Page:Cornwall (Salmon).djvu/281

 TINTAGEL— TOL-PEDN-PENWITH office; a cross possibly dating from the ninth century stands near. The Cornish chough may still be seen among the cliffs of this grand coast, but with increasing rarity. Unhappily they are too often shot, or caught and caged. Local tradition formerly said that Arthur haunted these scenes of his lifetime in the form of a chough— in Wales the bird was a raven ; and it was believed that he would some day return to his true likeness and lead his countrymen to victory. Cervantes mentions this in Don Quixotr. It is possible to believe almost anything of romance or tradition in a scene like this. The poet Hawker, in his powerful fragment " The Quest of the San- greal," has painted Tintagel with a touch that even Tennyson has not surpassed: — " There stood Dundagel, throned ; and the great sea Lay, a strong vassal, at his master's gate, And Hke a drunken giant sobbed in sleep ". But the sea is more often like lord than vassal. Tol-pedn-penivith (lo m. S.W. of Penzance) is the name of the southern point of the Land's End headland ; the name means the " holed headland of Penwith," and refers to a deep fissure or hole in the rock, a kind of funnel, the lower opening of which can be explored at low tide. This funnel is about loo ft. in depth. The magnificence of the granite masses at this point is very striking ; and every boulder, every little cove, every out-lying rock, has its Q 241