Owing to the fact that Bude Bay is on a coast facing sheer west, the quarter of the wildest winds, the waves drive in with great force sometimes. The thunder of the surf on the shore may be heard like the deep pedals of an organ and all the air is hazed by the flying scud. To see the sun drop like glowing copper straight into the sea, behind ridge upon ridge of the "wild white horses" is most impressive. The strata of the rocks on the shore are most weirdly bent and contorted. It is difficult to conceive the state of convulsion which twisted them into the shape of innumerable up-ended triangles, one within the other, fitting like puzzle-boxes, or bent them right back like gigantic hooks. There is one great layer of rock which looks like the back of a whale, half a-wash, with all the ribs showing. Bude is peculiar in the fact that it has all sorts of scenery combined in one place. The high downs covered with short grass lie north and south, and between them is the bay covered at high tide but showing a fine stretch of easily accessible hard sand at low water; while, as may be gathered, the rock scenery is well worth seeing. Here, as at so many places along this coast there are excellent golf-links, in this case in the very centre of the straggling town on the "Summerleaze." There is a second golf-links on the heights above Wrangle Point, belonging to the old Falcon Hotel by the bridge. About two miles inland is Stratton, the scene of the victory of Sir Bevil Grenville over the Roundheads, a victory which was within an ace of being a defeat. The Earl of Stamford had marched into Cornwall, with forces of about seven thousand men, and camped at Stratton, where he was attacked by Sir Bevil with half the number and defeated. Grenville came of a famous Cornish family which numbered among its members Sir Richard, who with his little ship the _Revenge_, tackled the great Spanish galleons and managed to damage many of them before he fell mortally wounded as is recorded in Tennyson's much-quoted poem! Further north still, the very last place of note on the Cornish coast, is Morwenstow, visited by hundreds of people because of its association with its one-time vicar, the Rev. Robert Stephen Hawker, a muscular Christian of a peculiarly pungent personality. His generosity and kindliness toward his fellow-men was unstinting, but he was withal full to the brim of eccentricity. He married while still a youth of twenty at the University, his godmother, who was twenty-one years his senior, and they lived happily together until her death in extreme old age. Hawker believed in ghosts and was exceedingly superstitious; there are many curious stories still current as to his doings, and the life of him by the notable novelist Baring-Gould is well worth reading. VII THE INLETS OF THE SOUTH COAST