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Devon the Duchy is not more than 46 miles in breadth, and at its
narrowest it is only six miles. Both the most western and the most
southern points in England are to be found in Cornwall, at Land's End
and the Lizard. The climate is delightfully equable, without extremes
of heat or cold, but it is naturally humid, as Cornwall has to bear
the first brunt of rain-storms that drive in from the Atlantic. To
find a fitting point of departure for a pilgrimage round these coasts
we have to step into Devonshire. In some sense Plymouth is the gateway
of Cornwall, and a very appropriate gateway it is. Of the three
rivers that give Plymouth its noble estuary the Lynher is purely
Cornish, and the Tamar is as much Cornish as it is Devonian, except
that it rises just over the Devon border. The population of Plymouth,
Stonehouse, and Devonport is so largely Cornish that the three towns,
which we conveniently but incorrectly group under the name of
Plymouth, have been styled the "capital of Cornwall"; and certainly no
single Cornish town contains so many Cornish folk as have gathered
together to assist and share in the prosperity of this Devonshire
locality. The majority of visitors to the Duchy approach it by this
avenue, and the old stage-coaches followed very much the same route as
the present railway, but conveyed their passengers to Saltash by ferry
instead of by bridge. The rail is the successor of an immemorial
trackway that linked Devon and Cornwall in days when they had not been
subdivided. Even in times long before shires had been dreamed of, it
is certain that the river must have been an important tribal boundary.
There was a British track by which Cornish tin was carried eastward to
a point of nearer contact with the Continent; that point may have been
the Isle of Wight, but was more probably Thanet. This track passed the
Tamar at Saltash and ran to Liskeard, where it joined a tributary path
from the Fosseway; after which junction it crossed the Bodmin Moors
and pushed on to Truro and Mount's Bay. This has been spoken of as a
Roman road, but it was certainly not of Roman construction, being far
earlier in date. There is no proof that the Legions ever entered
Cornwall at all, and such Roman remains as Cornwall has yielded may be
attributed to British residents of Roman culture and taste. Cornwall
was never conquered, in the sense of occupation, either by Roman or
Teuton; and the conquest of the Ivernians, or Iberians, by t