HINTS TO THE SIGHTSEER

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Almost any

whence others may prefer to visit them. central place selected in this part of Cornwall for a short stay will be found equally good for affording interesting walks. Many of the most interesting antiquarian remains can be visited with equal facility from one side as from another; from one resting-place as from another restingplace. Hence no royal road can be laid down to ease the labours of the sightseer. Each person wishing to become acquainted with this part of Cornwall must just take the map and select his own centres at which to stay. He can hardly make a mistake.

Taking the main road from Land's End to St. Buryan, past the smithy at the junction of roads, we branched off to the right at Trethewey and followed a coast road going due south. This is a narrow lane, and leads direct down to the little sandy cove known as Porth Curnow, where the nine cables of the Eastern Telegraph Company come up from their long course under the sea and are connected with the land lines. As one enters the valley, so out of the world, and yet at the same time so very much in the world, if one considers the messages from distant parts arriving every minute of the day and night, one is struck with signs of prosperity most unusual in this distant part of Cornwall. Several well-built and shapely villas arise amidst well-kept gardens, brilliant with flowers and foliage, with hedges of escalonia. At the bottom of the valley, large asphalt tenniscourts invite players in all states of the weather to outdoor exercise. A large building on the right, facing the tenniscourts, is devoted to the offices of the Telegraph Company, and another palatial edifice on the other side of the valley to the telegraphic operations.

The little valley ends on a sweet sandy beach, with the mass of bold rugged rocks containing the famous Logan Stone sheltering it on the east.

Sweetly smiling in simple innocence does the little bay look now, with the waves idly lapping and kissing the shore. But be not deceived by appearances; those waves know a secret or two, and are of all things in nature least to be depended upon. They can wear another aspect, a frightful, terrifying aspect, the mantle and dread attire of death. It was here that the full-rigged ship Khyber

parted her cables and went to her doom with twenty-three out of twenty-five lives only some few years ago. It was here that the good ship Fairport, of Liverpool, very nearly met a similar fate in January, 1908, when the Sennen lifeboat pluckily conveyed a tow-rope from the ship to a tug and got her off the death-dealing shore.

A steep hill over the western cliff conducts one to the church of St. Levan. At the top is a flat plateau with a magnificent cricket-ground of just perfect turf, kept in tiptop condition, where the telegraphists play. A flag over the pavilion at the north-west corner denotes that they call themselves the "Exiles," but it struck me that many persons in search of health would like much to be exiled too. I should think this is the most magnificently situated cricketground in England!

The views around are sublime. The Logan Rock promontory stands out in the sapphire-coloured sea on the left, its dark granite rocks looking majestically grand, in fact, all around are scenes worth looking at, if attention can be taken from the game in progress.

On the next headland, to the west, a Marconi spider attenuation, in three spindly lengths, points skyward, and reminds one how the latest discoveries of science are often associated with Nature in her wildest and simplest scenes.

Passing the cricket-ground and pushing open a swinging gate, we turn sharply to the right, and there down in a hollow, most snugly sheltered, is St. Levan Church.

Almost quite hidden away amidst ensconsing hills lies this ancient edifice. The little valleys which here seem to meet and form a juncture afford a charmingly retired spot, close to the sea, admirably adapted for a church location. The soothing and swishing murmurs of the ocean are ever present, for the waves break at Porth Chapel, only a quarter of a mile away.

The learned and courteous rector, the Rev. Trimer Bennett, conducted me over the church, and pointed out the unusually numerous curiosities it contains, and others in its precincts. The parish covers a large area (2328 acres), comprising some seven hundred souls, and my informant told me he had often as many as seventy communicants.

The parish is remarkably situated in some of the most

INTERESTING ST. LEVAN CHURCH 345 romantic and bold scenery of this part of Cornwall, wholly granitic.

The ground near the eastern side of the church is nearly on a level with the commencement of the east window, being separated by a pathway which runs round the building. It appears as if the earth thrown out when the foundations were dug was heaped up there and left. It may be that in those distant days some religious significance was attached to this, for I have noticed elsewhere similar high ground on the east end of churches. Certainly it is not caused by interments at this part of the churchyard.

At the north-east corner of this high ground a curious stile leads to a path which stretches upward and away over the hill, and there, at the south end, is an old Celtic cross, of the Greek type, on both sides of the circular disc.

The stile is approached from the churchyard by a broad flight of granite steps, wide enough for four persons to walk abreast, and at either side is a stone bench with stone back. The old cross here facing the east end of the church is not very usual.

At the north entrance to the churchyard access is obtained up a broad flight of four granite steps, which leads up to a wide stile of the stepping-stone description. The flight of steps is double, and separated at the summit by a low, wide middle wall between the two stiles thus formed. On this wall a coffin can be rested, as the bearers and mourners pass on either side across the stepping-stones. These two church stiles (or "lych-gates" without gates or coverings) form a distinct and unusual feature of the church, and alone well repay the visit to this secluded and delightful spot.

The earliest reference to a lych-gate is probably one dated A.D. 1272, in which mention is made of the corpse of Edward II resting beneath one that then stood near to Gloucester Cathedral. In the Prayer Book for 1549 the priest is directed to meet the corpse at the church “ stile," that is, lych-gate. The old Cornish name for this is trimtram "-maybe a corruption of "trim train," as it was upon arrival there that the mournful procession, which had often come long distances, was solemnly marshalled or put into due, proper, and trim train, whilst the coffin rested on