FROM FALMOUTH TO THE LIZARD
The southward limit of Falmouth Bay is Rosemullion Head, which does
not rise to any great height, but it commands fine views, on one side
towards the Fal estuary, with Zose Point and the Dodman beyond, and on
the other commanding the mouth of the Helford creek. The "Rose" of
course means heath; and Mullion we shall meet again. Penjerrick, which
lies a mile or two inland towards Falmouth, will be visited by many
not only for its beautiful botanic gardens, but for its memories of
the Foxes; but our own steps must now be turned towards the Lizard.
Rosemullion is in the parish of Mawnan, whose church-town lies a
little south of it; the dedication appears to be to a certain St.
Mawnanus, but there is great difficulty in identifying him. From here
to the mouth of the Fal there is a raised beach, more or less perfect;
in fact, all along this Cornish coast there are plentiful signs that
the shore contours have been by no means permanent. When we reach the
Helford River we have come to another rival of the Fal, with creeks
and inlets, wooded banks and fields, differing in size but hardly in
degree of beauty. Strictly, the name Helford only applies to the
little ferry town; the river is the _Hel_, or Hayle, and affords
comfortable harbourage to many craft. There is a literary association
here of some interest; for Kingsley tells us how Hereward the Wake
sailed up this river to Gweek, hungry for adventure. "He sailed in
over a rolling bar, between jagged points of black rock, and up a tide
river which wandered and branched away inland like a land-locked lake,
between high green walls of oak and ash, till they saw at the head of
the tide Alef's town, nestling in a glen which sloped towards the
southern sun. They discovered, besides, two ships drawn up upon the
beach, whose long lines and snake-heads, beside the stoat carved on
the beak-head of one, and the adder on that of the other, bore witness
to the piratical habits of their owner. The merchants, it seemed, were
well known to the Cornishmen on shore, and Hereward went up with them
unopposed; past the ugly dykes and muddy leats, where Alef's slaves
were streaming the gravel for tin ore: through rich alluvial pastures
spotted with red cattle; and up to Alef's town. Earthworks and
stockades surrounded a little church of ancient stone, and a cluster
of granite cabins, thatched with turf, in which the slaves abode." If
this is a picture of Gweek, the church must be imaginary; the nearest
churches are those of Constantine and of Mawgan. This is
Mawgan-in-Meneage, so called to distinguish it from the
Mawgan-in-Pydar, near Newquay. The Meneage, which we find affixed to
several other parish names immediately north of the Lizard, clearly
derives from the Cornish _men_--a stone--and denotes the "stony
district"; just as Roseland signified the heath or moorland district.
Whenever we find _man_ in an early place-name, we can feel pretty
sure that it has no reference to the human species. Defoe, who took
Helford in the way of his journey to the Land's End, speaks of it as
"a small but good harbour, where many times the tin-ships go in to
load for London; also here are a good number of fishing-vessels for
the pilchard trade, and abundance of skilful fishermen. It was from
this town that in the great storm which happened November 27, 1703, a
ship laden with tin was blown out to sea and driven to the Isle of
Wight in seven hours, having on board only one man and two boys." He
proceeds to tell how the boat was loaded at "a place called Gwague
Wharf, five or six miles up the river," by which he must mean Gweek.
The captain and his mate stayed on shore for the night, not detecting
signs of anything unusual in the weather; but orders were given that
in case of wind the vessel should be moored with two anchors. As a
matter of fact, the gale soon increased so remarkably that the man on
board, with his two boy assistants, soon found it necessary not only
to drop their second anchor but also two others. "But between eleven
and twelve o'clock the wind came about west and by south, and blew in
so violent and terrible a manner that, though they rode under the lee
of a high shore, yet the ship was driven from all her anchors, and
about midnight drove quite out of the harbour (the opening of the
harbour lying due east and west) into the open sea, the men having
neither anchor or cable or boat to help themselves." Avoiding rocks as
best they could, they drifted past the Dodman and tried to make
Plymouth, but the first land they made was Peverel Point in Dorset,
and by seven o'clock next morning they were driving full towards the
Isle of Wight. One of the boys was for running the boat to the Downs,
where it would almost certainly have perished; but the other lad
remembered a creek in the Isle of Wight, where he thought there would
be room to run the boat in. Very wisely the man yielded to his advice,
and gave him charge of the helm. "He stood directly in among the
rocks, the people on shore thinking they were mad, and that they would
in a few minutes be dashed in a thousand pieces. But when they came
nearer, and the people found they steered as if they knew the place,
they made signals to direct them as well as they could, and the young
bold fellow ran her into a small cove, where she stuck fast, as it
were, between the rocks on both sides, there being just room enough
for the breadth of the ship. The ship indeed, giving two or three
knocks, staved and sank, but the man and the two youths jumped ashore
and were safe; and the lading, being tin, was afterwards secured. The
merchants very well rewarded the three sailors, especially the lad
that ran her into that place." A very fitting sequel, for it was
indeed a daring exploit. The storm was that tremendous tempest which
desolated the British coasts in 1703, commemorated by Addison in his
"Campaign":--
"So when an angel, by divine command,
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia pass'd,
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast,
And, pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm."
