the sports described have led me to some of the wildest and weirdest spots of west cornwall. there are few tracts in england more rugged than the northern part of the peninsula that lies between the land’s end and st ives. it is possible to travel across the moors from crobben hill to chapel cairn brea without setting foot on cultivated ground. it is a boulder-strewn waste, void of trees, where the grey of the granite mingles in spring and autumn with the gold of the gorse that, with heather and bracken, clothes the undulating surface.
to the lover of nature the wild aspect of these breezy uplands is not without its charms; but the glory of the promontory is the ocean in which it is set. the great rampart of cliffs that holds back the atlantic is broken here and there by beaches of white sand or minute shells, or by coves into which fall the trout-streams that rise in the granite hills above. along the tangled valleys they water, many an interesting picture arrests the eye; but whether it be a holy well, an old mill, a grove, a rustic bridge or fishing-hamlet, all is in tender miniature, like the streams themselves or the modest hills where they bubble to the light.
in these valleys bird-life is rich. on a spit of sand you may chance on the footprints of an otter, whose harbour by day is some rocky holt along the cliffs; where the blackthorns are densest you may come across a badger’s earth, and see the paths he has trodden in going to and fro. this creature is very plentiful—as plentiful indeed as the hare is scarce. generally he shares the same earth with the fox. on the north coast the seal shows no sign of decrease; thanks to its tireless vigilance, and the inaccessible caves it frequents.
these surviving mammals add to the attractions of a coast and countryside over which broods the silence of a mysterious past. the fascination which these creatures have for me dates from boyhood, when i once caught a glimpse of a badger stealing over a cairn in the grey of early dawn; and the earthstopper, wandering with dog and lantern over the moors, presents a picture that has often appealed to me.
if the descriptions, however crude, serve to awaken old associations in some readers, or to excite the interest of those who have never visited the sunny “land of the three shores”; above all, if the sketch of the earthstopper helps to preserve the memory of a master of his craft, my hopes will be fully realised.
rosmorran, sidcup.
