Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/336

 330 THE CORNWALL COAST follows leagues and leagues of iron cliffs towering far higher than any others in the west, and point after point of noble jagged promontories, past Boscastle, set back a little out of sight, past Bude and Cambeak, and rugged Morwenstow, till it rests at last on the dim line of Hartland Point, full 40 miles away as a bird would fly. It is idle to compare any other view in the West Country with this either in extent or grandeur, or in the immediate beauty of its surroundings. It is little known, and rarely visited by any but by shepherds. Yet it is more easy of access from Wadebridge than the Land's End or the Logan from Penzance ; and there will be some to whom its very loneliness is an additional attraction. However this may be, those who leave Cornwall without visiting Pentire have missed its noblest scenery." It is a large claim that Mr. Norway makes, but surely it is justified. The parts of Cornwall that are best known are naturally those that come within range of the more popular resorts — Newquay, Bude, Penzance, St. Ives, Falmouth — while eastern Cornwall is accessible from Plymouth. But this stretch of coast is near no popular centre, and, with the exception of Tintagel and Boscastle, it remains neglected. If Padstow or Polzeath, Portquin or Port Isaac, ever become more popular, visitors will flock to these grand cliifs and marvel that they never came here before. There is a remarkable triple entrenchment on the eastern Horn of Pentire, above its stark, rugged caverns ; but those who came here and fortified this noble headland, in far-back days of which we can only dream, came not in search of the picturesque as we do, nor