8 BRITISH MOSSES. 



telling us that the mosses have had their siesta, and are awake again in the cool 

 damp air. 



Now, if we wish to know what these valleys are like, we must go far west into 

 North Devon and wild Cornwall. 



" And so, Mr. Rubric, you really are going into Cornwall," said an old lady 

 once to a clergyman of whom she had heard the astounding intelligence that he 

 was going to leave the quiet cathedral town, and take a living there. She had 

 just heard, too, of that rash experiment of sending a bishop to New Zealand, and 

 she compared the two things in her mind, and said with a sigh, " Well, I suppose 

 it is better than New Zealand I"' And such, perhaps, is the feeling of half 

 England towards the western peninsula. 



With how many inlanders have we gone over the Cornish moors, and how often 

 have we marked the struggle between truth and politeness when they have been 

 asked " if it wasn't glorious I" To be sure, they could hardly keep their eyes open 

 for the wind, and joerhaps had just recovered from a peppering of hail, and the 

 question was not quite fair under all the circumstances. But a Cornish moor is 

 glorious, nevertheless. 



Wide, apparently without limit to its rolling, bronze and green, and in the 

 autumn as if molten amethysts and rubies had been poured over the ground, with 

 rough gold flung among them for setting, of purple heath and dwarf furze in the 

 sunlight ; heights of granite above, mysterious Druid-circles here and there, 

 wonderful brightness all round the horizon, because the sea is behind the hills, 

 this giving such expanse - and infinity to the view that one almost anywhere else 

 seems cramped and confined without it ; the ground in many places full of pits 

 where the peat has been cut, these in winter filling with water, and the reflected 

 blue of the sky and the chocolate of the bed of the pool mingling together into 

 such sapphire tints and purples that we were told by one who had travelled far and 

 observed much, that never in England had he seen water of such lovely colour ; 

 streams rippling over beds of yellow sand where the trout play, and crimson 

 sheathed rushes glow in their currents ; wide tracts scattered over with the 

 feathers of the cotton grass ; unfathomable bogs or " pixie-pools," whereof 

 horrible tales are told of engulphed horsemen who had the fate of Curtius 

 without his desire for it ; flocks of geese, and herds of red cattle roaming about 

 and staring at you in quiet surprise at the intrusion into their territory. In 



