left Torquay yesterday, and arrived here in the evening, after a
hilly but nice run, and lunching at Plymouth. Of course, a lot of
nonsense was talked about Sir Francis Drake. One almost forgets _what_
the old boy did, except to play bowls or something; but I have a way of
seeming to know things, for which I deserve more credit than anyone
(save you) would guess. When they were not jabbering about him at lunch,
it was about the _Mayflower_, which apparently sailed from Plymouth for
the purpose of supplying Americans with ancestors. I never met any
Americans yet, except the kind who boast of having begun as shoeblacks,
whose great-great-grand-parents didn't cross in the _Mayflower_. It must
have been a huge ship, or else a lot of the ancestors went in the
steerage, or were stewards or stowaways.

There was a ferry, getting from Devonshire into Cornwall, so of course
we just missed a boat and had to wait half an hour. I was dying to go to
sleep, but the others were as chirpy as possible, gabbling Cornish
legends. When I say the "others," I mean Sir Lionel and Ellaline
Lethbridge. I didn't know any legends, but I made up several on the spur
of the moment, much more exciting than theirs, and that pleased Sir
Lionel, as he is a Cornishman. Heavens, how I did take it out of myself
admiring his native land when we'd got across that ferry! Said the
scenery was quite different from that of Devonshire, at the first go
off; and I'm not sure there _weren't_ differences. The road coming
toward Launceston really was romantic; rock-walled part of the way, with
a lot of pink and yellow lichen; and again, fine open spaces with
distant blue downs against a sky which looked, as I remarked to Sir
Lionel, as if the gods had poured a libation of golden wine over it. Not
bad, that, was it? I believe we passed an Arthurian battle-field, which
naturally interested him immensely, therefore _had_ to interest poor me!
He seems to think there actually _was_ an Arthur, and was quite pleased
with me for saying that all the Cornish names of places rang with
romance like fairy bells sounding from under the sea--perhaps from
Atlantis. Anyhow, they're a relief after such Devonshire horrors as
Meavy and Hoo Meavy, which are like the lisping of babies. Sir Lionel
thought the "derivations" of such names an absorbing subject! But living
in the East so long has made him quixotically patriotic.

Here and there we passed a whole villageful of white-washed cotta