Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/685

 11, 1864.] three-quarters of a mile away, where a ship was wrecked last year, he had until lately been picking up many things which were washed ashore. We should like to have gone there, for part of the ship was still left jammed in between the rocks, but we had not time. After breakfast we started for Tintagel, over Willapark Point. We soon came to a slate quarry called Grover, worked on the edge of the cliff, the chains by which the slate is raised are actually fastened to the bottom of the sea; and going to the edge and looking over, it is a wonderful sight, the rocks are perfectly black, and as broken and wild as can be well imagined.

And, high above, I heard them blast

The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap

And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff.

For about two miles we kept along the coast, and then descended into the Trevillet valley, the path to the right leads down to the sea, and well deserves a visit. The other way leads up to the mill, which many years ago was painted by Creswick, and called the Valley Mill. It is spoilt now, a new house is being built, and the ivy-covered gable is gone. A little higher up the valley we came to a footbridge, where we sat to have our lunch, and gathered the ripe blackberries which hung in rich clusters on the hedges. Half a mile farther up is St. Knighton’s Keeve, where the stream comes tumbling down through a chasm into a circular keeve or basin. The path used to be very difficult, but the furze and nettles have been cut down, and now the approach is easy enough. Here in a little cell, it is said, a hermit once lived, who used to offer up prayers for the safety of those exposed to the dangers of this rugged coast. Some years after his death, two old ladies, unknown in the neighbourhood, took up their abode in the same miserable place; after a while one died, and then the other pined away, and soon followed her to the grave. The prettiest part of the valley is lower down, by the mill, and here the lover of the picturesque will linger. From the waterfall we took the road direct to Trevena, and found tolerable accommodation at the Stuart Wortley Arms, where we left our knapsacks, and went to explore the Castle.

We will not weary the reader with descriptions which have been already given in AS we sat amidst the ruins of the royal fortress, with its broken arches and dark walls, imagination called up the stories of King Arthur and his stalwart comrades, when the castle echoed with the songs of merriment, or the wild music and the clang of arms called the gallant knights to the battle.

The next morning we had to say good-bye to the sea, and very reluctantly we turned our steps inland towards the Delabole quarries. As we took the last peep, the broad expanse of ocean looked blue and very calm; it was

We passed several mountains of slate, belonging to lesser quarries in the neighbourhood, and after a walk of four miles reached the little village of Pengelley, near which are the three pits of Delabole. These are now worked by the Plymouth Slate Company. We went to the edge of one of the stages, and looked down a depth of two or three hundred feet into the busy beehive below, where men are engaged breaking up the slate, ready to be put into trucks and hoisted to the surface. They had just had a good blast at the pit nearest Pengelley when we arrived; the men contract for the work, and sometimes, when they come upon a good layer of slate, can each earn 10l. or more a month, which is considered very good. But this is hardly a compensation for the danger of the employment: some of the accidents here have been very frightful, when a chain has given way, and a huge block of slate has descended upon the workmen beneath, without time for escape. When obtained, the slate is planed and finished for cisterns, billiard-tables, mantelpieces, and tombstones; the finest slate is found here, and immense slabs are seen lying on the side of the rubbish heaps waiting for an order. After this, we went to see the slate split: some workmen are very clever at this, they seem to know where to give the hit, and can split it into pieces of any thickness. According to the different sizes of the slate, different names are given by the men, queens, princesses, duchesses, &c. About five hundred men are employed; they live chiefly in the little village close by. There are three tests of slate by which you can tell its worth—its sound should be clear, its colour light blue, and its feel hard and rough, not smooth and oily. All the way to Camelford we could tell that we were in the neighbourhood of quarries, by the slate paths across the fields, and the slate slabs instead of palings round the little cottages. Two miles to the left is a place called Slaughter Bridge, said to be the spot where King Arthur received his death-wound when “Modred raised revolt.”

At Camelford we took the omnibus to Bodmin, and had a distant view of Brown Willy and Rowter, two desolate looking hills of twelve or thirteen hundred feet high; a little farther on a valley opened between two rocks, from which our driver told us “years ago the devil took a flying leap out of Cornwall into