On our return to Truro we took the road by which we came, but on leaving there our road roughly followed the Northern Cornish coast, and at intervals we caught glimpses of the ocean. For some distance we ran through a rough moorland country, although the road was comparatively level and straight. We passed Camelford—which some say is the Camelot of the Arthur legends—only five miles distant from the ruins of Tintagel Castle on the coast, and came early to Launceston, where the clean hospitable-looking White Hart Hotel offered strong inducements to stop for the night. A certain weariness of the flesh, resulting from our run over the last long stretch of the moorland road, was an equally important factor in influencing our action.
Launceston was one of the surprises that we frequently came across—a town that we had never heard of before and doubtless one that an American seldom sees. Yet the massive castle, whose circular keep crowns an eminence overlooking the town, was one of the objects that loomed into view long before we reached the place, and its gloomy grandeur, as we wandered through its ruins in the fading twilight, deeply impressed us. A rude stairway led to the top of the great circular tower, rising high above the summit of the hill, which itself dominates the country, and the view stretching away in every direction was far-reaching and varied. The castle has been gradually falling into ruin for the last six hundred years, but in its palmy days it must have been one of the grimmest and most awe-inspiring of the fortresses in the west country. Scarcely another ruin did we see anywhere more imposing in location and more picturesque in decay. Masses of ivy clung to the crumbling walls and all around spread a beautiful park, with soft, velvety turf interspersed with shrubbery and bright dashes of color from numerous well cared-for flower beds.
Not less unique is St. Steven's church, the like of which is not to be found elsewhere in Britain. Its walls are covered with a network of fine carving, vine and flower running riot in stone, and they told us that this was done by English stonecutters, though nearly all such carving on the cathedrals was the work of artisans from the continent. The Launceston church is pointed to as an evidence that English workmen could have done quite as well had they been given the chance. Aside from this wonderful carving, which covers almost every stone of the exterior, the church is an imposing one and has lately been restored to its pristine magnificence. Launceston had its abbey, too, but this has long since disappeared, and all that now remains of it is the finely carved Norman doorway built into the entrance of the White Hart Hotel.
Our next day's run was short, covering only forty-two miles between Launceston and Exeter. For about half the distance the road runs along the edge of Dartmoor, the greatest of English moorlands. A motor trip of two or three days through the moor itself would be time well spent, for it abounds in romantic scenery. The road which we followed is a good one, though broken into numerous steep hills, but a part of the way we might as well have been traveling through a tunnel so far as seeing the country was concerned. A large proportion of the fences are made of earth piled up four or five feet high, and on the top of this ridge are planted the hedges, generally reaching three or four feet higher. There were times when we could catch only an occasional glimpse of the landscape, and if such fences were everywhere in England they would be a serious deterrent upon motoring. Fortunately, they prevail in a comparatively small section, for we did not find them outside of Cornwall and Devon. This experience served to impress on us how much we lost when the English landscapes were hidden—that the vistas which flitted past us as we hurried along were among the pleasantest features of our journey. It was little short of distressing to have mud fences shut from view some of the most fascinating country through which we passed.
The greatest part of the day we spent in Exeter. The Rougemont Hotel, where we stopped for the night, is spacious and comfortable, and a series of stained-glass windows at the head of the great staircase tells the story of Richard Ill's connection with Exeter; how, according to Shakespeare's play, the Rougemont of Exeter recalled to the king's superstitious mind an ancient prophecy of his defeat at the hands of Richmond, later Henry VII.
Leaving Exeter early, we planned to reach Bath in the evening—only eighty-one miles over an almost perfect road—not a very long run so far as actual distance is concerned, but entirely too long considering the places of unusual interest that lie along the way. We passed through the little town of Wellington, noted chiefly for giving his title to the Iron Duke, and it commemorates its great namesake by a lofty column reared on one of the adjacent hills.
No town in Britain has an ecclesiastical history more important than Glastonbury, whose tradition stretches back to the very beginning of Christianity in the Island. Legend has it that St. Joseph of Arimathea, who begged the body of Christ and buried it, came here in the year 63 and was the founder of the abbey. He brought with him, tradition says, the Holy Grail; and a thorn-tree staff which he planted in the abbey grounds became a splendid tree, revered for many centuries as the Holy Thorn. The original tree has vanished, though there is a circumstantial story that it was standing in the time of Cromwell and that a Puritan who undertook to cut it down as savoring of idolatry had an eye put out by a flying chip and was dangerously wounded by his axe-head flying off and striking him. With its awe-inspiring traditions—for which, fortunately, proof was not required—it is not strange that Glastonbury for many centuries was the greatest and most powerful ecclesiastical establishment in the Kingdom. The buildings at one time covered sixty acres, and many hundreds of monks and dignitaries exerted influence on temporal as well as ecclesiastical affairs. It is rather significant that it passed through the Norman Conquest unscathed; not even the greedy conquerors dared invade the sanctity of Glastonbury Abbey. The revenue at that time is said to have been about fifty thousand pounds yearly and the value of a pound then would equal twenty-five to fifty of our American dollars. However much the Normans respected the place, its sanctity had no terrors for the rapacious Henry VIII. The rich revenues appealed too strongly and he made a clean sweep, hanging the mitered abbot and two of his monks on the top of Tor Hill. The Abbey is the traditional burial-place of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, and four of the Saxon kings sleep in unmarked graves within its precincts. Considering its once vast extent, the remaining ruins are scanty, although enough is left to show how imposing and elaborate it must have been in its palmy days. And there are few places in the Kingdom where one is so impressed with the spirit of the ancient order of things as when surrounded by the crumbling walls of Glastonbury Abbey.
