Kitabı oku: «A Book of Cornwall», sayfa 7

From Callington a pleasing excursion may be made to the Cheesewring; and there is a very comfortable little inn there, where one can tarry and be well fed and cared for.

The height is a thousand feet, and the view thence over the fertile rolling land of Devon and East Cornwall is magnificent, contrasting strikingly with the desolation of the moors to the north. Here is Craddock Moor, taking its name in all probability from that Caradoc who ruled for Arthur in Gallewick, or Gelliwig.

The whole of the neighbourhood has been searched for metal, and the Phœnix Mines employed many hundreds of hands till the blight fell on Cornish tin mining, and they were shut down.

The head of the Cheesewring hill has been enclosed in a stone caer. The common opinion is that every stone composing it was brought up from the bed of the Lynher, but this is almost certainly a fiction. The circles of the Hurlers are near, with a couple of outstanding stones. The legend is that some men were hurling the ball on Sunday, whilst a couple of pipers played to them. As a judgment for desecration of the Lord's-day they were all turned into stone. There are three circles, eleven stones in one, of which all but three have fallen; fourteen in the second, of which nine are standing; twelve in the third, but only five have not fallen. A curious instance of the persistency of tradition may be mentioned in connection with the cairn near the Hurlers and the Cheesewring, in which a gold cup was found a few years ago.

The story long told is that a party were hunting the wild boar in Trewartha Marsh. Whenever a hunter came near the Cheesewring a prophet-by whom an Archdruid is meant-who lived there received him, seated in the stone chair, and offered him to drink out of his golden goblet, and if there were as many as fifty hunters approach, each drank, and the goblet was not emptied. Now on this day of the boar hunt one of those hunting vowed that he would drink the cup dry. So he rode up to the rocks, and there saw the grey Druid holding out his cup. The hunter took the goblet and drank till he could drink no more, and he was so incensed at his failure that he dashed what remained of the wine in the Druid's face, and spurred his horse to ride away with the cup. But the steed plunged over the rocks and fell with his rider, who broke his neck, and as he still clutched the cup he was buried with it.

Immediately outside the rampart of the stone fort above the Cheesewring is a large natural block of granite, hollowed out by the weather into a seat called the Druid's Chair.

Just below the Cheesewring is a rude hut cell or cromlech, formed of large slabs of granite, which is called "Daniel Gumb's House." It was inhabited in the last century by an eccentric individual, who lived there, and brought up a family in a state of primæval savagery. On one of the jambs is inscribed, "D. Gumb, 1735," and on the top of the roofing slab is an incised figure of the diagram of Euclid's 47th proposition in the First Book.

At some little distance is the very fine cromlech called the Trethevy Stone. It is well worth a digression to see, as being, if not the finest, at least the most picturesque in Cornwall.

S. Cleer has a holy well in very good condition, carefully restored. Near it is a cross.

In the parish is the inscribed stone of Doniert, the British king, who was drowned in 872.

From Callington, Calstock-the stock or stockade in the Gelli district on the Tamar-may be visited. The river scenery is of the finest description, rolling coppice and jutting crags, the most beautiful portion being at Morwell.

There are several arsenic works in this district. The mundic (mispickel-arsenic), which was formerly cast aside from the copper mines as worthless, is calcined.

The works consist in the crushing of the rock, it being chewed up by machinery; then the broken stone is gone over by girls, who in an inclined position select that which is profitable, and cast aside the stone without mundic in it. This is then ground and washed, and finally the ground mundic is burnt in large revolving cylinders.

The fumes given off in calcining are condensed in chambers for the purpose, and deposited in a snow-white powder. The arsenic is a heavy substance with a sweetish taste, and is soluble in water. In the process of calcining a large amount of sulphurous acid is given off-a pungent, suffocating gas-and this, escaping through the stack, is so destructive to trees and grass, that it blights the region immediately surrounding. When, however, a stack is of sufficient height the amount of damage done to herbage is greatly reduced, as at Greenhill, where there is a healthy plantation within two hundred yards of the stack.

When the workmen have to scrape out the receivers or condensers, the utmost precaution has to be taken against inhaling the dust of arsenic. The men engaged wear a protection over the mouth and nostrils, which consists in first covering the nostrils with lint, and then tying a folded handkerchief outside this with a corner hanging over the chin. When the arsenic soot has been scraped out of the flues and chambers in which it has condensed, it is packed in barrels.

