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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.