Almost every place of popular resort has its "season," when its charms are supposed to be at their highest, and the annual migration of visitors sets in. The period is not always determined by climate or calendar; and such is the caprice of fashion, that many a lovely spot is left well-nigh solitary during the weeks of its full perfection, the crowd beginning to gather when the beauties of the place are on the wane. Tastes will undoubtedly differ as to the most favourable time to visit one or another beautiful scene; but none, we should imagine, will dispute our opinion that the best season for travel in the west of England is in the early spring. We leave the north, with patches of snow yet on the hills, and the first leaflets struggling in vain to unfold themselves on the blackened branches; or, if we hail from the metropolis, we gladly turn our backs on wind-swept streets and bleak suburban roads, to find ourselves in two or three hours speeding beneath soft sunshine, between far-extending orchards, in all the loveliness of their delicate bloom, while the grass is of a richer tint, the blue sky, dappled with fleecy clouds, of a more exquisite purity, and instead of the slowly-relaxing grasp of winter, the promise of summer already thrills the air. "The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."

But whither shall we direct our steps? It is the perfection of comfort in travelling to have time at command. We need be in no haste to leave the apple-blossomy valleys of Somersetshire, even for the woods and cliffs of Devon; and if the tourist would visit a spot which, in its own way, is unique in England, let him turn aside, as we did, soon after leaving Bristol, to a rift in the Mendip Hills, and make his way through the pass between the Cheddar Cliffs. A more majestic scene it would be difficult to find. For actual magnitude is only one element of sublimity. The biggest mountain is not always the grandest, just as the finest landscape is not always that which embraces the greatest number of square miles. The Himalayas are said to be far less imposing than the Alps. The width of the valleys, the more gradual slope of the mountains, and the greater distance from the eye, detract from their apparent height as compared with Mont Blanc or the Matterhorn. This little gorge of the Mendips affords a striking illustration of the same kind. The cliffs are less than five hundred feet high; yet under certain conditions of atmosphere we have had as deep a sense of sublimity, and under others as keen a sense of beauty here, as in districts where the altitude is to be reckoned by thousands of feet instead of hundreds.

The approach to Cheddar is by a short railway from Yatton, on the Bristol and Exeter line, or by the road, which winds through a rich valley. The hills on either side are green to their very summits, from which fine views may be gained of the Bristol Channel, near Clevedon and Weston. One of them, Dolbury, is crowned by a remarkably fine British camp, enclosing within its ample area a Roman stronghold. Wrington, the birthplace of John Locke, is passed. Glastonbury Tor comes into view, and remains a conspicuous object for the rest of the journey.

Immediately behind the village of Cheddar rises the bare grey ridge of the Mendips. Cut sheer through it from summit to base is an extraordinary cleft. The road which winds along the bottom of the ravine is in some places only wide enough to allow two vehicles to pass abreast. On the right-hand side a perpendicular wall of rock rises to the height of about four hundred and thirty feet. Its surface is broken by enormous buttresses, like the towers of some Titanic castle, surmounted by spires and pinnacles, whose light airy grace contrasts finely with the massive walls on which they rest. Down the face of the cliff long festoons of ivy and creeping plants wave to and fro. The scanty soil on the ledges and in the fissures is bright with wild flowers. The yew and mountain ash, dwarfed into mere shrubs, seem to cling with a precarious foothold to the face of the rock. Far above us innumerable jackdaws and crows chatter noisily, and hawks, with which the district abounds, soar across the narrow strip of sky overhead. The opposite side of the ravine is less precipitous, though even here it is steep enough to task the energies of the climber, and grand masses of rock stand out from the hill-side. Conspicuous amongst these is the Lion Rock, so called from its extraordinary resemblance to a crouching lion. This district abounds in caverns, many of them of great extent and beauty, which will well repay a visit. Local tradition affirms that one reaches as far as Wookey Hole, a distance of ten miles.

The devoted and self-denying efforts of Mrs. Hannah More must not be forgotten in connection with Cheddar. When residing at Barley Wood, a few miles distant, about the end of the last century, she was dismayed at the ignorance and immorality of the villagers, who were "living like the brutes that perish," and indulging in gross vices. Scarcely even in the heart of Africa could more complete heathenism be found. As yet Sunday Schools, Tract Societies and all the means of usefulness, now so common, had no existence.

Her endeavours for the amelioration of the people were as experiments to be tried single-handed, under the most unpromising circumstances, and in the face of the most violent hostility and abuse.