Every precaution possible is adopted to reduce danger, but with certain winds gases escape in puffs from the furnace doors, which the men designate "smeeches," and these contain arsenic in a vaporised form, which has an extremely irritating effect on the bronchial tubes.

One great protection against arsenical sores is soap and water. Arsenic dust has a tendency to produce sore places about the mouth, the ankles, and the wrists. Moreover, if it be allowed to settle in any of the folds of the flesh it produces a nasty raw. On leaving their work the men are required to bathe and completely cleanse themselves from every particle of the poison that may adhere to them.

As touching inadvertent arsenical poisoning, I will mention a circumstance that may be of use to some of my readers.

When living in the East of England I found my children troubled with obstinate sores, chiefly about the joints. They would not heal. I sent for the local doctor, and he tinkered at them, but instead of mending, the wounds got worse. This went on for many weeks. Suddenly an idea struck me. I had papered some of my rooms with highly æsthetic wall coverings by a certain well-known artist-poet who had a business in wall-papers. I passed my hand over the wall, and found that the colouring matter came off on my hand. At once I drove into the nearest town and submitted the paper to an analyst. He told me that it was charged with sulphuret of arsenic, common orpiment, and that as the glue employed for holding the paint had lost all power, this arsenical dust floated freely in the air. I at once sent my children away, and they had not been from home a week before they began to recover. Of course, all the wall-papers were removed.

About a month later I was in Freiburg, in Baden, and immediately on my arrival called on an old friend, and asked how he and all his were.

"Only fairly well," he replied. "We are all-the young people especially-suffering from sores. Whether it is the food-"

"Or," said I, interrupting him, "the paper."

Then I told him my experience.

"Why," said he, "a neighbour, a German baron, has his children ill in the same way."

At once he ran into the baron's house and told him what I had said. Both proceeded immediately to the public analyst with specimens of the papers from the rooms in which the children slept. The papers were found to be heavily laden with arsenic.

Unhappily, in spite of all precautions, the work at the arsenic mine and manufactory is prejudicial to health. The workers are disabled permanently at an average age of forty. Of deaths in the district, eighty-three per cent. are due to respiratory diseases, while sixty-six per cent. are due to bronchitis alone. For the last three years, out of every hundred deaths among persons of all ages in the parish of Calstock twenty-six have been due to diseases of the respiratory organs, but out of every hundred employés at the arsenic works who have died or become disabled eighty-three deaths have been due to respiratory diseases. It is evident that with such an unusual proportion of one particular disease in the most able-bodied portion of the community there must be a definite existing cause.

No doubt that a very minute amount of arsenic may pass through the nostrils and down the throat, but what is far more prejudicial than that is the sulphurous acid which cannot be excluded by the handkerchief and lint, but passes freely through both. This is extremely irritating to the mucous membrane. But the fact of working for hours with the breathing impeded by the wraps about mouth and nose is probably the leading cause of the mischief.

Suggestions of remedies have been made, but none practical. A mask has been proposed, but this does not answer, as it causes sores, and is difficult to keep clean.

Devon Consols produces about 150 tons of arsenic per month; Gawlor, 100 tons; Greenhill, 50; Coombe, 25; and Devon Friendship about the same. In all about 350 tons per month. This to the workers is worth £10 per ton, or a revenue to the neighbourhood of £42,000 per annum.

In S. Mellion parish, on the Tamar, finely situated, is Pentillie Castle.

The original name of the place was Pillaton, but it was bought by a man of the name of Tillie in the reign of James II., who called it after his own name. He was a self-made man, who was knighted, and not having any right to arms of his own, assumed those of Count Tilly, of the Holy Roman empire. But this came to the ears of the Herald's College, and an inquisition into the matter was made, and Sir James was fined, and his assumed arms were defaced and torn down.

He died in 1712, and by will required his adopted heir, one Woolley, his sister's son, not only to assume his name, but also not to inter his body in the earth, but to set it up in the chair in which he died, in hat, wig, rings, gloves, and his best apparel, shoes and stockings, and surround him with his books and papers, with pen and ink ready; and for the reception of his body to erect a walled chamber on a height, with a room above it in which his portrait was to be hung; and the whole was to be surmounted by a tower and spire.

About two hours before he died Sir James said, "In a couple of years I shall be back again, and unless Woolley has done what I have required, I will resume all again."

