Meanwhile we had learned something about the bridge that we had crossed just before, and the rush of waters below. Returning, therefore, and making application at the house close by, we were conducted down into a rocky gorge, through which rushes the Lid, one of the Dartmoor streams, a tributary of the Tamar. The cliffs, irregular and castellated, are seventy feet high; a narrow, dangerous path is carried along one side of the rock, and the wild foaming waters in the dark, narrow glen carry back the traveller's mind to Switzerland. Certainly there is nothing like "Lidford Bridge" elsewhere in England; the Strid in Bolton Woods may equal it in its rush of waters; but the rocks there lie in the open woodland, and the stream is but a few feet below their summit: here the beetling precipices almost meet above, as at the "Devil's Bridge" in Cardiganshire, and there are weird stories at both places of travellers on horseback who have leaped the bridge unconsciously by night, when broken down, only discovering their peril and their escape on the following day.
From Lidford to Tavistock was an easy ride, and we found this pleasant town a place every way suitable for a Lord's Day rest. Outwardly, the great charm of the locality is the meeting-place between the wildness of Dartmoor and the rich cultivation of the valley; while some walks by the river are of a tranquil and serene beauty, only as it seems to us to be found in England, and to be enjoyed on the day of rest. Perhaps our feeling is in a great measure due to association; but if so, we have to thank association for one of the happiest evenings we have known. Next morning we explored the remains of the Abbey--now put to heterogeneous uses--a public library, a Unitarian Chapel, and a hotel, with sundry ruins in the vicarage garden; then a short railway journey carried us across the Cornish border to Launceston, where a short climb through pretty pleasure grounds to the keep of the old castle on the knoll that rises steeply from the town gave us a fine view, from the bulky range of Dartmoor on the one side, to the craggy outline of the Cornish hills on the other.
Our object, however, was now to reach the coast; and, as a good test of our pedestrian powers, already pretty well exercised in the course of this charming: tour, we determined to walk over the hills in the direction of the sea, knowing that even if our powers failed, some passing "van" would take us up, and convey us in a primitive fashion to the nearest town. But we persevered, and, when we had accomplished nine or ten miles of an undulating, monotonous road, were rewarded by the first glimpse of the Atlantic, with the cloud shadows lying afar upon the untroubled sapphire; while, though no breeze stirred, there was a sense of freshness in the air that encouraged us to press on to our journey's end. At length we reached it, in a village to name which is to raise in the minds of those who have visited it memories most delightful; while to the multitude it is and will probably remain unknown. We will not call it Trelyon, after the fashion of a popular novelist, who has given us some of the most charming word-pictures of this scenery which our literature contains. Nor is it unkindness to the happy few who already know Boscastle, and one delightful homelike retreat from the world which it contains, to raise the veil a little farther. That it is several miles distant from a railway station, that there is no public conveyance to it but the "vans" already referred to, that gas is a luxury unknown, are points in its favour to those who think, like the Frenchman: