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THE GATEWAY OF THE DUCHY

The gateway to the Duchy is impressive—that is to say, the gateway by which far the largest proportion of visitors enter—the railway bridge of the Great Western at Saltash. This marvellous bridge of Brunel's has been often described; it does not impress by its beauty for it has none, but by its tremendous height and length. It is 2,240 feet from end to end, and rises 260 feet above the water. It cuts across the narrowest part of that great ganglion of waters which break up the land behind Plymouth Sound. On the north lie the broad inlets of the Rivers Tamar and Tavy, and to the south that of the St. Germans or Lynher River curves away, and all along it the line runs, crossing the broad inlets of mud at low tide and shining water at high tide, giving a glimpse of the famous Hamoaze at Devonport and the busy dockyards filled with the clang of driven rivets.

In the Hamoaze lies the Powerful, an establishment consisting of three ships for the training of boys, and also the Impregnable, used for the same purpose, with two ships attached; one of them has a fine figure-head of the Black Prince. These are close to the ferry to Mount Edgcumbe, the family seat of the Earl of that name. The lads have drillgrounds and playgrounds ashore, but live on board. When they all swarm about the decks and rigging in their white suits, to rest in the sun for a brief half-hour after the midday meal, it is as if a flock of sea-birds had alighted on the picturesque old hulk.

In old times the destroyers used to be moored, two by two, when in port, just below Saltash Bridge, and this place was called the "destroyer trot," but the war has changed all that. Above the bridge are two powder-hulks.

If we passed up the river in a small boat we should see a variety of bird-life. The most attractive are the cranes, measuring upwards of 5 feet in length, ash-coloured with blackish wings and black legs. They stand and fish on the margin of the river, especially at evening time, planted close together like sentinels up to their knees in the water. They rise most gracefully and their great wings move slowly in measured action. The gulls and rooks are jealous of them, possibly seeing in this measured movement some imagined superiority, for they occasionally buffet them as they fly. There is a current saying accounting for the erratic allotment of days in the spring quarter. It is said that March borrowed a few days of February to catch the crane on her nest, but he only caught her tail, and so the crane has no tail since then! Milton speaks of the migration of the cranes when he says:

"Part loosely wing the region; part, more wise,

In common, ranged in figure, wedge their way,

Intelligent of seasons; and set forth

Their airy caravan; high over seas

Flying, and over lands with mutual wing

Easing their flight; so steers the prudent crane

Her annual voyage, borne on winds, the air

Floats as they pass, fanned with unnumbered plumes."

The most common birds up these tidal rivers are the sheldrake. They are plentiful and very tame as they sit dozing away the hours in little parties on the tide edge, or flighting over the water with low musical quacks. They are extremely white when on the wing—in fact that is how one always thinks of them, white and orange. The orange flash is their bill, which is brightened in the springtime. They give poor sport for a gun, and don't seem to be of much use. They were the wildest of all wild fowl but have now taken on the tamest ways.

And all the time in spring you can hear the wild musical note of the curlew, and see the dun-coloured birds flitting against the green of the woods. They are shy and wary, and common along the shores on the sands which are exposed at low water. Ringed plovers can sometimes be seen running on the wet surface of the sands at the tide's edge, flocks of lapwings too. Teal is by no means infrequent up the rivers, and an occasional shag (cormorant) may be noticed swimming far up towards Saltash and fishing. In its spring dress, with its horn-like crest, and miserable-looking yellow face, and its lustrous dark-green plumage, the shag is a handsome bird. Mallard is fairly plentiful in the rivers, and you may see flocks sleeping away the day-hours on the flats, and recognize them by the longitudinally marked plumage of the drakes. Sometimes they fly back and forth as gulls do while they wait for the tide to ebb. Small birds there are, of course, in numbers, such as wag-tails, sandpipers, and the oddly crying and flying redshank, a shore bird. It wheels above 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.