which saves eggs. I bought a lump, being curious to test the quality. Nets, jackets, and heavy hose were hung out to dry; and on every doorstep sat women and girls knitting dark blue stockings and Guernsey frocks. You will have ample time to observe all these and other matters, for the road is too steep for any but a creeping pace; and you will enjoy a draught from the gushing stream at the top.

Then away to the left again, and across a rural bit of country till a descent through a grove of trees brings you to a charming prospect-the church andvillage of Talland. The churchyard has sunk pathways, as at Antony, with steps leading to the higher ground; and sitting on the topmost of these I ate my piece of cake, and surveyed the scene around. The hills here come rounding down in a half-circle, which forms Talland Bay, leaving a breadth of gently undulating fields, with here and there a cottage, a farm-house, and the village among the trees and clumps that adorn the slopes. On one side, "Old Ocean's everlasting voice" kept up a playful murmur; on the other, the shouts and laughter of haymakers, cries to the horses, and smacking of whips came softened to the ear

"Sounds of far people, mingling with the fall

Of waters, and the busy hum of bees,

And larks in air, and throstles in the trees

Thrill the moist air with murmurs musical:

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While cottage smoke goes drifting on the breeze,
And sunny clouds are floating over all."

The tower stands detached from the church; and, as elsewhere, Time screens the walls with ivy to conceal the slow progress of decay. Talk to the rustics about here, and get them to show you the contents of their pockets. You will find, in some instances, a little stick of the

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mountain-ash, which they carry with them to ward off witchcraft. One need not go to Africa for fetishism.

The rocks on the beach contain some fine specimens of the green and red crystalline veins; and in the western cliffs an experienced eye may detect the remains of fossil fish. A broad, well-kept path girdles the hill in the rear of these cliffs, forming a walk which, except that the sea lay below, reminded me of that along Salisbury Crags at Edinburgh. Here I fell in with a sturdy little fellow about seven years old, trudging along with a dozen pounds of sand in a bag on his head, for which he was to get a halfpenny at Polperro-the distance more than a mile. No sand suitable for floors is to be found nearer; and he comes twice a day to fill his bag, on terms that might conciliate the thriftiest housewife. I gave him a penny, which, though it made him wild with delight, did not produce a relinquishment of his burden. He only trotted on a little faster, telling me it was fair-time.

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A glorious bit of walk is this path, creeping gradually up the flank of the hill, round its seaward front, then gradually down again. All praise to those who constructed and still maintain it! Once round the bend and you see Polperro, a village built in a deep rocky inlet, which narrows into a picturesque ravine. you were surprised by Looe, this will surprise you still more. Such a strange assemblage of houses, crowded into the narrow space; such queer little landing-places; such narrow streets, with stray crags peeping up here and there among the gables; the inner port; the stream splashing through; the fretted hollows and caves in the cliffs, all come into a picture which, were it on the other side of the Channel, would attract

a host of visitors. I sat down on the grass above the coast-guard station to view it in detail, for it was too rare to be left in a hurry. Polperro is "a little fischar towne with a peere," says Leland; and the description is just as true now as when he wrote it.

Here lives Mr. Couch, a naturalist, of whom Cornwall may be proud. It was he who discovered in the cliffs of slate, trap, and limestone, a few miles to the east and west, those fossil remains which illustrate the Silurian era of Sir Roderick Murchison. Corals, bones, fishes, and fragments of rough skin are singularly abundant, and are met with in places at the very top of the hills. The cliff under the signal-station is described as "literally blackened with them." But if a practised eye be essential for their discovery, still more is it to distinguish their character and species.

Before descending, observe the large claret-coloured and blue patches in the slate, and take a look towards Fowey, for thither lies your route. All around here you see the hills similarly steep and abrupt, from four hundred to five hundred feet high, with deep, narrow coombs between, some prettily wooded and watered by little brooks. They terminate in the sea in lofty cliffs. Then a few minutes will take you down into the village, and back into the medieval ages: rude architecture, streets narrow as alleys, quays not so wide as the pavement in the Strand, strange names, and people of a distinct national feature. Frequently did I fancy myself out of England while in Cornwall; and any one able to use his eyes may well be pardoned for the illusion. The little town was trying to be merry with its annual fair; but, as it seemed to me, with no

more success than those ancestors of ours who, as Froissart describes, "enjoyed themselves sadly."

To the meteorologist there is something especially interesting about Polperro, as the systematic researches made of late on the climate of Europe show it to be the place where, in England, plants first awaken from their winter torpor. In the early months of the year it is some weeks in advance of the north of Italy, and agrees with Naples, varying only with the temper of the Cornish winter. This forwardness holds till the end of March. In April the conditions are equal; and in the subsequent months the advantage is on the other side, the Cornish summer being comparatively cool, till the mild winter comes and restores the balance.

You will be tempted to pause again on the brow of the opposite cliff for a reverse view of the picture. Going on again you soon find the coast to be wilder and ruggeder than in Devonshire; no path at all in many places, and the ground so rough and tangled that progress becomes a toilsome struggle. I gave it up at the first opening, about two miles from Polperro, and steered across the fields for the nearest lane. An old fisherman, going in the same direction, wished to know if I had "lost myself;" and, without further preliminary, plunged into an account of an adventure that once befel him and two others, and introduced them to a French prison for a couple of years, with a taste of the "noir cachot" whenever they were unruly. That black-hole seemed to have left a most uncomfortable impression on his mind. "But for all that," he said, "I learned to parly-voo a bit," and off he went into a glib string of phrases, made up of local Cornish terms and imperfect recollections of his French education. He begged for

twopence when we got to the hill-top; and, pointing to a farm-house, said, "I don't know what you've got to sell, but there's a young widow lives yonder, and she'll be sure to buy something if you call." My disclaimer of pedlery availed nothing: he knew better.

The lanes again; and not without views over land and water. A boy, driving a cart, overtook me; he was going my way for a couple of miles, and offered a seat. I accepted; and found him to be another specimen of the primitive character of the neighbourhood. He lived at Polperro, was fourteen years old, and had never been to any other town than Looe, though he had seen Fowey from a distance. His first visit to Looe was an event to be remembered, and he still thought it a wonderful place. He hoped some day to go to Plymouth; and then-perhaps he would "go for a sailor." Had been to school, could read and write, and "do sums;" and among all the boys he knew, there were but few who could not do the same. He was an intelligent boy of his class. Some others, whom I fell in with afterwards, fully confirmed the School Inspector's Reports as to the dense ignorance on some subjects prevailing in certain parts of Cornwall.

Higher ground and wider view soon after I left the cart. There is the church of Lansalloes; then Lanteglos; there Fowey, on the farther shore of the estuary, backed by what seems a bold, dark ridge. Presently an old carved stone cross on the left, mounted on a pedestal, over a fountain-something Swiss-like; and from thence you descend to Polruan, which has, what seems inevitable in these coast towns, a street too steep to be ascended or descended without inconvenience. I could not help noticing the shop-fronts and shutters, painted