AN ANCIENT HOUSE 127 But still another explanation of these circular arrangements of large oblong monoliths placed in an upright position has been seriously advanced, namely, that they were so planted to make a public arena for dancing, a form of amusement very prevalent among the ancient Cornish, as indeed it was among the Irish branch of the Celtic family as well. From this wealth of obviously fairy, and also some sensible, theories the reader may pick out for reliance that which most pleases him. Two facts, I think, are obvious in connection with these circles. Their existence necessarily implies a certain amount of public spirit in the days of their construction, and they show that the advantage of working together for some common object, were that object religious or secular, was in those days understood. For I think all critics are agreed that these circles, as well as the cromlechs, pillars, and holed stones, are public monuments, and if so they are messages to posterity and ought to be carefully preserved. By the roadside between the Merry Maidens and the Fiddlers, about two hundred yards from the former on the south side of the road, on a piece of roadside waste, is another Celtic cross well worth notice. In order to photograph this we had to slaughter a heap of obtruding bracken and bramble which nearly totally hid it. Soon after leaving the Fiddlers the road descends to a woody valley, and there, after going up a grass-grown byroad overshadowed by trees decked with ferns on the banks, an old farm is reached. This is Trewoofe, pronounced Trove. It is the "Trewoof" referred to on the monument in Buryan Church recording the passing away of the last of his race in the person of Arthur Levelis. All that now remains of the ancient house is an old doorway, a low arch, above which are two square pieces of granite rather richly carved. The situation of these remains of an ancient mansion is pretty trees and foliage all around, and a pond in front of it within ten feet. The old farmer here informed me that he was seventy years of age, that his father and grandfather had lived and died there before him, and that old arched doorway had been there in just the same state all the time. Trewoofe means the place of blackbirds, many of which are always to be found in the umbrageous woods and mossy dells surrounding the remains of the old mansion house. Quite close to the house is an ancient Celtic ogo, or fogo (=cave), and this used to be connected with a subterranean passage with the mansion. We purchased some excellent fowls here at two shillings apiece and six fine large cabbages for sixpence. Retracing our steps from Trewoofe, we soon strike the lane-like road which runs south-east to the sea at Lamorna Cove. Here we put up for lunch at Mrs. N. Jory's temperance hotel, which was built for a Church of England worshipplace, but apparently never finished. We took the meal in the lofty chancel, a long room with three large, long, high windows on either side, a concrete floor, and a raised concrete dais along one side. Very appropriately a harmonium adorned the other side. On the east side of the end of the cove there is a granite quarry, the granite being of a very superior quality, whence fine views are obtained of the Lizard Point in the far distance. A murmuring stream runs down Lamorna Valley, which can be heard, but not seen from the road owing to the vast amount of vegetation covering it up. The granite on the western side of the bay is so interspersed with quartz veins as to render it unfit for building purposes. Beauty begins where the road ends in this part of Cornwall. It seems as if all the sub-tropical, or, at any rate, very luxuriant vegetation which should have clothed the Cornish moors had been crammed into narrow valleys. In these steep declivities trees, shrubs, ferns flourish in a dense mass of glorious green. Tangle bushes, thorny furze, straggling bramble sprays, and fragrant herbs press against your body and knock you about in front and back as you struggle to invade the recesses of their privacy. You may try to steer a path in any direction, it is all the same. You may squeeze, dodge, push, manipulate your arms and legs and contort your body considerably to effect a passage. Often you hear the running of water at the bottom, but can't get near it. The steady grind of a small waterfall may assail your ears, but you never see it. Where the sea breaks upon the rocky boulders of Lamorna Cove-there is no beach-a small pier or arm of granite THE LOGAN STONE 129 has been thrust out, and here I saw one or two ladies fishing with rods for pollack and wrasse. A granite tablet let into the pier-end has engraved upon it : "Except the Lord build the house They Labour in vain that build it"; which is the first time I ever heard of a pier being called a house. If it were not for this granite quarry disfiguring the mountain-side, with its fresh-looking blocks of stone, derricks, and debris, Lamorna Cove would be a pretty spot. Blocks of granite from this quarry have entered largely into the formation of the Admiralty Pier at Dover. One huge block-twenty-two feet in height and weighing twentyone tons-was wrought into an obelisk and sent to the Great Exhibition in 1851. I wonder what became of it; for it was not an article to carry about in a waistcoat pocket. On the left of the valley near the top as we entered it I noticed a galvanised shanty, with top large glass windows, evidently a studio and the temporary abode of an artist. The inn at the top of the cove on the opposite side of the temperance hotel is old, and I observed a diamond-shaped frame of wood let into the roadway, showing that skittles used once to be played in front of the door on the road itself. Skittles, I hear, have gone out of fashion in the neighbourhood, but are coming back again into rural esteem. We now start away for the Logan Stone. When "Logan Rock" or "Logan Stone" is mentioned a particular one is meant, and that we are now on the way to see. But a glance at the Ordnance Map shows that there are many Logan Rocks in this part of Cornwall, some of which I have looked for in vain, notably that close to the " Logan Circles," a short distance north-east of St. Just. The map gives there Logan Stone," but none of the few inhabitants in the immediate vicinity nor at St. Just have ever heard of it. It is simply distressfully appalling how the rare old antiquities of Cornwall are disappearing. 66 The Logan Stone par excellence which has monopolised the title in public estimation lies on a promontory a little to the east of St. Levan Church. On our way thither we make a halt at a footpath leading away on our right across a hedge and through some fields. There is a Celtic cross K |