CORNWALL.

I.

CORNWALL is not like the rest of England; the natives have habits of their own, and some remains of a language of their own. The land itself is not like that of other counties, and the people have unusual ways of earning their living.

Cornwall is at the very end of England, the southwest end; it is a sort of horn, stretching out into a stormy sea, which washes it all round except on the Devon side, and on this side the river Tamar nearly makes an island of it.

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The Saxons called this out of the way corner Cornwall," which means the horn of the strangers or foreigners, because here the Britons held their own for from four to five hundred years against the invaders who had conquered the rest of the country.

The descendants of the Britons still occupy Cornwall, and though they no longer speak the ancient Cornish tongue, they have words and ways yet which show their origin.

This county is in itself a history of England, the most ancient of all histories, to be read, not in printed books, but in rocks and ruins and in strange folk-lore; a history which carries us back to days before those when King David ruled in Israel.

Its rocks are made of granite, an exceedingly fine, hard stone, which takes a high polish, and is beautiful to adorn our churches, and firm and durable enough to

support our bridges.

This granite formation goes through the whole length of Cornwall, from Devon to Land's End, rising in huge bosses here and there, and giving a peculiar character to the country.

For granite is no friend to the farmer; there is seldom any depth of soil upon it. Though here and there, even upon the moors, there are cultivated patches and trees, much of central Cornwall is waste moorland.

Entering the county from Devon by the Cornwall Railway, we cross Mr. Brunel's wonderful Suspension Bridge at Saltash. This bridge carries the railway from the hills of Devon to those of Cornwall at a height of 100 feet above the water of the Tamar estuary, which is here wider than the Thames at Westminster. The bridge is about half a mile long, and is a marvel of engineering skill.

Saltash itself, inhabited by fishermen, stands on the steep bank of the Tamar, the old houses rising in rows one above another.

Going on by rail to Liskeard, we pass through country full of hills and hollows and deep gorges, but not by any means bare. This part of Cornwall is richly wooded with all kinds of forest trees and many apple orchards.

Between the four towns of Liskeard, Bodmin, Camelford, and Launceston, lies the Bodmin Moor, the dreariest and wildest tract in Cornwall, though it is not without an interest of its own.

The town of Liskeard stands upon rather high wellcultivated land; it is a good point from which to cross the moors.

FOR many miles the waste stretches away without any break except the rounded moor hills. These are commonly capped with cairns, formed of huge blocks of granite heaped together in fantastic shapes. These cairns tell a tale of their own, and are a bit of very early history. The Britons loved to bury their famous warriors upon their hill-tops; and, to make the graves the more conspicuous, they piled cairns upon them, that men who came after should say, "Some warrior lies here." The coffin was often placed upon the top of the cairn, and was a great stone chest, or Kistvaen. Sometimes the kistvaen was placed in a mound of earth, or barrow, which, also, it was the custom to place upon a hill-top. There are many such barrows on the hills in the north of Cornwall. The slopes of the moor hills are usually strewn with great blocks of granite.

Rowtor bristles all over with cairns, perhaps more than any hill on the moor. These cairns are formed of the largest blocks of granite in Cornwall, lodged on one another in a curious way, and giving Rowtor a magnificent appearance, more grand and rugged than any mountain in Cornwall, though it is not quite the highest. Under the north side of this hill are many of the circles of unhewn stone which are supposed to be the foundations of the round huts, with pointed roofs, which were the homes of the ancient people.

Not far from Rowtor is Brown Willy, the highest of the Cornish hills (1368 feet). It is perhaps more