A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon : $b being an introduction to Devon and CornwallBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon : $b being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Devon (England)
"The women are solid and vigorous in appearance, with
fully-developed breasts and hips, in marked contrast with the
first type, but resembling women in Central and Western France.
Indeed, the people of this type generally recall a certain
French type, grave, self-possessed, deliberate in movement,
capable and reliable in character. I mention these two types
because they seem to me to represent the two oldest races of
Cornwall, or, indeed, of England. The first corresponds to
the British neolithic man, who held sway in England before
the so-called Celts arrived, and who probably belonged to the
so-called Iberian race; in pictures of Spanish women of the best
period, indeed, and in some parts of modern Spain, we may still
see the same type. The second corresponds to the more powerful,
and as his remains show, the more cultured and æsthetic Celt,
who came from France and Belgium.... When these types of
individual are combined, the results are often very attractive.
We then meet with what is practically a third type: large,
dignified, handsome people, distinguished from the Anglo-Saxon
not only by their prominent noses and well-formed chins, but
also by their unaffected grace and refinement of manner. In many
a little out-of-the-world Cornish farm I have met with the men
of this type, and admired the distinction of their appearance
and bearing, their natural instinctive courtesy, their kindly
hospitality. It was surely of such men that Queen Elizabeth
thought when she asserted that all Cornishmen are courtiers.
"I do not wish to insist too strongly on these types which
blend into one another, and may even be found in the same
family. The Anglo-Saxon stranger, who has yet had no time to
distinguish them, and who comes, let us say, from a typically
English county like Lancashire, still finds much that is
unfamiliar in the people he meets. They strike him as rather
a dark race, lithe in movement, and their hands and feet are
small. Their hair has a tendency to curl, and their complexions,
even those of the men, are often incomparable. The last
character is due to the extremely moist climate of Cornwall,
swept on both sides by the sea-laden Atlantic. More than by
this, however, the stranger accustomed to the heavy, awkward
ways of the Anglo-Saxon clodhopper will be struck by the bright,
independent intelligence and faculty of speech which he finds
here. No disguise can cover the rusticity of the English rustic;
on Cornish roads one may often meet a carman whose clear-cut
face, bushy moustache, and general bearing might easily add
distinction to Pall Mall."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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