TWO WEEKS IN THE WEST.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19162, 19 November 1927, Page 13

TWO WEEKS IN THE WEST.

11.-THE CORNISH COAST.

(sracuLur warm* fo» tr> run.)

[By Hilda M. Harrop.]

The peculiar advantage of Lydford, on Dartmoor, is that its scenery is so varied. If you are tired of the moors, or. more likely, if the weather is too boisterous to make a walk there pleasant, you may enjoy a ramble in tho beautiful Lydford Gorge, which to a New Zenlunder's eye lacks only tree ferns to bo perfect. The creek—river, I should say!-runs so deep down between its narrow banks that in places you can hardly see the water, though you can always hear it.

Or you may go into the beautiful fourteenth century parish with its carved pews aud screen, and the chaste simplicity of its stone walls. Or you may wnlk across the moor to a neighbouring valley where at the end of a beech wood nestles tho little Aorman church of Low Trenchard, tho stronghold of tho Baring-Goulds. This church contains the finest examples of old brasses that I have yet seen. And then, if you will, you may continue your walk past the charming old thatched cottages of Coryton by lanes and fields and moor to Brent Tor, which has a little solid rock church on its summit, exposed to all the winds that blow. And at the Brent Tor Inn 1 you may have n real Devonshire tea ■ of "'splits'' and strawberry jam and clotted cream; and then such is the quality of the air, though you have walked a good ten miles already, you will think nothing of the remaining five miles that will bring s>ou to.Lydford again. Though you will by no means have exhausted the charms of Dartmoor in a week, still it is sufficient to give you a very fair idea of tho country, and you will be ready to move on, by way of Launceston with its interesting old ruined castle and lovely gardens, to North Cornwall. For years tho words S'on a farm in Cornwall" have conjured up a delightful picturo in my mmd, and I hardily dared hopo that the reality would bo equal to my dreams, but it was! Our farm /was one of a cluster of tiny farms nestling together as though for protection from the stormy blasts to form the quaint little village of Treligga—so small that its one and only shop is merely tho front room of one of the cottages, and its stock consists of cigarettes and chocolates and, of course, postcards! Picture it: the road slopes down, clown, down, to the cliffs overhanging the deep Atlantic. From afar you may see the gaunt chapel of the Bible Christians, but only when you are right on it do you see the village. The cottages—there aro only twenty of, them—are all of grey stone, with mossed slate roofs giving an air of peace and solidarity. AH around are green fields with cows and sheep and pigs—the inevitable pig—l have never seen so many as there are in Cornwall; nice gentlemanly pigs, not such as live in sties, but serene mountains of pork that go rooting about in the fields and the lanes—and the Cornish bacon certainly justifies this method of treatment! But ,iust now the green meadows are relieved by the gold of the harvest 'fields. Everywhere these pocket-hand-kerchief fields ar© yielding their harvest of oats or barley, a sight just as moving in England as in those vast Canterbury paddocks. Beyond the cultivated land are the commons, now purple with heather and yellow with gorse, and boyond that is the sea, dashing and foaming around tho rugged cliffs, for this is a wild and rocky coast even in summer weather, and it must be forbidding indeed in winter storms. But at low tide there is a beach; and once you have clambered down the slippery rocks, you may enjoy to the full the pleasures of surfing, though the bathing is as unsophisticated as the rest of the village, and the rockß are your only dressing-room. For this is primitive Cornwall. If you want piers and hands and bathing-machines you may go to Torquay or Ilfracombe. But you will miss the delights of the simple life and the joys of contrast. When you desire the society of your fellows you may walk to Trebarwith Strand, and from there it is only two miles further to Tintagcl, home of romance. Everything there speaks of King Arthur, ana, of course, you must climb up to the ruins of King Arthur's Oastle, and you must go into King Arthur's Hall and see the pictures portraying scenes at that Court of long ago, and gaze at the Round Table, known to you so long in story. And from Tintagel a bus will'take you further up the coast to Boscastle, that quaint little fishing village which straggles uncertainly up a long, long hill, but if you persevere, and there are lovely cottage gardens to cheer you on your way, at the top you have a beautiful view Tight over the village and the fishing harbour and the cliffs to the open sea. Yes, Cornwall is a name to conjure with. May it ever remain unspoiled!

We should be a little bewildered by Mr Beverley Nichols's acquaintance with" celebrities, an exchange says of his new book, "Sixty-One," if we did not remember that most of his friends were friends of an hour, waylaid for interviews: In the beginning we find him on a terraee at Cannes, drinking cocktails "yellow ai the sunlight'' with Senorita de Alvarer, a graceful lady whom J suspect Mr Nichols of holding in something more than ordinary esteem. Prom Cannes he steps across to the Bits bar in Paris, where he rattles lemon and ice and erftß crisp potato chips with Michael Axlen. We find him later in Ebury street, at No. 121, lunching, on an omelette, with the venerable little pink and white George Moore, not Jailing to remind him that he has a rival in the form of Mr Noel Coward, a few doors lower ■down the street. Whereat George Moore beamed. "Ebury street will soon be quite famous," he said. Mr NichoU has dined in Gray's Inn with Eddie Marsh, he has taken breakfast —there was a sole and coffee, and tulips on the table—with Mr Lloyd George in Cheyne Walk; he has rattled over the rails at breakneck speed from Paris to Calaisagain taking nourishment —with tiny Marie Tempest, imbibed more cocktails—this time the kind with cherries—with Mr Hugh Walpole in Piccadilly, sat for a film picture with Miss Rebeeea West, tea'd in a cheap tea shop with Sean O'Casey, who would evidently have preferred a more exalted invitation: he has paid a visit to the Zoo with Mr P. G. Wodehonse, and he has gazed over the "blue blazing Mediterranean" from the very chair in which Mr Locke works. He has listened to Melba in Venice, and consumed a "curiously unpleasant form of teacake" with little Miss Ellen Wilkinson, M.P.. at. the House of Commons. And so ad infinitum.

back, hut it makes the position hopeless for others. (Through Robertson and Mullens, Melbourne.) A NAMELESS AUSTRALIAN. An Unofficial Bose. By Mary Marlowe. OoUlns. Rupert Brooke's phrase aptly describes the nameless young Australian girl who was adopted into an English county family. Stephen Lee was a third son, and as there seemed no chance of his inheriting the family estates, he took his capital and went to Australia. There he bought a country property and married a woman ten years older than himself. They had no children, so when their maid, Fanny, had a child, they adopted her and brought her up as their own. The fact that she had no knowledge of her real parentage is the keynote of the rather complicated plot. Really, there are two plots, but though they are connected they are badly Knit together* (Through Robertson and Mullent, Melbourne.) t