206 THE BOOK OF THE OPEN AIR 



Vigilant and alert, cruel-eyed, looking out Thence I turned north along the 



like a cormorant seaward : 



Then, indeed, I rebuked the tame fancy that ? ei sterner Cornish west coast, past 



had possessed me : Moorwinstow, where Hawker's memory 

 Then I knew that the joy of the mountain 



greater than the joy of the valley, guards a hundred legends, grim or 



was 



Allegiance to my roving life." those fatal rocks ; and so I rounded 



It would be difficult to say which is the corner at Hartland and came back 



the greater of the two influences, but by towering Gallantry Bower and 



certainly they are different, and together the colour and blossom of little 



they make up the West. I could not, Clovelley and Ilfracombe where the 



that day, from the top of Dunkery make tourists go, and the line of curt-edged 



out Dartmoor's answering outlines in precipices that bound the moor, until 



the sky to the south. But long before at last my bodily eyes looked down 



one leaves Exmoor those outlines can be upon the sheen of the sea outside 



distinguished, and, gaunter even and Porlock Weir and Dunster, glittering 



more far reaching, they carry the down yonder at my feet. 



moor's influence far away to Plymouth Seen from such a vantage point all this 



and the southern coast. south-west promontory of England pre- 



With that encouragement to far sents itself to the spectator as a whole. 



gazing which a great view gives, I took He sees the robust and virile traits of 



up their course. I watched the melan- it dominating its softer aspects, emerg- 



choly wastes and salient tors of Dart- ing into prominence and authority, and 



moor spread south and west. I saw giving character to the whole tract. 



the genial red of the Devon cliffs turn And in much the same way if he looks 



to grey granite as the need arises of broadly at the record of the West 



withstanding Atlantic breakers, and Country and its people he will note 



the great pale cliffs, with Meva- a spirit of adventurousness and robust 



gissey, Polperro, and many another daring running through it, at variance 



quaint fishing hamlet tucked in their with its supposed easy-going and 



rough embrace, and followed the coast somewhat sleepy character. It is this 



along to its furthest jutting headland, that has marked history. The men 



where even on a summer day like this who for a century carried on a personal 



the slow swell bursts in thunder on and private war with Spain, who set 



the cliff-face. forth in their little ships in ones and 



