312 HOMEWARD BOUND. 



Ilclston Church, and away beyond it, lill we fancied that we 

 could ahnost discern, across the isthmus, the sacred hill of 

 Carnhrea. 



Along tlie Cornish shore we ran, through a sea swarming 

 with sails : an exciting contrast to the loneliness of the wide 

 ocean which we had left and so on to Plymouth Sound. 



The last time I had been on that w^ater, I Avas looking 

 up in awe at Sir Edward Codrington's fleet just home 

 from the battle of Xavarino. Even then, as a mere boy, I 

 was struck by the grand symmetry of that ample basin : the 

 breakwater then unfinished lying across the centre; the 

 heights of Bovisand and Caw^sand. and those again of Mount 

 Batten and Mount Edgecumbe, left and right ; the citadel and 

 the Hoe across the bottom of the Sound, the southern sun 

 full on their walls, with the twin harbours and their forests of 

 masts, winding away into dim distance on each side ; and 

 behind all and above all, the purple range of Dartmoor, with 

 the black rain-clouds crawling along its top. And now, after 

 nearly forty years, the place looked to me even more grand 

 than my recollection had pictured it. The newer fortifications 

 have added to the moral effect of the scene, without takinix 

 away from its physical beauty : and I heard without surprise 

 though not without pride the foreigners express their 

 admiration of this, their first specimen of an English Port. 



We steamed away again, after landing our letters, close past 



