Page:Cornwall (Mitton).djvu/46

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

POPULAR IDEAS OF CORNWALL 21 the constant moisture of the air in Cornwall makes the grass grow richly. At midday you will see the bairns running along the street munching great pasties a Cornish specialty made with bits of meat and onion and potato in a cover of paste, and the pasty seems to be the school -child's usual dinner. Another specialty of Cornwall are the yellow saffron cakes, so unappetizing in appearance to those unused to them. Of the cream there is hardly need to speak. As one ardent admirer of the Duchy remarked : " Of course, Devonshire cream is Cornish cream, only they've managed to get all the credit for it." In spite of this testimony it seems to me there is a difference, the Cornish variety is at once more fluid and more lumpy, but this may be an erroneous opinion based on insufficient experience. Of history Cornwall has little. The brightest jewel in her coronet is that she stood unfailingly for the Stuarts in the Civil Wars, and many a church holds a letter of thanks from King Charles I. Except for the struggles of that epoch, the Duchy has little to tell of what may be called his- torical times, but before them much. It is in the misty ages before the Norman Conquest that history was made in Cornwall, and every now and