Polwheverill Creek runs up on the right to the granite-quarrying village of Constantine, but the main Helford River continues past the oyster-beds of Merthen to the hamlet of Gweek, where its farthest point is reached.
MAWGAN-IN-MENEAGE.
Returning round its southern shores, Mawgan-in-Meneage stands amid great swelling green hills, wooded in rich parklike manner, at the head of a tiny inlet. The St. Mawgan who has given his name to this place, and to Mawgan-in-Pydar, on the north coast of Cornwall, was the sixth-century Welshman, Maucan (the name means "master"), who was head of a religious collegiate establishment in Pembrokeshire, and there instructed many of the missionaries to Ireland and Cornwall, who afterwards became sainted, in the copious hagiology of the West.
Ecclesiastically, this village of Mawgan is "in Kerrier," but it is generally styled "in Meneage": the second syllable pronounced as in the word "vague."
But "village" is only a conventional term, as applied here. There are but half a dozen scattered cottages to keep company with the large and beautiful church.
HAGIOSCOPE, MAWGAN-IN-MENEAGE.
I sketched this view of Mawgan church in "soft weather," with rain oozing down—not falling—a way it has in Cornwall. And a rustic came to the stable opposite and opened the door, and said, "Come forth, my son." I expected a boy to come out in reply to that somewhat Biblical and patriarchal invitation, but it was a horse! So, just as in Brittany, where you only get the "vraie Breton bretonnante" far away from the towns, you find your characteristic expressions in the remote nooks and corners of Cornwall.