Mr. Woolley accordingly erected the tower that still stands above Sir James' vault. But the knight did not return. He crumbled away; moth and worm attacked his feathers and velvets; and after some years nothing was left of him but a mass of bone and dust that had fallen out of the chair.

CHAPTER VIII
CAMELFORD

A rotten borough-Without a church or chapel-of-ease-History of the borough-Contest between the Earl of Darlington and Lord Yarmouth-Brown Willy and Rough Tor-Helborough-S. Itha-Slaughter Bridge-King Arthur-The reason for the creation of the Arthur myth-Geoffrey of Monmouth-The truth about King Arthur-The story of his birth-Damelioc and Tintagel-How it is that he appears in so many places-King Arthur's Hall-The remains of Tintagel-The Cornish chough-Crowdy Marsh-Brown Willy and the beehive cottages on it-Fernworthy-Lord Camelford-His story-Penvose-S. Tudy-Slate monuments-Basil-S. Kew-The Carminows-Helland-A telegram-Battle.

That this little town of a single street should have been a borough and have returned two members to Parliament is a surprise. It is a further surprise to find that it is a town without a church, and that no rector of Lanteglos, two miles distant, should have deemed it a scandal to leave it without even a chapel-of-ease is the greatest surprise of all.

Camelford was invested with the dignity of a borough in 1547, when it was under the control of the Roscarrock family. From them it passed to the Manatons living at Kilworthy, near Tavistock. Then it fell into the hands of an attorney named Phillipps. He parted with his interest to the Duke of Bedford, and he in turn to the Earl of Darlington, afterwards Duke of Cleveland.

The electors were the free burgesses paying scot and lot. "Scot" signifies taxes or rates. But the mayor was the returning officer, and he controlled the election.

In George IV.'s reign there was a warm contest between the Earl of Darlington and Lord Yarmouth. The latter ran up a great building, into which he crowded a number of faggot voters. But the Earl of Darlington possessed rights of search for minerals; so he drove a mine under this structure, and blew it up with gunpowder. The voters hearing what was purposed, ran away in time, and consequently Lord Yarmouth lost the election.

In the election of 1812 each voter received a hundred pounds for his vote. In the election of 1818 the mayor, Matthew Pope, announced his intention of giving the majority to Lord Darlington's nominee, and of turning out of their freeholds all who opposed. The other party had a club called "The Bundle of Sticks," and engaged a chemist named William Hallett, of S. Mary Axe, to manage the election for them, and put £6000 into his hand to distribute among the electors, £400 apiece.

Hanmer and Stewart got ten votes apiece, Milbrook and Maitland thirteen. But there was an appeal, and a new election; but this again led to a petition, and a scandalous story was told of bribery and corruption of the most barefaced description. The election was declared void, and many persons, including Hallett, the chemist, were reported. It was proposed to disfranchise the borough, but George III. died in 1820, and new writs had to be at once issued.

Camelford has no public buildings of interest. It is situate on very high ground, on a wind-blown waste 700 feet above the sea, exposed to furious gales from the Atlantic; but it has this advantage, that it forms headquarters for an excursion to the Bodmin moors, to Brown Willy (1375 feet), and Rough Tor (1250 feet). These tors, though by no means so high as those on Dartmoor, are yet deserving of a visit, on account of their bold outlines, the desolation of the wilderness out of which they rise, and the numerous relics of antiquity strewn over the moors about them.

Of these presently.

The parish church of Camelford, two miles off, is Lanteglos. The dedication is to S. Julitta, but this would seem to have been a rededication, and the true patroness to have been either Jutwara or Jutwell, sister of St. Sidwell, or of Ilut, one of King Brythan's daughters.

There was a royal deer-park there, as the old castle of Helborough, though not occupied, was in the possession of the Duke of Cornwall.

This is really a prehistoric camp of Irish construction, and in the midst of it are the ruins of a chapel to S. Sith or Itha, the Bridget of Munster. Itha had a number of churches ranging from the Padstow estuary to Exeter, showing that this portion of Dumnonia received colonists from the south-west of Ireland. Her name is disguised as Issey and as Teath. She was a remarkable person, as it was she who sent her foster-son Brendan with three ships, manned by thirty in each, on an exploring excursion across the Atlantic to the west, which, possibly, led to the discovery of Madeira in the sixth century. But the truth is so disguised by fable that little certainty can be obtained as to the results of the voyage. Brendan made, in fact, two expeditions; in the first his ships were of wicker, with three coats of leather over the basket frame; the second time, by Itha's advice, he made his boats of timber.

