Peeps at Many Lands: England

THROUGH WESSEX – III

Wessex has many beautiful and peaceful country towns, and of these an admirable example may be seen in Dorchester, the county town of Dorsetshire, a place often called the capital of Wessex. This very ancient town has seen the whole of the history of Wessex, the land of the West Saxons. Before a Saxon settled in the country it was a splendid city, the home of Roman nobles and the camp of Roman soldiery. The Romans knew it as Durnovaria, and they filled it with houses and adorned it with temples and theatres. To this day Roman remains are being discovered. An old house is pulled down and the foundations cleared away, and in the work the diggers come upon pavements which were laid down by Roman hands and trodden by Roman feet. Very often pottery and ornaments are discovered, and now and again a more striking relic still – the pick strikes into a Roman grave and lays bare a manly form which once marched with the legions, or the figure of a Roman maiden, whose ornaments still lie among her mortal remains.

After the Romans came the Saxons, and Dorchester was still a place of much importance. In 1003, Sweyn of Denmark plundered and burned the place and overthrew the walls in revenge for the massacre of Danes on St. Brice's Day in the previous year. But the town was soon rebuilt, and its history runs on through the centuries with outbreaks of fire and plague and records of martyrdoms, until war visited it again during the great Civil War. Dorchester stood against Charles, and saw some severe skirmishing in its neighbourhood, but no fighting of any great importance. But the reign of Charles's second son, James II., saw Dorchester leap into terrible prominence, for here, on September 3, 1685, was opened the "Bloody Assize." Sedgemoor had been fought, the rebellion of Monmouth had been broken, and the infamous Judge Jeffreys had come down to the West to strike terror into the hearts of all who had wished well to Monmouth.

More than 300 people had been crammed into Dorchester Gaol, and nearly all of them were condemned to death. Of these, some forty or fifty were executed, and others condemned to be whipped in terribly severe fashion, and to suffer long terms of imprisonment and heavy fines.

After the Monmouth Rebellion, Dorchester sank back into the peaceful history of a quiet country town – a history unbroken, save for local events of fire and storm, until to-day. The town still preserves much of its ancient character, and is a most interesting and picturesque place, and, on market-days, is thronged by people of typical Wessex appearance – dealers, farmers, carters, labourers, and pedlars.

To the south of the town stands a great amphitheatre, which is said to have been built by the Romans about the time of Agricola. It is called Maumbury Rings, and is a series of raised mounds enclosing an open space. It is calculated that some 12,000 spectators could have been seated round the amphitheatre, each enjoying an excellent view of the combats of gladiators or wild beasts in the arena below.

But a still more wonderful relic of former days is to be seen two miles south of Dorchester – the huge British earthwork, now known as Maiden Castle. It is an immense camp or hill-fort, built on the flat summit of a natural hill, and it must have cost the Britons who built it an immense amount of labour. It is the greatest British camp in existence, stretching 1,000 yards from east to west, and 500 from north to south, and enclosing an area of 45 acres. The whole is surrounded, in some places with two, and in others with three, ramparts nearly 60 feet high, and very steep. When these ramparts were manned by the warriors of the British tribe gathered within the fort, it was no easy place to storm.

Wessex has not many rivers, and most of them are not of any great size, but they are famous among fishermen for the splendid trout which they breed. These streams, running through the chalk, are marvellously clear; in many cases the stones may be counted at the bottom of a pool 10 or 12 feet deep, and this clearness makes the catching of the trout and grayling which live in them no easy affair.

The largest Wessex river is the Avon, which flows past Salisbury Plain, with its wonderful monument of Stonehenge; passes through Salisbury, whose beautiful cathedral spire is a famous landmark, and runs into the English Channel.

Stonehenge is the most ancient of all the ancient monuments of Wessex. We say that this camp was the work of the Britons; that pavement was laid by the Romans; but no one knows what manner of men raised the mighty standing-stones at Stonehenge. Nor do we really know why they were raised. We believe it was for the purpose of worship – that the stones form an ancient temple – but of this we cannot be quite sure.

Stonehenge consists of two circles of great stones, set upright in the ground. Across some of these stones others are placed to form arches, and though many have been broken or thrown down, there are still enough of them in position to show us the original shape of Stonehenge. The outer circle is about 100 yards round, and was formed by huge monoliths or single blocks of stone, each 15 feet high and 7 feet broad. The inner circle is 8 feet from the outer, and is composed of smaller stones about 6 feet high. There are two ovals, formed of large stones, and the inner oval contains a huge slab of rock, which is thought to have been an altar.

