64 OUR HOLIDAY IN CORNWALL 



time at every station, and reached our destination 

 at the appointed minute. 



On crossing the Tamar at Saltash we left the 

 kingdom of England and entered the Duchy of 

 Cornwall. I am told that the Cornish people 

 regard the peninsula, or island of Cornwall, as 

 a country quite independent of such a foreign 

 country as England, and that England is far more 

 dependent on Cornwall for its general wealth and 

 prosperity than Cornwall is on England. Cornwall 

 can do very well without England, but England 

 without Cornwall must soon come to grief. 



What an interesting country it is that one gets 

 peeps of from the Tamar to Penzance ! We fancy 

 ourselves to be riding along the backbone of the 

 peninsula, for rising slowly up the steep inclines 

 and swiftly down the declines, we are surprised 

 now and then to come upon a broad river like the 

 Fovvey at Lostwithiel, when we thought we were 

 high up on the hills above. From Saltash to 

 Truro the scenery is surely as enchanting as any 

 to be found in Great Britain ; the hills are covered 

 with green foliage, the vales and dales always 

 changing, and the train skipping along viaducts 

 suspended high in the air from one point to 

 another. The railway passes high above, and 

 looks down upon the city and cathedral of Truro, 

 and thenceforward the scenery changes to open 

 and bleak moorland, dotted here and there with 

 the tall chimneys and accumulated piles of slag 

 from the numerous mines now silent and smokeless, 