Yet she did not shrink from the arduous duty which lay before her. A house was taken, a pious teacher appointed, and the school was opened. Gradually enemies were conciliated, as the happy effects of Christian teaching became apparent. Many of the children learned to know and love the Saviour. The influence spread from the children to the parents, and by the blessing of God the experiment, which at first seemed so hopeless, was crowned with a success beyond her utmost expectations. It was in connection with her evangelistic work at Cheddar that she wrote her first tract, Village Politics, by Will Chip. This led to the preparation of her Cheap Repository Tracts, to be followed in due time by the establishment of the Religious Tract Society, whose operations now extend throughout the whole world. On the completion of the series, Mrs. More wrote in her journal: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, that I have been spared to accomplish this work. Do Thou, O Lord, bless and prosper it to the good of many; and if it do good, may I give Thee the glory, and take to myself the shame of its defects. I have devoted three years to the work. Two millions of these tracts have been disposed of during the first year! God works by weak instruments, to show that the glory is all His own."

From Cheddar the traveller may either continue his journey by way of Wells, or may return at once to the main line, passing near the coast of the Bristol Channel, with a wide alluvial plain at his left, once covered by an arm of the sea, with islands, as Brent Tor and others, emerging from the waters, and reaching as far as Glastonbury or Avalon—"apple-island," famed in legend and song.

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A little further, and the marshy plain of the Parret stretches away in one direction to Sedgemoor, scene of the "last battle fought on English ground," * that in which the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth suffered irretrievable defeat, and in another, to Athelney, the place of King Alfred's retreat and noble rally against the Danes. In memory of the stories that charmed our childhood, we could do no otherwise than take the branch line at Durston, whence a few minutes' run places us in the marshy unpicturesque scene so memorable in English story. The whole neighbourhood was evidently once covered with woods and morasses; good drainage has made it fertile now, but it must be confessed that it must depend for all its attractiveness on its associations. On or near the traditional site of the "neatherd's cottage," an unpretending stone pillar with a lengthy inscription preserves the memory of Alfred's sojourn.

Resuming the journey westward, we soon discern the towers of the Taunton churches, and may find a welcome night's rest in this bright and pretty town; or turning again off the main line, may pass north west, by a route full of interest, to the Ouantock Hills. On our way we pass Combe Florey, famous as the residence for a time of Sydney Smith, and as the scene of some of the most characteristic stories of his life. But we must not linger in the valley: at every point the wooded hill-slopes tempt us to climb upwards among shady groves of beech, over turf thick with primroses and bluebells, then out upon the furzy heights. It hardly matters which path we take, whether up Cothelstone, whence the view is perhaps most magnificent, or Will's Neck, highest point of all, or Hurley Beacon. From hilltop to hill-top we make our way, descending into mossy glens, where the hill stream trickles down in miniature waterfalls, or striking down some deep wooded combe, where the houses of a village nestle among the trees, and the spacious church tells of a time when the inhabitants far out-numbered the present scanty population. In the valley below, to the north-east, we descry the village of Nether Stowey, for some time the residence of Coleridge, and further to the north, at the foot of one of the loveliest of wooded combes, is Alfoxton, which was at the same time the home of Wordsworth. The two friends have told us how they used to meet and discuss high themes in many a charming stroll, their neighbours much wondering the while, and the government of the day suspecting their advanced opinions. The end was that they had to leave, not before they had made imperishable record of the beauties of the place. Thus Wordsworth writes to Coleridge, in the Prelude:

Coleridge, in a note to the Ancient Mariner, says, "It was on a delightful walk from Nether Stowey to Dulverton, with Wordsworth and his sister, in the autumn of 1797, that this poem was planned and in part composed."

The great hilly range to the west, in full view across the valley from the Ouantocks, is an outlying rampart of Exmoor, and the brown peak in the distance is Dunkery Beacon, the highest point in Somersetshire. Our road leads between these heights and the sea, by Dunster, with its great ivied castle overhanging the quaint feudal-looking little town, and Minehead, a cheerful unpretending watering-place, to Porlock, where the ascent of what the country people call a "terrÀble long hill," by a zigzag moorland road, leads to a height from which, on looking back, we have a prospect of surpassing grandeur. Let us gaze our fill: if the day be fine, and the atmosphere clear, we shall see nothing nobler in the west of England. To the south the huge masses of Dunkery, brown with heather, rise from a foreground of woods and glens; below, to the east, lies a fair valley, surrounded with hills of every picturesque variety in form, prominent among which is the rugged side of Bossington Beacon. Towards the south-east, heights on heights arise, some richly wooded, others majestic in their bareness; while to the north and north-east stretches the Bristol Channel, with the Welsh mountains dimly seen beyond.

