lies between Tintagel and Newquay, with Padstow in the middle of the hump. The proper place for this calf of the Cornish leg should, of course, have been at St. Austell. If the leg were booted, the spur would find its exact position at Falmouth Bay.

But here let me at once say that the casual tourist to Land's End must not go away after his day's visit, or even his week's, with the idea that he has taken in all the beauties of this remarkable spot. The varied and ever-changing aspect which these bold and romantic cliffs assume have quietly to be assimilated to be properly appreciated and comprehended. In these days of quick transit and rapid change from place to place, we are too apt to draw conclusions from insufficient data. We live in a blotting-paper age. We do not allow even our ink to dry.

To be appreciated and estimated at their proper value, the cliffs of this part of Cornwall must be seen in calm and in storm; in sunshine and in cloud; in bright gladness and in sombre despondency.

We English love the sea and all belonging to it. We are in the first place a nation of sailors. No wonder the Cornish folk especially love their country, for it has sea nearly all round it. Those who have known the musical sound of the immeasurable waves from their childhood, like all the Cornish-born, can never be content to dwell amid what is to them the dreary quietude, the comparative platitude of inland scenery. A landscape without sea is to them like the face of a mute, devoid of movement and life. They pine for the ever-changeful sea, the insatiable ocean never the same two moments together, with moods as manifold and emotional as a woman's. For always the sea is living, always beautiful. A mountain scene is beautiful, but with a dumb, dull, inarticulate beauty. The sea speaks. Little wonder, then, the Cornish people are clannish, for they are bound together with the best of all ties, the interesting and deep-seated love of their country, and even to this day, when leaving it to journey north, they speak of going to England.

How long that granite buttress of England, Land's End, has stood there bravely defying the wild fury of the Atlantic we know not. Geologists, dealing in awful ages,

LAND OF ROMANCE

5

attempt to tell us from time to time, but their utterances are mere words, conveying no realisable facts graspable by our human understanding. But it is sufficient for us to know that Land's End, and the neighbouring country, contain relics of the most ancient civilisation of Britain.

"It is impossible to spend a few weeks in Cornwall without being impressed with the air of antiquity which pervades that country and seems like a morning mist, half to conceal and half to light up every one of its hills and valleys. It is impossible to look at any pile of stones, at any wall, or pillar, or gate-post, without asking oneself the question, Is it old or is it new? Is it the work of Saxon, or of Roman, or of Celt? Nay, one feels sometimes tempted to ask, Is this the work of nature or of man?" As you visit one strange monument after another, as you go from ancient Celtic cross to cromlech, from prehistoric bee-hive hut to Danish castle, a sort of old-world sensation creeps over you-you can't prevent it; you feel as if you have got down to the very beginning of things, and the extreme antiquity of this part of England presents itself before you with peculiar insistency. That, however, is quite understandable, for the idea is conveyed, not by abstractions or by mental exercises, but by palpable and tangible relics which, rude and rudimentary as they are, yet bear on their faces, plain for the wayfaring man to see, the imperishable records of the shadowy past and bear irresistible testimony to the fact that they were made and graven by art and man's device.

The only spot I know which compares at all with this part of Cornwall for its richness in antiquities is also very Celtic. The Arran Islands off the west of Ireland are remarkably rich in interesting remains. There, in a walk of nine miles, one meets with the ruins of some fourteen churches, as well as the remains of monasteries and hermitages besides round towers and fortresses galore.

Land's End is the land of the wild, the picturesque, and the imaginative. It is the land of giants and romance, the birthplace of stories and children's tales which have achieved imperishable fame.

1 Max Müller, Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. III, p. 248.

And this part of Cornwall is very stony-naturally stony. It is a typical Balbus country; remarkably reminiscent of that Balbus of the old Latin grammar, who was so partial to building walls, and so upsetting to our youthful minds, by reason of the varying moods and tenses in which he built those walls. Stones are the prevailing feature of Land's End, not only on the sea border, but inland. They are used to mark boundaries. They are used as stiles. They are used as hedges, for in Cornwall a hedge is the name given to any fence, stone or otherwise, which has vegetation on it. The stones are often high pillars, monoliths, four, six, even ten feet in height, of hard granite! You come across them all over the barren country of Land's End, taking the place of trees. Where timber is employed in other countries, stones are employed in this district of Cornwall. The houses, of course, are all built of stone, solid granite, looking substantial and well-to-do, no matter how humble they really be. The boundary stones are large blocks of granite, set up, cheek by jowl, in stern, soldier-like rows impervious to the wildest storms, and storms are by no means rare over Land's End. These rows of roughly hewn monoliths, ranged over the bare, grass-covered downs, are distinctive features of the landscape. The country field-gates are hung on larger blocks of granite from iron staples let into the stones, and their wonderful substantiality is impressive.

But it is not only antiquaries and health-seekers that love the British Riviera. The Land's End district of Cornwall is rapidly becoming, if it has not already become, the centre of English art. Not only is there always a larger proportion of obviously Cornish subjects exhibited at Burlington House and other galleries than of any other county of England, but a still larger number of canvases (not of named Cornish scenes) have been painted there. The reason is twofold. When the other counties of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland are murky and dull with fog, pronounced or incipient, there is light in Cornwall, and artists are children of light. And then again, painters are a very gregarious set. St. Ives alone has now close upon a hundred studios, and there is seldom a vacant one. Newlyn, a name which has given rise to a distinct school of art authors, is a little compact colony of artists. Mr. Stanhope Forbes,

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7

R.A., who may be called its father, is the pioneer of the open-air, realistic style of painting, and with Mrs. Stanhope Forbes has made the place also a great teaching centre. Other well-known Newlyn artists are Mr. Walter Langley, Mr. T. C. Gotch, Mr. Norman Garstin, Mr. Lamorna Birch, and Mr. Sherwood Hunter, but at Sennen also and all round this coast do artists congregate, so it is no wonder that the fame and the beauty of the Land's End district of Cornwall get noised abroad.

CHAPTER II

THE INDIVIDUALITY OF COUNTIES AND CORNWALL IN

A

PARTICULAR

FRIEND of mine who recently took a cycle tour from Malvern to Salisbury and back, completing a large circle of some two hundred miles, was struck with the diversity of features and manners of every county through which he passed. Without consulting map or book he always knew when he was in another county. Each county seemed to possess an individuality of its own, that could not be attributed to merely physical, political, religious, or social barriers. The very material of which the roads were composed, the peculiar disposition of houses, telegraph wires, of architecture, seemed to contribute to this individuality of character.

The physical appearance of the people in each county varied. The choice of words, the accent, even the slang employed in one county, were not exactly similar to those in another. The physical geography of the county, or as some call it climate, may, of course, be accountable for some of these differences, but not for all.

To what, then, are we to attribute these distinctions of counties? We cannot trace them to William the Conqueror and the Domesday Book. They seem to be racial rather than physical distinctions, cach instinct with its own tradition, which has transcended all the varieties of historical experience without losing its originality.

For example, Canterbury still remains what it was in Chaucer's day, when the pilgrims of the Canterbury Tales arrived at the Checquers Inn, and Kent, as a whole, still produces sturdy, God-fearing, independent folk, who scem still to reflect the Christianity which first came to be preached in their county.

Tunbridge Wells, since the year 1685, keeps its Puritan associations in the names of its streets (Mount Pleasant, Beulah Road, Zion Hill, Calverley, Calvary Road, Mount