A FEW DAYS' BOTANISING IN CORNWALL. 



" If we rfatl Niituie's Itouk with ;i serious eye, 

 Kot a leaf btit some precious tlioiight on it will lie ; 

 And 'tis good to fjo forth amoii-; scenes such as these, 

 Among nuisic ami sunshine, and flowers and trees, 

 If 'twere only to waken tlie deep love that springs 

 At the sight of all lovely and innocent things." 



T is now several years ago that 

 tno ilower-lovins ladies set off 

 'from London, witli little luggage 

 and by no means heavy purses, to 

 Ij 'explore certain districts in Cornwall 

 VjL? for their botanical treasures. As their 

 [\ii( N adventures were manifold, and their 

 deeds at times non-heroic, we will snp- 

 ' press their names, and call them by the 

 , coloiu' of their gowns — Uove, and Mauve. 

 Their first entrance into Cornwall was 

 to be solaced by the sight of familiar 

 ■ faces, and after leaving the railway station 

 , at Plymouth, and proceeding in a hired 

 vehicle twenty miles, or so, ti.ey reached 

 a little town, lying snugly under its own 

 cliffs at the month of a river, and fiicing 

 a twin town on the other side of the em- 

 bouchure ; the two called East and West 

 Looe. Our tourists felt some dissatisfac- 

 tion with their driver, as he hurried the 

 horses ah mg a street so narrow, that there 

 seemed no possibility of any otlier carriage parsing, and even 

 a donkey coming up from the coivst laden with seaweed, had 

 to go upon the footpath while the Plymouth cab dashed by. 

 They concluded that he was taking them by some ingenious 

 back ^^•ay to their iViend's house, and great was their asto- 

 nishment when tliey learned that this was the principal street 

 of East Looe. 



A warm welcome awaited them. They found the table 

 spread for a Cornisli tea, a meal scarcely equalled by the most 

 elaborate dinner served in any other county. Upon the 

 table stood a good-sized fruit pie, and crystal bowl full of 

 cream of the kind characterised as Devonshire cream, and 

 procured of first-rate quality in Cornwall. Cold fowl and 

 cold pork were there too, and cakes of every description. 

 But not till the tea was poured out did the essentially Cornish 

 dish a|)pcar ; then, at the critical moment when the steaming 

 tea was ])laced beside them, a tureen was brought in, and 

 beneath the cover was the piping hot potato cake. 

 How shall I describe the excellence of that dish ? If my 



readers like Yorkshire pudding, they have advanced one step 

 towarils tlie power of ai'preeiating potato cake. All kinds of 

 good things arc contained in it : eggs, and butter, and cur- 

 rants, and potatoes. It has all the lightness of a Sally Lunn, 

 and all the tastiness of an Ash-Wednesday fritter. French 

 cooks would be delighted with it I'or a third-course dish, only 

 it is beyond their reach ; it can only he made by a Cornish 

 cook, and of Cornish ])otatoes. Moreover, not every Cornish 

 cook can make it, for our friends, Dove and Mauve, soon 

 learned to associate the appearance of a benevolent old lady 

 with this dish. She was the widow of a sea captain, and a 

 kind of general grandmother of East Looe, and when she 

 came to spend the afternoon, she would lay aside her knitting 

 at four o'clock and go to wash her hands, and tlien at five 

 o'clock appeared a potato cake. 



Dove laid an innocent little trap for Granny Pengarrct, by 

 which she found out tlie truth of this matter. " What a deli- 

 cious cake this is, granny," she said ; and granny replied 

 modestly, " Well, my dear, when the eggs and butter are 

 fresh, and the potatoes fine, and all are rightly mixed, and 

 baked quickly, it isn't any credit to the cook tliat the cake is 

 good." " Then you make these cakes, granny ? " said Dove, 

 proud of having divined the secret ; and granny said, " It is 

 a pleasure to me, my dccar; I have few ^^•ays of being useful 

 now." 



" Granny" also lived in tlie main street of East Looe. She 

 had a narrow strip of a house, three stories high, with a 

 grand view of the river and harljour from the attics, while all 

 the other windows looked into the narrow street. Mauve sug- 

 gested, when visiting her, that the look-out was rather dull. 

 " Not now, my dccar," replied granny. " It used to be a little 

 so, hut now they have opened a butcher's shop opjiosite it is 

 very cbeerful. I can see everybody buy their meat for dinner 

 while I sit .and knit." 



Ere granny finished s]ie.aking, a servant gh'l rushed tumul- 

 tuouslv into' the room. "It's the pilchards, missis!" she 

 cxelaimed ; " the boats is in, and they arc selling 'cm on both 

 qu.ays. Shall 'un go and buy some ';■ '' 



"Yes, Honor, go and buy sixpcnnyworth ; they shall be 

 marinaded, and you shall have some I'or sup|ier when yoti do 

 come back from your triji, my dears." 



" What is marinading, gr.anny ?" asked Dove. 



" It is baking the pilchards all night, and then putting b.iy 

 leaves, and vinegar, and spices. Strangers like them best 

 marinaded, but I prefer them as fair maids." 



•' Are fair maids pilchards too?" 



" Yes, my deear, certainly ; fair maids arc plain salted, and 

 \vhen boiled they are very nice. I seldom take my breakfast 