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Then we go southwards over a reach of wild moorland, and come upon the indescribable loveliness of Lynmouth and Lynton. Far beyond railways, accessible only by long walking or driving over hilly roads, or by small boats from steamers on their way up and down the Channel, this fair spot can never attract the crowd; but those who have wandered by its streams, or climbed its heights, are singularly unanimous in pronouncing it the most charming spot in England. Lynmouth is in the valley, on the shore; Lynton on the height. The name is derived from the lyns, or torrents, which descend separately, each through a wooded gorge or combe, until they meet beside the sea. Great mossy rocks everywhere break the course of the torrents, and the luxuriant foliage which lines the banks, the ferns and flowers, with the overhanging trees, combine to make a succession of perfect pictures.

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The traveller will, of course, go up Lyndale, the valley of the East Lyn, as far as Watersmeet, and will not omit to explore the quieter, more luxuriant, though less magnificent West Lyn. He will climb to the summit of Lyn Cliff, and will survey at ease the prospect from the summer-house; and will not omit the extraordinary Valley of the Rocks, reached by a grand walk along the face of the cliff, which overhangs the sea to the west of Lynton. At a break in this path he suddenly comes to a gigantic gateway, formed of two rocky pyramids, and enters upon a scene which, to his first view, appears strewn with the fragments of some earlier world. "Imagine," says Southey, "a narrow vale between two ridges of hills, somewhat steep: the southern hill turfed; the vale, which runs from east to west, covered with huge stones, and fragments of stone among the fern that fills it; the northern ridge completely bare, excoriated of all turf and all soil, the very bones and skeleton of the earth; rock reclining upon rock, stone piled upon stone, a huge terrific mass. A palace of the pre-historic kings, a city of the Anakim, must have appeared so shapeless, and yet so like the ruins of what had been shaped after the waters of the flood subsided.... I never felt the sublimity of solitude before."

The drive from Lynton to Barnstaple, though not long, being, we believe, somewhat under twenty miles, brought to us a crowd of half-forgotten associations of early days when coach-travelling was the chief means of locomotion. The coach itself was of the old build, spick and span in its neatness; the coachman was of old-fashioned ways; the four sleek horses were no mere omnibus hacks, but as they warmed to their work up and down hill, showed a mettle akin to that of roadsters in days long ago. Or perhaps we had only imagined until now that the old breed had deteriorated! The villages on the way had no sign of "Station" or "Station Hotel" about them; children ran from the cottage doors to shout after the coach, or to bring primroses and violets to the passengers; rustics gathered for a chat where the coachman pulled up, as he did tolerably often, for time seemed but a small object in that old-world region. And all around was outspread a landscape of rich, ever-changing loveliness, ruddy in soil, rich in verdure, as at one time we descended into lanes half-embowered by the already luxuriant hedgerows, and at another emerged on open moorland swept by soft breezes from the sea, and engirdled by the hazy forms of distant hills. At length the estuary of the Taw came into view, the houses of Barnstaple appeared, the coach drove into the station yard, and we were in the world again.

Another route might have been taken from Lynton to Ilfracombe, by way of Combe Martin, with its fine and rocky bay; but we were anxious to reach less crowded and familiar spots than the famous North Devon watering-place, though this also is in its way delightful. We must, however, see one or two further points on the coast before striking inland again; and accordingly, took up our night's quarters at Bideford, famed for the length of its bridge, and the steepness of its streets. Emerging early in the morning from the highest part of the town, we made our way to Westward Ho! that magnificent possibility, whose stately mansions and hotels, broad quays and pier, surrounded by vessels from all parts, with its broad level plain by the sea and noble background of wooded hills, had so often captivated us—in railway-station waiting-rooms. We found it all there, except the mansions, the quays, and the ships! The bay is glorious, the plain upon the shore stretches far and wide,—to the satisfaction of golfers, for whose favourite game no spot can be better adapted: there is a great pebble-ridge, a natural breakwater two miles long and fifty feet wide, composed of rounded pebbles of carboniferous "grit;" the background of wooded cliffs is magnificent, while a lonely pier, one commodious hotel, a bath-house on a splendid scale, some rows of villas, lodging-houses, and one or two educational establishments give promise of prosperity to come. A great sanatorium or hydropathic institution, to be called "the Kingsley," after the gifted man who has set the stamp of his genius on this whole neighbourhood, has been projected; and certainly for purposes of health as well as enjoyment, no place could be better adapted than the woodland terraces overlooking this most beautiful bay.