The question at once springs to our lips, Who raised these enormous blocks of stone, and set them up in so exact a fashion? It is one which learned men are unable to answer. The general opinion is that Stonehenge was formed as a temple for the worship led by the Druids, the priests of the ancient Britons, but of this one cannot be certain. The men who built Stonehenge have left no other record of their mighty labours save the vast stones they raised, and the secret of this most ancient monument is lost in the darkness of prehistoric days.

ROUND THE TORS

If we journey on south-west beyond the chalk ranges of Wessex we come to a very different country indeed: we enter on a land of granite hills. The granite rocks are as different as possible from the chalk heights. Instead of rounded slopes, we see sharp, jagged peaks and broken, rocky ridges. The smooth, open stretches of turf are exchanged for wild, heathery moorland, broken by deep dells, and the waterless chalk slopes are replaced by glens, through which leap foaming torrents.

The granite hills rise to their wildest at Dartmoor, in the centre of the county of Devon. Dartmoor is a great tableland, from which spring granite heights rising to nearly 1,800 feet above the sea. For the most part Dartmoor is uncultivated, a wilderness of barren moorland, with lofty hills and jagged tors on every hand, here and there scored by narrow valleys, which are often strewn with huge boulders of granite.

The tors are huge knobs or humps of granite, and the word has the same meaning as "tower." The most famous of them all is Yes Tor. Round these tors stretch great sweeps of moor and morass. Nothing lives here save the moorland sheep, who crop the rough grass between the tufts of heather, and the hardy moor ponies – nimble, shaggy, little creatures, with long manes and tails, quick as deer and surefooted as goats.

In the midst of this desolate country stands a great prison – Dartmoor Convict Prison. The place was chosen so that no convict could hope to escape. Many of the prisoners go out by day to work in the fields around the prison. They are closely watched by warders armed with rifles. But for all that, now and again a convict makes an attempt to escape; yet, though he sometimes gets away from the warders and is free for a few hours, he is almost certain to be recaptured. He finds that he has only got into a larger prison – the prison of the moorland. There are no woods, so he cannot hide himself, and he cannot strike which way he pleases, for there are the bogs to think of.

In many places there are deep morasses in which a man would sink and be swallowed up by the soft mud. So the escaped prisoner dare not move by night lest he should run into a bog; then by day, if he attempts to traverse the country, he is soon seen; so that it is almost impossible to escape from Dartmoor.

Another stretch of country dotted with tors and covered with moorland is Exmoor, in the north of Devon. The hills of Exmoor are famous for their ponies and for being the haunts of the wild red-deer, which are sometimes hunted with staghounds.

But not all the countryside consists of rocky table-lands, strewed with craggy masses of granite. Far from it. Round these tors lies some of the most beautiful and fertile land in all England. North and south of Dartmoor are sweeps of country which yield the richest farm and dairy produce to be found anywhere. Famous breeds of cattle and sheep graze in the pastures. Devonshire "cream" is known and loved wherever it goes, and luscious cider is made from the apples of its splendid orchards.

Great numbers of visitors every year are drawn to this fair county to behold its beauties and to stroll through the Devonshire lanes. A Devonshire lane in the cultivated portion of the countryside has hardly its like elsewhere. The land is red, the earth of the soft red sandstone, and through this land the lanes run in deep, hollow ways, often so deep that a carriage is quite hidden from the view of one standing in the fields on either hand. One writer speaks of driving in a dogcart along one of these deep lanes on a day in late autumn, when he heard the cry of hounds. The hunt was coming his way, and he drew rein. Presently the hunt went whirling by, literally over his head. Horsemen and horsewomen cleared the lane, one after the other, in flying leaps, the big hunters taking the huge trench with tremendous bounds.

These trench-like lanes have been formed by the wear and tear of ages of traffic. In the soft red soil the crunch of wheels and the stamp of hoofs have worn the surface down and down, and rain has washed away the loose soil, until the lane itself has become, as it were, one vast rut.

"As lovely as a Devonshire lane" is a proverb; the rich red soil and the soft warm air of this southern county work together to form a scene of wonderful charm. The steep banks are one glorious mass of ferns, wild-flowers, and shrubs during spring and summer; in autumn they burn with the fires of the fading leaves; in winter they are bright with berries.

