t is usually difficult
to reach; in many parts the breakers dash full against the granite
precipices, and there are often outlying reefs of cruel jagged crag.
Noting the deadly features of the coast, we can understand how even
Bude attained its name of Haven, however bitterly ironic that name may
often have sounded. But it is a grand coast and mainland confronting
the wild, unresting sea, and the traditional atmosphere of the
district is wholly in keeping with its physical features. Rumours of
bygone peoples float around us--of Saxon and Celt and of earlier
people still; the legends that they fostered are repeated to us, the
footsteps of old saints may be traced, together with secular records
of pirate and smuggler. There are memories of glorious and gracious
personages, as well as of those whose villainy at least was
picturesque; there are sad memorials of shipwreck, death, and
heartbreak. There are stretches of undulating upland, with fragrant
turf, gorse, bracken; valleys almost too low for sunlight to enter,
the wild and tortuous mouths of rapid streams, patches of meadow and
pasture, with lonely cottages and isolated church-towns. Different
from the southern coast in aspect, more desolate, less fertile, there
is yet a special charm even in the desolation, a stimulating appeal in
the solitude, and a marvellous purity in the bracing winds that blow,
sometimes with ruthless violence, from a thousand leagues of ocean.

INDEX

Acland, Sir T., 358

Addison, 109

Agnes, St., 356, 360

Aitken, Rev. R., 223

Anthony-in-Meneage, 110-11

Anthony-in-Roseland, 79

Antony, East, 27

Armada, Spanish, 20, 25-7

_Armorel of Lyonesse_, 198, 208

Arthur, King, 335-46

Arundel _family_, 292-9

Arundel, John, 86-7, 270, 362

Arwenack, 86, 88

Athelstan, 184-5, 197

Atwell, Martin, 69

Austell, St., 66

Baring-Gould, Rev. S., 36, 51, 326, 365, 379

Bassets, 254-6

Bedruthan Steps, 293-4

_Bencoolen_, Wreck of the, 355

Benson, Dr., 103, 210

Besant, Sir W., 198

Bessie's Cove, 159

Beville, Sir J., 40

Bligh, Capt., 110

Bochym, 138

Bodinnick, 51

Bodmin, 319

Bodmin Moors, 301

Bodrigan, 73

Boleigh, 184

Bolster, 260-1

Bonaparte, Lucien, 180

Borlase, Dr., 115, 223, 242

Borrow, George, 180

Boscastle, 347-51

Bossiney