The mention of Charles Kingsley reminds us of Clovelly, his early home, and to the last his favourite spot. Early in the morning we started for this unique Devonshire village, with high expectations, and under the auspices of the British Government, as our chosen vehicle was the "mail-cart," in the shape of a very comfortable waggonette filled with pleasant chatty passengers, all the livelier, perhaps, from the good-humoured sense of merit which early-rising is apt to engender. The road was not particularly striking, save for glimpses of the channel seen through the light morning haze: the breath of spring was in the air, and when we alighted at the "Hobby" gate, we were fully prepared for the three miles' walk by which our breakfast was yet to be earned. The path, in reality a broad, well-kept drive, is carried along the face of the cliff, which shelves gradually, covered thickly with trees and brushwood, to the shore, while the bank towers above, soft with moss and beautiful with flowers. The cliff curves in and out irregularly; broken in one or two places by deep glens, over which the road is carried by rustic bridges. Long shadows lay, that morning, across the path; above and below, the tender budding foliage clothed the dark branches of oak and elm, hazel and beech, in every variety of shade; the air was musical with birds, and, stirred by the gentle morning breeze and the whisper of the boughs, blended with the distant murmur of the sea. It was a walk to be remembered. At length, at a turning of the road, Clovelly came into sight, about a mile distant—a seemingly confused heap of houses emerging on all sides from thick woodland, and slanting steeply down to a stone pier jutting out into a little bay. At the end of the Hobby walk, the summit of the village was gained, and we were soon descending its curious steep street, not without longing looks at the quaint little lodging-houses, all untenanted as yet.

Clovelly is a place to linger in, and to dream! The practical need of the hour, however, was breakfast, during the preparation of which meal it was pleasant to sit in the hotel balcony, and look out upon the bay, with its lines of light and shadow, and the long outline of Lundy Island showing clear in the distance; for now the morning mists had lifted, and the brightness of spring was over sea and land. A walk of marvellous beauty followed, into the park of Clovelly Court, over springy turf, through woodlands budding into leaf, and over a stretch of rugged wilderness, preserved with some art in its primitive simplicity. Thence, by a winding pathway, or over a steep grassy slope, the highest point may be reached, a noble cliff, called from some old local story Gallantry Bower. A little summer-house, nestling in the cliff-side, commands a grand range of cliffs, with their curved, contorted strata, peculiar to the carboniferous formation, while many a jutting or broken crag gives a castellated aspect to this magnificent rampart of the coast. Inland, the scene is full of beauties of hill and glen, in almost measureless variety; but we could not linger to survey them all; for our way lay in another direction, before we could feast again on the beauties of cliff and sea.

Hartland Point, a little farther on, is the true "Land's End" of Devonshire, the terminating promontory of Bideford Bay, a tongue of grassy land, not more than thirty or forty feet wide, at the summit of a tremendous precipice on either side, pointing, it is said, to a similar projection on the opposite Welsh coast, like twin pillars of Hercules, * guarding the estuary of the Severn.

It would now have been easy to visit Bude Haven, and so to travel south and south-west along the cliffs which fringe the Atlantic, but our present plan was to strike inland to Dartmoor. The little town of Oke-hampton was therefore our first destination, reached by a somewhat dull route,—whichever road may be taken,—but, when gained, most interesting. The town lies in a valley, watered by a swift romantic river which, at one point, sweeping round a wooded hill, crowned by the ruins of an old castle, forms as lovely a picture as anything of the kind in England. Kingsley abuses Okehampton, unjustly, we think: but, whatever may be thought of the town and its immediate neighbourhood, there can be no doubt as to the wonderful interest of the excursions that may be taken from it as a centre. From the castle hill, as from other points in the town, the chief object that arrests the eye is the vast brown sweep of rising ground, suggestive of mysterious desolation beyond, which we know to be the boundary of Dartmoor. Ascending, we find ourselves at first on pleasant, breezy, though treeless heights, but keep to beaten paths, and pursue our onward journey. At length the moorland track over which we have passed seems to rise behind us and shut out the world; and as we gaze around, we feel that all pictures which we had framed to ourselves of wild deserted solitudes are surpassed. "Like the fragments of an earlier world," is the comparison that naturally rises to the lips. We are not unfamiliar with moorland scenery—with Rombald's Moor, for instance, in Yorkshire, beautiful in its variety of colour, from the tender green and softening greys and browns of spring, to the purple heathery splendours of the autumn, while the song of lark and linnet overhead, or the plaintive cry of the lapwing, gives animation to the scene. But at Dartmoor is a new experience of desolation. The stupendous mass of granite which here crops up from hidden depths is covered on its broken surface with thick peat, in whose depths the blackened trunks of trees occasionally give evidence of a time when the range was clothed with wood, but which, for the most part, bears only coarse grass and moss, with heather and whortleberry in the most favoured localities. Broad spaces are covered by morass and bog, dangerous to the unaccustomed pedestrian. Scanty streams break from the heights, and hurry in all directions down to the valley, swollen to wild fury after a storm. The "tor," or shapeless masses of rock, which stand out from the peaty surface in all directions, are but, as it were, the jagged projections from the interior rock-skeleton. Some may be readily ascended; Yes Tor (probably East Tor, pronounced Devonshire fashion) being the highest, and on many accounts the best worth climbing.

