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 LOOE AND POLPERRO 31 The crowds that flock to the average watering- place may leave their toils behind them, but they apparently wish to carry their amusements. Even the jaded mill-hand asks for the congested variety entertainments of Blackpool or of Douglas, rather than for the solitudes of shore and woodland. In moments of pessimism one may fear that the very capacity of peaceful enjoyment is being killed, and that ceaseless grinding work destroys the power of resting. When the ordinary tourist visits places of peaceful solitariness he usually does so in crowds that rifle and ravish the sacredness of this solitude ; he ruthlessly desecrates that which he does not understand ; he never learns its secrets ; the most commonplace of public parks would have responded fully to his needs and their gratifica- tion. But the West has long been a resort of that wiser, certainly better endowed, minority that seeks for direct personal contact with Nature, face to face, and not merely as seen through the glass windows of huge pavilions or from the seats of fashion-haunted promenades. Therefore the majority of Western watering-places are not yet spoiled ; their physical features have often assisted to preserve them. They have not lost the quaint simplicity of their parochialism, to become national if not cosmopolitan. Constant intercourse with even the most sober of visitors must take some- thing from the provincialism, the cherished tradi- tions and local customs, the personal peculiarities and dialect. But there is still a good deal left ; there is still the possibility of reaching Nature in her inmost sanctuaries, and at the same time winning some of those elusive and shy confidences that are the charm of locality. In this sense Looe, or rather the two Looes, are