e supposed this oratory of St.
Gwythian to be the earliest religious building surviving in Britain,
but it is very difficult to say anything definite. If the little
church really survived as the saint left it its claim would be a good
one, but, like St. Piran's, it is more likely to be a century or two
later. Visitors must not expect to learn much about the saints or
about the monuments from the countryfolk, either here or anywhere else
in Cornwall. With luck they may get a few quaint notions and
superstitions out of the older people; but the younger folk are
educated in a different manner now--universal school systems tend to
uniformity and usually to a deadening of the imagination. For the
legends and traditions of the country-side it is necessary to go to
the guide-books, which are themselves often misleading. If a traveller
were to go through Cornwall compiling a book that should contain
solely what he saw and heard, it would be something quite different
from the ordinary handbook, and those who only know the Duchy by
reading about it would be chiefly struck by its omissions. The people,
here as elsewhere, no longer care much for the traditions of their
forefathers; and the delightful literary works that belong to
topography are the result and the supply of a culture in which the
ordinary men and women of the localities have small share. The visitor
should carry the best literary guide he can procure with him,
otherwise he is likely to learn little of the country's lore and its
antiquities--unless now and then he applies to a clergyman or perhaps
an intelligent schoolmaster. The days of oral tradition have passed
for ever. We need not complain when we remember that written
literature is a result of this decease.

CHAPTER XIII

FROM HAYLE TO PERRAN

A good road runs from Hayle to Gwythian, skirting the Phillack towans,
and then passes onward to Portreath. For the most part it keeps near
the sea, so that the cyclist need not feel he is losing everything
worth seeing; but the pedestrian, if he does not mind a few rough
places, will do better still by taking the cliff path. Camborne and
Redruth, lying some miles inland, are not likely to tempt the
traveller, unless he be a mining expert intent on studying newest
methods, or unless he be a lover of Rugby football, of which, in the
proper season, he might see some good games. Cornwall, having deserted
hurling for the more modern development of the ball game, h