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The prospect of the moor from this or any other commanding point can only be described as awful in its grim, monotonous, silent desolation, the only beauty being that of swelling distant outline, or frequently that of colour, when the atmosphere is clear between the frequent showers, and the rays of the sun light up the heather and the moss, diversifying the dark shadows of the tors with the various hues of green, with the ruddy gleam of withered fern, and rushes in many a morass. But let not the traveller be too hopeful of sunshine and clear air! For as the local rhyme says:

Still, the slopes by which Dartmoor descends to the lowlands around are beautiful. In fact, the mighty granite mass is girdled by an investiture of fair glens and smiling villages, which make the circuit of it a succession of some of the brightest pictures that England can anywhere present in the same compass. The drive from Oke-hampton to Chagford, or to Moreton Hampstead, for instance, is of wonderful charm. Near the former village, the river Teign descends over rocks and boulders in a richly-wooded glen, as beautiful in parts as Dovedale.

The rivers, indeed, which come down on all sides from Dartmoor, are the glory of Devonshire. Beside the Teign, there is the Dart itself, one head-stream of which rises near the well-known prison at Prince Town, with the Taw, Tavy, Avon, Erme, Plym, and streamlets innumerable.

Travellers in favourable weather will do well to cross Dartmoor by the coach-road, from Moreton Hampstead to Tavistock, past the big, gloomy prison, appropriately placed in the very wildest and most desolate part of the whole region. Or, as we did, making Okehampton their headquarters, they may pass on by train by way of Lidford. The railway is carried in places at a great height, on the open edge of the moor, which it curiously fringes: it seems essentially a holiday line; there is no hurry, and the traveller, as he passes along, may leisurely survey the frowning heights above, or the fair valley below, according to his choice.

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Lidford station being reached, we left the train, and found ourselves in an unfinished-looking spot, with little outwardly to attract. Having, however, received directions how to proceed, we crossed a farmyard, where some cattle with stupendous horns looked and lowed at us in a manner trying to the nerves, then, emerging near a river bank, made our way for less than a mile up the stream, on a grassy path beneath overhanging woods, when at a sudden turn up a glen that opened to the main stream, the gleam of waters caught the eye, at the first glance like some tall spirit of the dell, glimmering through the foliage that enshrouded it. A more beautiful cascade is hardly to be seen in England, when Dartmoor has had abundance of rain. At other times they say a friendly miller can turn on a supply of water, else thriftily economised for his needs. Happily, no such artificial arrangement was needful on the occasion of our visit; and we remained long admiring the lovely picture.

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Retracing our steps, we climbed to the village, crossing on our way a commonplace-looking bridge, of a single arch, at a clip in the road, with the sound of a great rush of waters beneath.

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We looked over the parapet, but could discern nothing, owing to the mass of thick shrubs and foliage which overarched the stream, and made our way uphill to the village. Here the traveller is directed to the churchyard, to see a curious epitaph on a watchmaker, in which some rather obvious allusions to human life are borrowed from his craft. Students of mortuary inscriptions are thankful often for small mercies in the way of wit, and are not always careful to note where the humour degenerates into irreverence or worse. We were more sadly interested in the contrast, which we have also observed in other churchyards, between the old style and the new; the simple piety of our fathers and the mimic popery of some of their descendants. Both are very observable at Lidford. One ancient tombstone bore some pathetic lines, beginning,—

But the modern fashion was evidently to put up a flimsy cross, with the letters R.I.P., Requiescat in pace! a prayer for the dead, who are beyond our reach, safe in the endless rest, or in a darkness whither our prayers cannot avail them. We left the scene with the feeling deeper than ever, that there are growing up errors among us, against which it becomes all true men earnestly to strive.