The coast-line of this region is very beautiful, whether it faces north or south, to the Atlantic Ocean or the English Channel. On the north there are great beetling cliffs, with lovely valleys, called "combes," running down to the sea between them. In describing the port of Bideford, Kingsley gives us an admirable idea of North Devon scenery on the first page of "Westward Ho!": "All who have travelled through the delicious scenery of North Devon must needs know the little white town of Bideford, which slopes upwards from its broad tide-river paved with yellow sands, and many-arched old bridge, where salmon wait for autumn's floods, toward the pleasant upland on the west. Above the town the hills close in, cushioned with deep oak woods, through which juts here and there a crag of fern-fringed slate; below they lower, and open more and more in softly-rounded knolls and fertile squares of red and green, till they sink into the wide expanse of hazy flats, rich salt marshes, and rolling sand-hills, where Torridge joins her sister Taw, and both together flow quietly toward the broad surges of the bay and the everlasting thunder of the long Atlantic swell. Pleasantly the old town stands there, beneath its soft Italian sky, fanned day and night by the fresh ocean breeze, which forbids alike the keen winter frosts and the fierce thunder heats of the midland."

A little to the west of Bideford lies the fishing village of Clovelly, famous for its striking position and the great beauty of its surroundings. Clovelly lies in the cleft of a tall cliff, and its single street straggles up and down the steep rock, upon which the houses are perched in every nook and corner where room to set a building could be found. All about the place are wooded cliffs, and for quaint old-world beauty this village is declared to be unmatched along the whole English coast-line.

Near Torquay, a well-known watering-place of South Devon, is a very remarkable cave called Kent's Cavern. You gain it by a hole in the rock, 7 feet wide and only 5 feet high; but inside you find a great cavern, 600 feet long, with many smaller caves and corridors branching away through the limestone rock.

This cavern was once the home of cave-men, those long-vanished inhabitants of our land. This has been proved by searching the floor of the cave. Deep down were discovered human bones and the remains of tools and weapons. Mingled with these were the bones of the elephant and the rhinoceros, the hyena, the bear, and the wolf. The tools and weapons were of stone, and it is plain that the men who once lived in the cave brought thither the wild animals they had slain with their arrows and spears, headed with flint. All this happened a long, long time ago, for some of the animal remains belong to creatures who have long since become extinct.

Torquay is but one of many lovely places lying along a splendid stretch of coast, for the beauties of South Devon are as striking as those of the north. Cliffs of bright red sandstone stand above the bright blue sea, and where the cliffs are absent the land falls easily to the water, warm and fruitful to the edge of the tide in that mild, genial climate.

"The rounded hills slope gently to the sea, spotted with squares of emerald grass, and rich red fallow fields, and parks full of stately timber trees. Long lines of tall elms, just flashing green in the spring hedges, run down to the very water's edge, their boughs unwarped by any blast; and here and there apple orchards are just bursting into flower in the soft sunshine, and narrow strips of water-meadows line the glens, where the red cattle are already lounging knee-deep in rich grass within two yards of the rocky, pebbly beach. The shore is silent now, the tide far out, but six hours hence it will be hurling columns of rosy foam high into the sunlight, and sprinkling passengers, and cattle, and trim gardens which hardly know what frost and snow may be, but see the flowers of autumn meet the flowers of spring, and the old year linger smilingly to twine a garland for the new."

THE LAND OF SAINTS

Cornwall, that craggy promontory which England thrusts out into the Atlantic as a man might thrust out his leg, is often called the "Land of Saints." It gains this name because every other village is named after a saint, and for the most part they are saints unknown to the calendar, and never heard of in other parts of the country. There are St. Cuby and St. Tudy, St. Piran and St. Ewe, St. Blazey and St. Eve, St. Merryn and St. Buryan, St. Gennys and St. Issey, and scores of other strangely-named saints.

The names of these saints take us back to a time when England was a heathen country, and our Saxon forefathers still followed the worship of Odin and Thor. Cornwall, then, was filled with British Christians, driven west before the Saxon inroads, and the land abounded with Celtic saints, many of them from Ireland, Wales, and Brittany.

Every saint founded a church, bearing his name, and in time the village which grew up around the church took the name, and often bears it to this day. The process of founding was in this fashion: When the saint, during his wanderings through the land, came to a place where he thought a church was needed, he begged a small piece of land from the chief of the tribe living in that spot. Upon this patch of territory the saint abode, fasting and praying for forty days and nights, and at the end of that period the patch of land was sacred to him for ever, and bore his name. Then he and his disciples built a church there, and sometimes a monastery gathered about it. When the saint had placed all in order at one spot, he often moved on to another, and founded a fresh church there.

The old saints were much loved by the people, for they were always using their influence with the chiefs and great men on the side of mercy and kindness towards the poor and helpless. Many stories were told of them, and are still remembered. One day St. Columba was walking along the road, when he saw a poor widow gathering stinging-nettles. He asked her why she did it, and she replied that she was too poor to buy other food, and that she gathered nettles for the pot.

"Then," said Columba, "while my people are so poor, I will eat no better food."