Itha never was herself in Cornwall, her great foundation was Kill-eedy in Limerick, and she was taken as the tutelary saint or patroness of Hy-Conaill, but there were establishments, daughters of the parent house, what the Irish called daltha (i. e. pupil) churches, enjoying much the same rights as the mother house.

Camelford has by some been supposed to be the Gavulford where the last battle was fought between the West Welsh and Athelstan; but there was no reason for his advancing into Cornwall this way, where all was bleak, and by no old road.

There is, however, a Slaughter Bridge on the Camel, but this is taken to have acquired its name from having been the scene of the fight between King Arthur and his rebellious nephew Mordred, circ. 537.

King Arthur is a personage who has had hard measure dealt out to him. That there was such an individual one can hardly doubt. There is a good deal of evidence towards establishing his existence. He was chief king over all the Britons from Cornwall to Strathclyde (i. e. the region from the Firth of Clyde to Cumberland). He was constantly engaged, first in one part, then in another, against the Saxons; but his principal battles were fought in Scotland. He occurs in the Welsh accounts of the saints, but never as a hero, always as a despot and tyrant. His immediate predecessor, Geraint, in like manner is met with, mainly in Cornwall, but also in Wales, where he had a church, and in Herefordshire. He had to keep the frontier against the Saxons.

What played the mischief with Arthur was that Geoffrey of Monmouth, who became bishop of S. Asaph in 1152, published, about 1140, his fabulous History of the Britons, which elevated Arthur into a hero. Geoffrey had an object in view when he wrote this wonderful romance. The period was one in which the Welsh had been horribly maltreated, dispossessed of their lands, their churches taken from them and given to Normans, who neither understood their language nor regarded their traditions. The foreigners had castles planted over the country filled with Norman soldiery, tormenting, plundering, insulting the natives. Poor Wales wept tears of blood. Now Henry I. had received the beautiful Nest, daughter of Rhys, king of South Wales, as a hostage when her father had fallen in battle, and, instead of respecting his trust, he had wronged her in her defenceless condition in a cruel manner, and had by her a son, Robert, who was raised by him to be Duke of Gloucester. To this Robert, half Welsh, Geoffrey dedicated his book, a glorification of the British kings, a book that surrounded the past history of the Welsh with a halo of glory. The book at once seized on the imagination of English and Normans, and a change took place in the way in which the Welsh were regarded. The triumph of the Saxon over the Briton came to be viewed in an entirely new light, as that of brutality over heroic virtue.

Geoffrey succeeded in his object, but he produced bewilderment among chroniclers and historians, and seriously influenced them when they began to write on the history of England.

Now, although all the early portion of Geoffrey's work is a tour de force of pure imagination, yet he was cautious enough as he drew near to historic times, of which records were still extant, to use historic facts and work them into his narrative, so that in the latter portion all is not unadulterated fable; it is a hotch-potch of fact and fiction, with a preponderance of the latter, indeed, but not without some genuine history mixed up with it. The difficulty his book presents now is to discriminate between the false and the true.

As far as can be judged, it is true that Arthur was son of Uthr, who was Pendragon, or chief king of the Britons, and of Igerna, wife of the Duke of Cornwall, whom Geoffrey calls Gorlois, but who is otherwise unknown. Uthr saw Igerna at a court feast, and "continually served her with tit-bits, and sent her golden cups, and bestowed on her all his smiles, and to her addressed his whole discourse." Gorlois naturally objected, and removed his wife into Cornwall, and refused to attend the king when summoned to do so. Uthr now marched against him. The Duke placed Igerna in the cliff-castle of Tintagel, but himself retreated into Damelioc, a strong caer, that remains almost intact, in the parish of S. Kew. Uthr invested Damelioc, and whilst Gorlois was thus hemmed in he went to Tintagel and obtained admission by an artifice. Gorlois was killed in a sally, Damelioc was taken and plundered, and Uthr made Igerna his wife. It was the old story over again of David and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.

The result of this union was a son, Arthur, and a daughter, Ann, who eventually became the wife of Lot, king of Lothian, and mother of Modred.