Meanwhile we had learned something about the bridge that we had crossed just before, and the rush of waters below. Returning, therefore, and making application at the house close by, we were conducted down into a rocky gorge, through which rushes the Lid, one of the Dartmoor streams, a tributary of the Tamar. The cliffs, irregular and castellated, are seventy feet high; a narrow, dangerous path is carried along one side of the rock, and the wild foaming waters in the dark, narrow glen carry back the traveller's mind to Switzerland. Certainly there is nothing like "Lidford Bridge" elsewhere in England; the Strid in Bolton Woods may equal it in its rush of waters; but the rocks there lie in the open woodland, and the stream is but a few feet below their summit: here the beetling precipices almost meet above, as at the "Devil's Bridge" in Cardiganshire, and there are weird stories at both places of travellers on horseback who have leaped the bridge unconsciously by night, when broken down, only discovering their peril and their escape on the following day.

From Lidford to Tavistock was an easy ride, and we found this pleasant town a place every way suitable for a Lord's Day rest. Outwardly, the great charm of the locality is the meeting-place between the wildness of Dartmoor and the rich cultivation of the valley; while some walks by the river are of a tranquil and serene beauty, only as it seems to us to be found in England, and to be enjoyed on the day of rest. Perhaps our feeling is in a great measure due to association; but if so, we have to thank association for one of the happiest evenings we have known. Next morning we explored the remains of the Abbey—now put to heterogeneous uses—a public library, a Unitarian Chapel, and a hotel, with sundry ruins in the vicarage garden; then a short railway journey carried us across the Cornish border to Launceston, where a short climb through pretty pleasure grounds to the keep of the old castle on the knoll that rises steeply from the town gave us a fine view, from the bulky range of Dartmoor on the one side, to the craggy outline of the Cornish hills on the other.

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Our object, however, was now to reach the coast; and, as a good test of our pedestrian powers, already pretty well exercised in the course of this charming: tour, we determined to walk over the hills in the direction of the sea, knowing that even if our powers failed, some passing "van" would take us up, and convey us in a primitive fashion to the nearest town. But we persevered, and, when we had accomplished nine or ten miles of an undulating, monotonous road, were rewarded by the first glimpse of the Atlantic, with the cloud shadows lying afar upon the untroubled sapphire; while, though no breeze stirred, there was a sense of freshness in the air that encouraged us to press on to our journey's end. At length we reached it, in a village to name which is to raise in the minds of those who have visited it memories most delightful; while to the multitude it is and will probably remain unknown. We will not call it Trelyon, after the fashion of a popular novelist, who has given us some of the most charming word-pictures of this scenery which our literature contains. Nor is it unkindness to the happy few who already know Boscastle, and one delightful homelike retreat from the world which it contains, to raise the veil a little farther. That it is several miles distant from a railway station, that there is no public conveyance to it but the "vans" already referred to, that gas is a luxury unknown, are points in its favour to those who think, like the Frenchman:

For society may be found at Boscastle—the society of the chosen few. The place itself is unique. Through tiny meadows a streamlet flows swiftly towards the sea, entering a fissure where the hills, swelling upward on either hand, rise to towering cliffs, inclosing a harbour, up which the tide surges restlessly to meet the stream, then as restlessly subsides. Behind the cliff on the western side, up a broad cleft from the brink of the rivulet to the hill-summit, runs the village, inhabited by a hardy, independent, self-contained race of Cornish people, proud of their scenery, as well they may be. The slate cliffs, in endless diversity of craggy pointed form, skirt the sea, which ever chafes against their bases; here and there a little inlet far below shows a surface of smooth white sand, inaccessible from the land, or to be reached only by the surefooted climber, familiar with every step. Broad grassy slopes crown the cliffs, and every turn discloses magnificent views of sea and shore. Our walk along the cliffs to Tintagel, starting from Willapark Point, the headland that rises so grandly to the west of the little bay, was of an interest which perhaps no other coast scene in England can fully match. First, Forrabury Church was passed, with its silent tower; the bells once destined for it lying, according to tradition, close by, at the bottom of the Atlantic. The ship that conveyed them was nearing the port. "Thank God for a fair voyage," said the pilot. "Nay," replied the captain, "thank the ship, the canvas, and the fair wind." It was in vain that the pilot remonstrated; but even while the ship was rounding the point a sudden storm gathered, the vessel was dashed upon the rocky coast, all perished save the pilot, and the bells sinking to the deep tolled solemnly, as if for the fate of those who would not acknowledge God. Still, it is said, when the storm rises high—

