FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   >>  
parish yields none, the climate is too cold, only the fine dainty fruits of whortles and blackberries." One of the pleasantest of tales for winter nights is given by Westcote himself in his introductory chapters, where he speaks of the air of Devon as "very healthy, temperate, sweet, and pure," and giving long life to the inhabitants, more particularly in the good old times, when men were content to live temperately and frugally, and did not weaken themselves with delicacies, but subsisted on the bare sustenance afforded by the earth. Indeed, in the most ancient times they lived on bark and roots, and on a certain "confection," of which if they took a small quantity no larger than a bean they neither hungered nor thirsted for a long while afterwards--so, at least, Diodorus Siculus and Dio Nicaeus have affirmed, and we can therefore only suppose, in the face of such authority, that the recipe is long since lost, and that the habits of Devonshire men have certainly changed since the days when they lived a hundred and twenty years. But that must have been before the Phoenicians came to Britain, for they are certainly reputed to have brought the secret of clotted (or clouted) cream with them, and to have landed in Cornwall and Devon with their scald-pans with them, so that the degeneration of the Damnonii in the matter of delicacies is of very ancient date. I cannot pass from an account of the wonders of Devon without repeating Miss Celia Fiennes's description of a "ffowle" (as she calls it) which lives on the island of Lundy, and which was formerly the property of her grandfather, Lord Saye and Sele, and "yt lives partly in the water and partly out, and soe may be called an amphibious Creature." She does not claim to have seen it herself, for all her wanderings up and down England a-horseback--which was, by the way, sufficient of an adventure for a young lady in the seventeenth century--but she is none the less detailed in her description. This queer bird has one foot like a turkey, and one like a goose, and its habit of laying its eggs is "in a place the sun shines on, and sets it soe exactly upright on the small end, and there it remains until taken up, and all the art and skill of persons cannot set it up soe again to abide." She does not give the name of this strange "ffowle," but Lundy is no unfitting habitat for an amphibious creature which is at least as rare as the Dodo. Stories of Henry de Tracy, who
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   >>  



Top keywords:
ancient
 

delicacies

 

partly

 
amphibious
 
description
 
ffowle
 

degeneration

 

called

 

matter

 

Damnonii


Creature
 
property
 

repeating

 

island

 

wonders

 

account

 

Fiennes

 

grandfather

 

persons

 

upright


remains
 

Stories

 

strange

 
unfitting
 

habitat

 
creature
 
seventeenth
 

century

 

adventure

 

sufficient


wanderings

 

England

 
horseback
 
detailed
 

laying

 
shines
 

turkey

 

content

 

giving

 

inhabitants


temperately

 

frugally

 
afforded
 

Indeed

 
sustenance
 
weaken
 

subsisted

 

temperate

 
healthy
 

whortles