He went back to the monastery and said to the disciple who prepared his food: "From this day I will eat nothing but nettles."

But, after a time, the disciple saw that the good old man was getting very thin and weak, and it troubled him. So he took a hollow elder-stalk, filled it with butter, and stirred the butter into the nettle-broth.

"The nettles have a new taste," said St. Columba; "they are rich and sweet. I must see what you have put into them;" and he came to see them cooked.

"You see, master dear," said his disciple, "I do not put anything into the pot save this stick, with which I stir them."

In a rough and cruel age the saints taught people to be kind to children and to poor dumb beasts and birds. Here is a story of a saint and a child.

There was a saint whose name was St. Maccarthen, and the ruler of his countryside was King Eochaid. One day the king sent his little son with a message to the saint. The little boy's mother gave him a red, round apple to eat on the way. The boy played with his pretty apple as he went, tossing it up and catching it. As it happened, it rolled from him and was lost. The child hunted here and there until he was tired out, and as the sun was setting he laid himself down in the middle of the way and went to sleep. As he slept, St. Maccarthen came along the road. The saint at once wrapped his mantle round the sleeping child, and sat beside him all night to guard his slumber. Many people passed along the way, but the saint turned them aside, for he would neither break the child's slumber nor permit an accident to befall him.

Many a saint had not only a church named after him, but a well also. Cornwall is full of "holy wells." In former days these wells were held to possess miraculous powers, and people came from great distances to drink the sacred water and make vows to the saint in whose honour the well was named. One of the best-known of these wells is the Well of St. Keyne. It was believed that, in the case of a newly-married couple, the first to drink of the water of this well would hold the mastery of the household. Southey has a ballad on this subject, describing how a bridegroom hurried from the church to the well. But all in vain: his wife had taken a bottle of the water to church with her!

Cornwall is a land of bleak, rugged granite heights and desolate moors, with lovely dells nestling amid the wilderness, combes filled with trees, and fields whose grass is green the winter through. Its coast is for the most part very dangerous, with immense cliffs, broken but by few openings. It is a coast to which the sailor gives a wide berth, especially in stormy weather, and if he fails to do so, he will almost certainly pay the penalty with his life. Many terrible shipwrecks have taken place off the shores of Cornwall, especially upon the deadly Manacles, the great reef near the Lizard, and the churchyards in the neighbourhood are full of the graves of many and many a drowned man or woman tossed up on the beach near at hand.

If you should go for a stroll on the cliffs about the Lizard some fine morning in July, you would see fishermen there, smoking and staring out to sea in, as it would seem to you, an idle fashion. But, suddenly, one of them, who has been sitting on the turf, springs to his feet. He begins to leap and yell as if he had gone mad. He points out to sea, and begins to roar over the edge of the cliff to his friends below. His companions on the watch now show an equal excitement, and you wonder what it is all about. You look long at the place to which they are pointing, and at length you make out that there is a darkish patch of water over which a number of sea-birds are hovering. It is a vast shoal of pilchards coming in-shore, and the apparent idlers on the cliff were watching for it.

The men on the cliff are called "huers" – shouters (from the French huer, to shout) – and their cries and signals direct their friends in the boats which way to pull to surround the shoal. From the surface the shoal cannot be seen, but the "huers" aloft can make out every movement of the vast mass offish, and guide the fishermen below.

A pilchard is a fish which looks much like a herring, but it is smaller, though it has larger scales. The shoals appear at the end of June, but at that time they are in deep water, and the fishing-smacks sail out in search of them and put down drift-nets. These nets are hung in the water like walls of hemp set across the drift of the tide. The pilchards swim into the nets, thrust their heads through the meshes, and are caught by the gills. This kind of fishing can only be carried on by night, for the pilchards are too keen-sighted to swim into the meshes by day.

As the season advances, the pilchards come nearer in-shore, and now the great season of the pilchard-fishery arrives. A great shoal of pilchards is a marvellous sight. The sea appears to be literally packed solid with them. The surface boils with their movement, and numbers are seen leaping out of the water like trout in a stream. Now the fishermen get out their mighty seine-nets and prepare to wall up the multitude of pilchards.

Guided by the "huers," they shoot the great nets around the shoal till it is enclosed. Then smaller nets are shot into the great net, and in these the fish are drawn to the surface beside the waiting boats. It is a wonderful sight to see the net come up. It is filled with one quivering mass of silver, and into this mass the fishermen dip baskets and toss the fish into the boats by scores and hundreds. When a boat is filled, it heads at once for the shore, and a waiting boat takes its place; and so it goes on till the great seine-net is empty.