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Such is a specimen of the tales told at many a Cornish fireside. As we pass on we feel more and more that we are in the country of legend and song. The rolling uplands that stretch inland, with the deep vales and furzy hollows that intersect them, are renowned as the realm of King Arthur, the hero of British history and fable. Here, on the shore of the Atlantic, he may have gathered his good knights around him, to stand with them against the heathen invader; or it may be that here he was born, according to the legend; while "the great battle of the west," in which the hero disappeared, is said to have been fought at Camelford, in the neighbourhood. Local legends are full of this royal name; and if, as some will have it, King Arthur never existed, the universality of the tradition is all the more remarkable. The impress of his memory and life is everywhere. Of a little cottage maiden who guided us, we ask her name. "Jinnifer," was the reply—an unconscious perpetuation of the name of Guinevere, Arthur's Oueen.

A lovely wooded glen breaks the cliff halfway to Tintagel, at the heal of which the explorer will find a waterfall, in a wild forest ravine, both on a somewhat miniature scale; but in the accessories of rock-hewn walks, with clinging shrubs and mountain spring-flowers, watered by the dashing spray, the dell was perfect. St. Nighton's Keive, or basin, as this romantic nook is called, is a sudden and welcome change from the wild sublimity of the rocks above, and the ceaseless thunder of the Atlantic. But we must reascend; and soon, from our turfy path upon the height we come into full view of a stupendous rock, standing a little way out to sea, the home of myriads of seabirds that circle the rock with weird cries, or, descending in flocks, skim the surface of the waves. They have evidently learned to fear the gun, and to distrust mankind.

Tintagel, now approached, is an irregular village, following the lines and descents of the cliff. The church is on a wind-swept headland to the west, and in its stormiest corner we found the grave and monument of Mr. Douglas Cooke, the first editor of the Saturday Review. It was curious to be reminded of the conflicts of literature at this meeting-place of storms.

Tintagel Castle itself we approached by a path that looked perilous, but was safe enough, descending from the cliff and rising steeply to a promontory or peninsula of slaty rock, on which the ruins stand. These are jagged, time-worn; little plan or order can be traced; such fragments of building as still exist are no doubt of much more recent origin than Arthur's time: the outward glory of the scene is all in the majestic sweep and serried outline of the stupendous cliffs, with the long roll of the sea breaking ceaselessly into billows at their base. The stillness is unbroken, save for this ocean music, with the hoarse cry of sea-birds, and the occasional bleating of the few sheep who pasture here. The sense of isolation becomes at last oppressive, and we gladly retrace our steps to the mainland.

Boscastle remains for a time our home: it is a never-ceasing delight to climb to some nook of the cliffs, east and west, which inclose the little harbour, or to stroll down to the little pier—a trying walk at certain seasons, because of a chemical manure manufactory on the way—or to ramble over the grassy slopes, inhaling the pure breezes of the Atlantic. The Sunday spent in the neighbourhood was one of peculiar delight. Wandering inland, we found a church, in the depths of a wood; the congregation seemed to emerge, we knew not how, from deep bowery lanes and by-paths among the trees; the service was none the less impressive for the singing of birds without and the fragrance of spring blossoms stealing through the open windows. The sermon, too, was appropriate, a tender, practical exhortation to "delight ourselves in God." In the evening of the same day, in the hush of twilight, taking our accustomed path over the cliffs, we came upon a group of people, old and young, who had evidently come thither after an early evening service at one of the chapels: they were holding a prayer-meeting in the rocky nook—singing a hymn as we approached, the burden of which was "Over there," while wistful eyes gazed across the now purple sea, to the splendours which lingered in the west after sunset, as though reminded by those tints of heavenly glory of the land that is very far off. It was good for the stranger to pause by the way, to join in that touching strain, and add his Amen to that Sabbath evening prayer.

