een centuries ago! What is the scene that we look on now?--A
solitude where the decaying works of man, and the enduring works of
Nature appear mingled in beauty together. The grass grows high and
luxuriant, where the rushes were strewn over the floor of Arthur's
banqueting hall. Sheep are cropping the fresh pasture, within the walls
which once echoed to the sweetest songs, or rang to the clash of the
stoutest swords of ancient England! About the fortress nothing remains
unchanged, but the sun which at evening still brightens it in its weak
old age with the same glory that shone over its lusty youth; the sea
that rolls and dashes, as at first, against its foundation rocks; and
the wild Cornish country outspread on either side of it, as desolately
and as magnificently as ever.

The grandeur of the scenery at Tintagel, the romantic interest of the
old British traditions connected with the castle, might well have
delayed us many hours on these solitary heights; but we had other
places still to visit, other and far different legends still to gossip
over. Descending the cliff while the day gave us ample time to wander at
our will; we strolled away inland to track the scene of a new romance as
far as the waterfall called Nighton's Keive.

* * * * *

A walk of little more than half-a-mile brings us to the entrance of a
valley, bounded on either side by high, gently-sloping hills, with a
small stream running through its centre, fed by the waterfall of which
we are in search. We now follow a footpath a few hundred yards, pass by
a mill, and looking up the valley, see one compact mass of vegetation
entirely filling it to its remotest corners, and not leaving the
slightest vestige of a path, the merest patch of clear ground, visible
in any direction, far or near.

It seems as if all the foliage which ought to have grown on the Cornish
moorlands, had been mischievously crammed into this place, within the
narrow limits of one Cornish valley. Weeds, ferns, brambles, bushes, and
young trees, are flourishing together here, thickly intertwined in every
possible position, in triumphant security from any invasion of bill-hook
or axe. You win every step of your way through this miniature forest of
vegetation, by the labour of your arms and the weight of your body.
Tangled branches and thorny bushes press against you in front and
behind, meet over your head, knock off your cap, flap in your face,
twist abou