We have no means of checking this story and saying how much of it is fact and how much false. But it is worth pointing out that in Geoffrey's account there is one significant thing mentioned that looks much like truth. He says that when Uthr was marching against him, Gorlois at once appealed for help from Ireland. Now, considering that all this district was colonised by Irish and half-Irish, this is just what a chieftain of the country would have done, but Geoffrey almost certainly knew nothing of this colonisation. Moreover, he had something to go upon with regard to Damelioc and Tintagel, unless, which is hardly likely, he had lived some time in North-eastern Cornwall, and had seen the earthworks of the former and the fortified headland of the latter, and so was able to use them up in his fabulous tale.

Damelioc is but five or six miles from Tintagel, and in Geoffrey's story they are represented as at no great distance apart. Had Geoffrey been in this part of Cornwall and invented the whole story, he would have been more likely to make Gorlois take refuge in the far stronger and more commanding Helbury, occupying a conical height 700 feet above the sea, than Damelioc, 500 feet, only, on an extensive plateau.

King Arthur has been so laid hold of by the romancers, and his story has been so embellished with astounding flourishes of the imagination, that we are inclined to doubt whether he ever existed, and all the more so because we find legend attached to him and associated with localities alike in Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland. Mr. Skene has shown very good cause for identifying the sites of some of his battles with remains of fortifications in Scotland.⁹ How, then, can we account for his presence in Cornwall and Wales? As a matter of fact, this is perfectly explicable. The Saxons held possession of the whole east of Britain as far as the ridge which runs between Yorkshire and Lancashire; as also the region about Leeds, which latter constituted the kingdom of Elmet. Needwood and Arden forests lay between the rival people. Strathclyde, Cumberland, Rheged, now Lancashire, all Wales, with Powis occupying Shropshire and Cheshire, Gloucester, Bath, and Dumnonia, extending through Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset, formed one great confederation of Britons under a head king. Geraint had previously been head of the confederacy, and we find traces of him accordingly in Cornwall, Somerset, Wales, and at Hereford. The Pendragon, or chief king, had to be at every post along the frontier that was menaced. So with Arthur; he was in Cornwall, indeed, but he was also in Wales, where he is spoken of in the lives of some of the saints, as we have seen, always as a bully. And he was in Scotland opposing the advance of the Bernicians. His father, Uthr, had been head king before him, but Geraint had been chosen as Pendragon on the death of Uthr; Geraint fell in 522, and it is held that Arthur perished in 537. There are several reminiscences of King Arthur in the district. At Slaughter Bridge he is thought to have fallen. Above Camelford rise Dinnevor (Dinnas-vawr), the Great Castle, and King Arthur's Downs, with a singular oblong rectangular structure on it called King Arthur's Hall, the purport of which has not been discovered. At Tintagel are his cups and saucers, hollows in the rock, and his spirit is said to haunt the height as a monstrous white gull wailing over the past glories of Britain. At Killmar is his bed. At Tintagel is Porth-iern, which is either the Iron Port or that of Igerna, Arthur's mother; at Boscastle is Pentargon (Arthur's Head). The Christian name of Gwenivere, his faithless wife, is still by no means rare, as Genefer.

Tintagel is but a fragment. There was anciently a rift with a bridge over it between one court of the castle and the other; but the rift has expanded to a gaping mouth, and rock and wall have fallen to form a mound of débris that now connects the mainland with what, but for this heap, would be an islet.

Tintagel, properly Dun-diogl, the "Safe Castle," has been built of the black slate rock, with shells burnt for lime. A few fragments of wall remain on the mainland, and a few more on the island, where is also the ruin of a little chapel, with its stone altar still in situ. The situation is superb, and were the ruins less ruinous, the scene from the little bay that commands the headland would be hardly surpassed. On Barras Head, opposite, a company are erecting a fashionable modern hotel.

About the cliffs may still be seen the Cornish chough, with its scarlet legs, but the bird is becoming scarce. The south coast of Cornwall is now entirely deserted by the choughs, and the only remaining colonies are found at intervals on the side facing the Atlantic. Unhappily visitors are doing their utmost to get them exterminated by buying the young birds that are caught and offered for sale. But the jackdaws are also driving them, and probably in-and-in breeding is leading to their diminution. The choughs not being migratory birds, and sticking much to the same localities, those who desire to obtain their eggs or rob the nests of the young know exactly which are their haunts year by year.