Boscastle was so attractive that the rest of a long journey had to be performed in haste. Bodmin, Truro, Redruth, were all rapidly passed, and after climbing Carnbrea, near the latter town, and hearing some of the marvellous stories connected with that giant hill, we took rail for Penzance, anxious at least to visit St. Michael's Mount, the Logan Rock and the Land's End. But what impressed us most, when we reached that last and prettiest of Cornish towns, was the climate. We had believed it spring; but here it was already summer! The last struggle with wintry frosts was over, and the woods and fields were decked with all their wealth of verdure; the air had lost its sharpness, and the rich colouring of every part of the scene, from the golden furze upon the hills to the ruddy lichen on the rocks, seemed to reflect the genial glow. Mount's Bay, still and blue, was wonderful in its contrast with the Atlantic surges that we had just left on the opposite shore. We thought of the words with which Emerson begins one of his lectures: "In this refulgent summer it has been a luxury to live."

St. Michael's Mount, that extraordinary combination, geologically speaking, of granite and clay-slate, remarkable, too, in its correspondence with the much larger Mont St. Michel on the shore of Normandy, is as interesting a place to visit as it is beautiful to look upon. The views from its summit over sea and land are of surpassing loveliness, and to enjoy them to the full it is not necessary to make the hazardous attempt to sit in "St. Michael's Chair," the half, it is said, of an old stone lantern, but overhanging the precipice in a very perilous way. The villagers round the bay will tell you that the archangel himself appears in this "chair" when a storm is raging, and firmly believe that he is the guardian spirit of these seas.

The Logan Rock, to which we next directed our steps, was disappointing in more ways than one: the finest part of the cliff-scenery being the great granite headland, which visitors are apt to pass unnoticed, in searching for the natural curiosity, and in recalling the story of its fall and reinstatement. There are, in fact, many "logan" or logging rocks in granite districts, locally called TolmÊns; one formerly in the parish of Constantine, between Penrhyn and Helston, being larger than this on the coast, though without its magnificent accessories. Their peculiar position is caused by the influence of air and moisture, wearing a fissure in the rock, until a detached upper portion rests only on a small central base. The wonder is in the bigness of the rock thus balanced, and in the evenness of the process of disintegration all around: the vast majority of boulders worn away by such agencies being of course over balanced, so as to fall on one side.

The mechanical restoration of this Logan Rock to its position, and the appliances necessary to keep it in balance, give an artifical air to the whole, and we were glad to turn away to the stupendous cliff scenery, pursuing a path along the rocks to the Land's End, where every point has its old Cornish name, and where the combinations of form and outline, if less imposing than on the northern shore, are still very fine. The granite of which this southern line of coast is composed is more rugged and massive, if less variously picturesque, and the admirer of coast scenery who has explored the two districts—from Boscastle to Tintagel, and from the Logan Rock to the Land's End—has little' more to see or to learn.

The great western promontory has been so often described that we need but refer to our artist's delineation. The low descending promontory, from the great cliff rampart behind, the narrowness of the "neck of land" between "two unbounded seas,"—to adopt the phrase of Charles Wesley's well-known hymn, here written,—the rocky islands near, on which the lighthouse stands, and the ever-chafing restless surge, make up a picture which fills the imagination in many after days.

From this point "the vast expanse of ocean is at all times a grand spectacle; it is terrible when a fierce westerly gale levels before it the whole flow of the sea, driving forward one blinding sheet of foam, even to the summit of the Land's End precipice; but it is yet more solemn in its quieter mood, when, with little wind stirring, the vast billows, propagated from some centre of storms far in the Atlantic, come slowly to break on the rocks in measured cadences of thunder, the very types of enormous power in repose."

But it was now time to turn our thoughts and our course homeward.

Very reluctantly, we left the south of Cornwall unvisited—the Lizard Point, Kynance Cove, and the magnificent harbour of Falmouth, with its flanking castles of Pen-dennis and St. Mawes.

Then there were the great southern towns of Devonshire, with their beauties manifold,—Plymouth and Torquay, with the lovely little watering-places of Teignmouth and Dawlish, and stately Exeter itself. On previous occasions we had visited them all, had spent long dreamy hours in Anstey's Cove, then comparatively unvisited by excursionists, had tenanted humble lodgings at Babbicombe Bay, before the villas were built, and had sailed down the lovely winding Dart to Dartmouth, with its harbour among the hills. The natural beauties are still there, though art has done much of its best or its worst with them since those days. But we must now pass them all by, only in imagination breathing their soft southern airs, or casting hasty glances at one or other of them from the carriage windows of the romantic South Devon Railway. For we have tarried amid the attractions of the far west until the latest possible moment. At six in the morning we leave Penzance; at six in the evening we are in London.

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