The coast scene near Landwithiel[3] was of so varied and interesting a character that I was irresistibly led on to examine it very fully in detail. My sojourn therefore at Mr. Habbakuk Sheepshanks', of the "Ship-Aground'; (whom I have formerly introduced to the reader) was prolonged to an extent which sometimes surprised myself, and the various local stories and traditions of times past, with which mine host, especially when under the exciting influence of an extra glass of grog, almost nightly entertained me, essentially contributed to while away the time. The spot too was so secluded--comparatively unknown: there is something inseparable from a temperament like mine in so deep a retirement. To its inhabitants the world and its busy haunts are but as a tale; yet man in all his varieties is essentially the same. Many a day have I wandered along the sea-beaten coast--dining perhaps on a headland stretching far into the sea--or in some secluded little bay, by the side of a gushing spring; the ocean spread out before me--what object is so boundlessly or beautifully inspiring? It may be mighty fine philosophy for those who have passed through the current of life in one untroubled and unvaried stream, and who have no perception or idea of the deeper (if I may so express it) feelings of our nature, to call all this romance; but those who have tasted bitterly of the ills of this world, and who look back upon times past as doth the traveller in the desert on viewing from afar the oasis he has left--upon their transitory existence as a troubled dream--these can feel how deeply solitude amidst the sublimities of Nature will heal the troubled mind. Is there not a responsive chord in the hearts of such of my readers? Early one morning, soon after my arrival at Landwithiel, I proceeded over land to a distant part of the parish, to visit a ruin situated in a wild and remote spot, which possessed some degree of historical interest. In the evening I decided on returning by the coast in order to vary my route. The day had been clear and sultry, and though the wind blew fresh from the southward, yet its refreshing influence seemed exhausted by the intense heat of the sun. In my progress along shore, though it was getting late, and I was somewhat fatigued, I could not resist the opportunity of exploring a sort of natural opening or cove in a part of the coast where the cliffs were unusually precipitous; affording the geologist the highest gratification; you were reminded indeed of the flat surface of a stone wall in many parts, which effect the regular stratification of the rocks contributed to produce; and it required no great stretch of fancy to imagine it one vast fortification, with loop-holes at regular intervals--at a short distance from seaward certainly it would be difficult to divest a stranger of the idea that it was something artificial. Two high points of rock contracting at their extremities in