"The free wild temperament of choughs," writes Mr. A. H. Malan, "will not brook any confinement, but must have absolute liberty and full exercise for their wings. If this is not the case, they generally get an attack of asthma, which usually proves fatal, in their first year.

"Everyone has seen a chough, if only in a museum; and therefore knows the beautiful glossy black of the adult plumage, the long wings crossed over the back and extending beyond the squared tail, the long, slender red legs, and the brilliant red curved bill. But only those who have kept them know their marvellous docility. You may train a falcon to sit on your wrist and come down to the lure, with infinite labour; but to a chough brought up from the nest it comes quite natural to be at one moment flying in high air-it may be hotly pursued by a party of rooks, and leading them a merry dance, since, being long-winged birds, choughs hold the rooks, crows, and jackdaws very cheap, inasmuch as these baser creatures can never come near enough to injure them-and the next to come in at the open window, alight on the table, or jump on one's knee and sit there any length of time, absolutely still, while the head and back are stroked with the hand or a pen, combining the complete confidence of a cat or a dog with the wild freedom of the swallow. No other bird with which I am acquainted thus unites the perfection of tameness with the limitless impetuosity of unreclaimed nature."¹⁰

Brown Willy and Rough Tor are fine hills rising out of really ghastly bogs, Crowdy and Stannon and Rough Tor marshes, worse than anything of the sort on Dartmoor, places to which you hardly desire to consign your worst enemies, always excepting promoters of certain companies. I really should enjoy seeing them flounder there.

Brown Willy (bryn geled=conspicuous hill) has five heads, and these are crowned with cairns.

Owing mainly to the remoteness of this mountain from the habitations of men, and from the mischievous activity of stone quarriers for buildings, there are scattered about this stately five-pointed tor some very interesting relics of antiquity, of an antiquity that goes back to prehistoric times. Among these most interesting of all are the beehive huts that cluster about the granite rocks like the mud nests of swallows.

The whole of the Cornish moors, like Dartmoor, are strewn with prehistoric villages and towns of circular houses, sometimes within rings of rude walling that served as a protection to the settlement, and connected with enclosures for the cattle against wolves. But though in many cases the doorways remain, of upright jambs with a rude lintel of granite thrown across, complete examples roofed in are rare, and those to which we direct attention now are known to very few persons indeed. The huts in question measure internally from six to eight feet in diameter; the walls are composed of moorstones rudely laid in courses, without having been touched by any tool or bedded in mortar. The walls are some two to three feet thick. Sometimes they are formed of two concentric rings of stones set upright in the ground, filled in between with smaller stones, but such huts were never stone-roofed. Beehive-roofed they were, but with their dome formed of oak boughs brought together in the centre, the ends resting on these walls, and the whole thatched with straw or heather or fern. But the stone-built and roofed huts have walls of granite blocks laid in courses, and after five feet they are brought to dome over by the overlapping of the coverers, in the primitive fashion that preceded the invention of the arch.

The roof was thus gathered in about a smoke-hole, which was itself finally closed with a wide, thin granite slab, and thus the whole roof and sides were buried in turf, so that the structure resembled a huge ant-hill. Most of this encasing flesh and skin has gone, and the bone beneath is exposed. Nevertheless; it does remain in some cases, and has been the means of preserving these curious structures. One such, very perfect, is on the river Erme, above Piles Wood, on Dartmoor. Into this it is quite possible to crawl and take refuge from a shower. It is completely watertight, but it is not easy to find, as it is overgrown with dense masses of heather. Another is close to the farmhouse of Fernaker, between Brown Willy and Rough Tor, and it has been spared because the farmer thought it might serve his purpose as a pig-sty or a butter-house. This Fernaker hut is rudely quadrangular, and one side is formed by a great block of granite rising out of the ground five feet and nine feet long. On this basis the house has been built and roofed in the usual manner by five courses of overlapping stones. The highest peak of Brown Willy is occupied by a huge cairn that has never been explored, owing to the expense and labour of working into it. It probably covers some old Cornish king. Immediately below it, some forty feet, are two beehive huts, in very fair condition, one eight feet in diameter, with a second, much smaller, only four feet six inches in diameter, close to it, opposite the door, with an entrance so small that it probably served as a store-chamber. One huge slab of granite, some twelve feet long and six feet wide, forms half the roof of the larger hut; the remainder has fallen in.