Page:Cornwall (Mitton).djvu/105

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64 CORNWALL beats even the fantastic scenery to the southward of Land's End. The approach is nothing short of lamentable in its dulness. Except for an oasis about half-way across Goonhilly Downs, the wide, flat, dead-alive plateau occupying the heel of Cornwall, there is nothing to note. Even right on to the end the feeling of dismay grow r s. The meek green fields carry one down almost to the shore, for though we have come across a bit of heath en route which recalls how repeatedly we have been told that the Erica vagans grows here and nowhere else, we leave this behind and wind once more between grass fields toward the dreary little cluster of houses called Lizard-town, which looks not unlike a forsaken coast-guard station from the distance. To reach the famous Housel Bay Hotel we must branch off before getting to the town, and fol- lowing a lane which looks as if it led merely to a lighthouse, we come quite suddenly on the build- ing, facing due south in the centre of a little bay. Not until we have passed the hotel and got out to the cliff paths does the surprising interest of the scenery begin to unveil itself, and the orderly sanity of the fields, which vexed our eager souls, is forgotten. On the two horns of