Cornwall (England : County) -- Description and travel
The fields are in many places simply covered with stones. How the corn
finds room to grow is a miracle. The constant winds try everything
growing very severely, and there is a look of bare poverty about the
land. It is often compared with Ireland, and called the Connemara of
England; but in some ways, especially in the amount of stones, it is
more like bits of Galloway. Stone is employed for objects which
elsewhere are usually made of wood. The stiles are broad slabs of
granite, the gate-posts are granite blocks, and as we have seen, the
very "hedges" are stone. The name Zennor suggests gauntness of a Puritan
kind. The whole of the great hill above Zennor is covered with immense
and, if one may use such an expression, dignified stones. Away up among
them is another huge quoit or cromlech, probably marking the
burial-place of some chieftain long before Arthur's date. It is a grand
place for burial too, austere and solemn, overlooking the ocean, and
with a limitless horizon. The man who was buried here must have had
imagination if he chose the spot for himself beforehand. The tearing
winds shriek over the ragged furze and mighty stones, and howl in the
crevices of the monument above him; the great black clouds roll in, and
the whole country is drowned in a blinding squall of hail; the sky
clears, patches of brilliant blue appear, and the sun strikes down on
the dripping stones, while all the little rills and streams race down
the soaking ground and over the roads in the wayward manner of Cornish
streams; and still the old chieftain sleeps on, lulled by all the music
of Nature in this wild outpost which England thrusts into the sea.
The road surface round here is tolerably good. Much of it is granite,
and the tiny crystals glitter in the sun like diamonds, and quickly dry
up after the whirlwinds of rain that pitilessly descend in winter time.
The road winds along around the desolate hills, keeping mostly rather
far inland, and it passes by acres of rough land covered with the
wayward gorse, where small, fox-red cows take an interest in the
stranger. In spring primroses grow to enormous sizes, with leaves as
large as those of foxgloves; and the foxgloves in their turn decorate
the hedges, rearing their tall spikes of magenta-coloured bells in
profusion. Pigs abound, and great grey sheep-dogs, of the Old English
bobtail breed, come shyly to make friends. And everywhere in
irrepressible masses is the furze, the quick-burning fuel of the poor, a
godsend here where wood is so precious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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