2 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



In this wilderness flung between sea and land we 

 are on the borders of a country steeped in historic 

 associations and in legends far older. Beyond the 

 sand dunes and scarcely more than a dozen miles 

 inland lies the site of Avalon of Arthurian legend ; 

 whither according to William of Malmesbury Joseph 

 of Arimathea is said to have come bearing the Holy 

 Grail, where he planted his pilgrim's staff which 

 grew into the Holy Thorn, and where he founded the 

 first Christian Church of Britain. It is a land where 

 almost every site is connected not alone with history 

 but with deeds long previous to its record, where 

 the plains have been historic battle fields, but where 

 the hills are moulded by pre-historic camps, or by 

 mounds which have been places of sepulture after 

 battle for the successive waves of invaders who 

 came hither to take the rich land beyond before 

 existing nations were named. Full many a heart 

 the Danube to the Severn gave before the poet 

 sang. Over these mud-flats Saxons and Danes, 

 Romans and Celts, and a hundred unnamed peoples 

 before them have sailed their keels on the flowing 

 tide. Yet they lie before us now in the morning 

 sun a lone expanse without mark of man on them, 

 untamed and untoiled by any record, churning the 

 salt tides twice daily and echoing the plaintive 

 notes of the wild sea-fowl even as they did in the 

 days when the fourth dynasty still reigned in 

 Egypt. 



Towards low water the tides, following ever the 

 same channels in their retreat, have worn the mud 

 into furrows and groins. Some are but a hand's 

 breadth, others are wide like miniature rivers, others 

 also are both deep and wide, for they are the mouths 



