St. Piran became the most popular saint in
Cornwall and eventually the patron saint of the miners of tin. His name
was associated with many places besides the sands he landed upon,
including several villages, as well as a cross, a chapel, a bay, a well,
and a coombe. But perhaps the strangest of all was St. Piran's Round,
near Perranzabuloe Village. This, considered one of the most remarkable
earthworks in the kingdom, and of remote antiquity, was a remarkable
amphitheatre 130 feet in diameter, with traces of seven tiers of seats;
it has been used in modern times for the performance of miracle-plays.

One of the "brooks" at Truro mentioned by Leland was the River Kenwyn,
which joined the River Allen to form the Truro River; but before doing
so the Kenwyn, or some portion of its overflow, had been so diverted
that the water ran down the gutters of the principal streets. It was a
novelty to us to see the water so fresh and clean running down each side
of the street--not slowly, but as if at a gallop.

In the time of the Civil War Truro was garrisoned for the King, but in
1646, after a fierce engagement between the Royalists under Sir Ralph
Hopton and Cromwell's forces under Sir Thomas Fairfax, a treaty was
signed at Tresillian River Bridge (a pretty place which we had passed
last night, about three miles outside the town on the St. Austell road),
by which Truro was surrendered quietly to the Parliament.

The Grammar School, where many eminent men had been educated, was
founded in 1549. Among its old pupils was included Sir Humphry Davy,
born in 1778, the eminent chemist who was the first to employ the
electric current in chemical decomposition and to discover nitric oxide
or "laughing gas." He was also the inventor of the famous safety-lamp
which bears his name, and which has been the means of saving the lives
of thousands of miners.

Truro was the birthplace of several men of note: Samuel Foote, Richard
Lander, and Henry Martyn, two of them having been born in public-houses
in the town.

Samuel Foote, a famous dramatist and comedian, was born at the "Old
King's Head Inn" in 1720, and was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1777.
He was a clever actor and mimic, "and kept London in a good humour"; he
wrote the _Mayor of Garrett_ and many other comedies.

Richard Lander, born at the "Fighting Cocks Inn" in 1804, became famous
as an African explorer. He took part in the expedition to Africa which
was the first to discover and trace the Niger. He was injured by savages
and died at Fernando Po in 1834.

Henry Martyn, born in 1781, the son of a miner, was a noble and devoted
missionary. He left home when twenty-four years of age to labour amongst
the Hindus and Mahometans at Cawnpore in India, and travelled in Persia
and Armenia. He translated portions of the Bible and Prayer Book into
the Persian and Hindustani languages, and at last, weary and worn out in
his Master's service, died of fever at Tokat in 1812.

[Illustration: THE FRONTAGE, OLD ST. MARY'S CHURCH.]

St. Mary's Church was built in 1518, and was remarkable for its two east
windows and some fine carving on the walls outside. It was surrounded by
narrow streets and ancient buildings. We had no time to explore the
interior, so contented ourselves with a visit to an old stone preserved
by the Corporation and inscribed:

        DANIEL JENKIN, MAIOR,
  WHO SEEKS TO FIND ETERNAL TREASVRE
  MVST VSE NO GVILE IN WEIGHT AND MEASVRE.
                                      1618.

We now considered that we had arrived at the beginning of the end of our
journey, and left Truro with the determination to reach Land's End on
the morrow, Saturday. We continued our walk as near the sea as the
rivers or inlets would admit, for we were anxious to see as much as
possible of the fine rock scenery of the Cornish coast. We were in the
best of health and spirits, and a thirty-mile walk seemed to have no
effect upon us whatever, beyond causing a feeling of drowsiness when
entering our hotel for the night.

We soon arrived at the quaint little village with a name, as my brother
said, almost as long as itself, Perranarworthal, connected with Falmouth
by a creek, which seemed to have made an effort to cross Cornwall from
one side to the other, or from one Channel to the other. It was at
Falmouth that on one dark stormy night some years previously the ship my
brother was travelling by called for cargo, and the shelter of the
harbour was much appreciated after passing through the stormy sea
outside. Perran in the name of the village meant the same as Piran, and
the small church there was dedicated to that saint, who deserved to be
called the St. Patrick of Cornwall, for he occupied the same position in
the popular imagination here as that saint did in Ireland. It was in
this parish that St. Piran had his Holy Well, but that had now
disappeared, for accidentally it had been drained off by mining
operations.

Gwennap was only about three miles away--formerly the centre of the
richest mining district in Cornwall, the mines there being nearly six
hundred yards deep, and the total length of the roads or workings in
them about sixty miles. No similar space in the Old World contained so
much mineral wealth, for the value of the tin mined during one century
was estimated at ten million pounds sterling. After the mines were
abandoned the neighbourhood presented a desolate and ruined appearance.

[Illustration: OLD ST. MARY'S CHURCH, TRURO. (_The Cathedral of Truro is
now built on the site where this old church formerly stood._)]

Many human remains belonging to past ages had been found buried in the
sands in this neighbourhood; but Gwennap had one glorious memory of the
departed dead, for John Wesley visited the village several times to
preach to the miners, and on one occasion (1762), on a very windy day,
when the sound of his voice was being carried away by the wind, he tried
the experiment--which proved a great success--of preaching in the bottom
of a wide dry pit, the miners standing round him on the sloping sides
and round the top. The pit was supposed to have been formed by
subsidences resulting from the mining operations below, and as he used
it on subsequent occasions when preaching to immense congregations, it
became known as "Wesley's Preaching Pit." It must have been a pathetic
sight when, in his eighty-fifth year, he preached his last sermon there.
"His open-air preaching was powerful in the extreme, his energy and
depth of purpose inspiring, and his organising ability exceptional; and
as an evangelist of the highest character, with the world as his parish,
he was the founder of the great religious communion of 'the people
called Methodists.'" It was therefore scarcely to be wondered at that
the Gwennap pit should be considered as holy ground, and that it should
become the Mecca of the Cornish Methodists and of others from all over
the world. Wesley died in 1791, and in 1803 the pit was brought to its
present condition--a circular pit formed into steps or seats rising one
above another from the bottom to the top, and used now for the great
annual gathering of the Methodists held during Whitsuntide. The idea was
probably copied from St. Piran's Round, a similar but much older
formation a few miles distant.

[Illustration: GWENNAP PIT, REDRUTH.]

Penryn was the next place we visited, and a very pretty place too! It
was situated on the slope of a picturesque hill surrounded by orchards
and gardens, and luxuriant woodlands adorned its short but beautiful
river. The sea view was of almost unequalled beauty, and included the
magnificent harbour of Falmouth, of which an old writer said that "a
hundred vessels may anchor in it, and not one see the mast of
another"--of course when ships were smaller.

The old church at Penryn was that of St. Gluvias, near which were a few
remains of Glassiney College, formerly the chief centre from which the
vernacular literature of Cornwall was issued and whence our knowledge of