28 CORNWALL the tide-line, or rests, bowing quaintly, on some grassy hummock near a pool. But these things can only be studied in leisured intimacy from a slow-going boat passing in the spring-time, when the blackthorn frosts the hedges and starry-eyed primroses grow to monstrous size. The train which flashes us across the bridge reveals none of them ! In the first glimpse of our first Cornish " town " we catch sight of a steep winding street, which serves as full introduction, for in many a Cornish town shall we see the same again ! And then, even as the train runs in the cuttings of Cornish soil, we realize almost at once the key-note of Cornwall the extraordinary richness of growth. Ivy bursts over every wall in a perfect cataract ; ferns and small wild things fill every crevice with their grasping roots, and even in winter there is no thinness or barrenness to be felt for evergreens flourish amazingly. The wooded reaches of the hills dispel the idea that Cornwall is everywhere a treeless land, and the constant dampness of its climate is shown by the lichen which clings to every branch and twig like hoar-frost, so that in winter the whole mass has a curious shot-green- and-brown effect.