That simile, then considered the height of sublimity, had a powerful
effect in furthering the writer's fortunes.
Helford is in the parish of Manaccan, which lies about a mile south of
it. The place was once known as Minster, which seems to evidence the
existence of a monastery. The creek and valley of the Durra stream are
very beautiful, and the church especially interesting. There is a
fig-tree of great antiquity growing out of the tower wall. Chancel and
south transept are Early English, and the south doorway very excellent
Norman. About a century since the Cornish historian and versifier,
Polwhele, was Rector at Manaccan, also having charge of the
neighbouring parish of St. Anthony, and though he liked the place less
than his former residence by the mouth of the Exe, he admitted that
"in the walks to St. Anthony, the tufted creeks, the opening sea, the
prospect of Pendennis Castle, there was picturesque beauty--there was
even sublimity." Polwhele was magistrate as well as parson, and on one
occasion the famous Captain Bligh (himself a Cornishman) was brought
before him, charged with plots of treachery by the officious Manaccan
constables; he had been detected surveying the harbour of Helford.
Bligh appears at first to have been in a great rage, but he melted
gradually, and after indulging in woodcocks for supper, with a variety
of wines, parted from his host on the very best of terms. Polwhele
also tells us of a brother-magistrate whom he invited to meet
Whitaker, the historian of the Cornish diocese, who was at that time
Rector of Ruan Lanihorne. The fellow-magistrate was a trifle lax in
his opinions, and on his expressing a sceptical view, "Mr. Whitaker
started up in a burst of passion. The justice turned pale, and his
lips quivered with fear. Not a culprit before him, at the moment of
commitment, ever trembled more; and Whitaker imperiously charging him
with infidelity, the old gentleman made a confession of his faith, to
an extent which surprised me." He seems to have been "at best an
Arian"; yet "he was on the whole a respectable man." Theology apart,
one cannot help sympathising with the culprit, and rejoicing in his
respectability. But times have greatly changed; men can now confess
something more than Arianism without trembling with fear.
Dennis, or Dinas Head, running to the sea beyond St. Anthony, has some
ancient entrenchments which were put to practical use during the Civil
War, being occupied by Richard Vyvyan of Trelowarren in the Royalist
cause; they were surrendered to the conquering Fairfax. The church of
St. Anthony is said to have been erected as a thank-offering, after
escape from shipwreck, by Norman settlers soon after the Conquest.
Beyond Gillan stretches Nare Point, a bold bluff of rock, and a mile
lower is the little fishing-village of Porthallow, which is attracting
some of the visitors who are now coming increasingly to the Lizard
district. At Porthoustock (locally often called Proustock), a little
more than a mile beyond, we have come into the immediate presence of a
great wreck region, for Manacle Point lies close below, and the
Manacles themselves foam yonder with perpetual menace, their bell-buoy
sounding a dismal but quite insufficient warning.
Ever since men began to navigate British waters, these half-covered
rocks and the whole of this Lizard coast must have been a deadly
peril. The number of their victims cannot be reckoned; for, as Sir
John Killigrew wrote three centuries since, "neither is it possible
to get parfitt notice of the whence and what the Ships ar that yearly
do suffer on and near the Lizard, for it is seldom that any man
escapes and the ships split in small pieces." The Manacles
(_meneglos_, "church rocks") lie about half a mile from the shore, and
extend for about a square mile; all but one are covered by the highest
tides, which of course renders them the more fatal. The name "church
rocks" has some connection with the far-seen landmark of St. Keverne
tower. If we could give the whole list of wrecks we should probably
find it rival that of the Scillies, perhaps surpass; the Manacles lie
even more directly in the route of navigation. It is just a century
since two vessels, the one homeward and the other outward-bound, were
wrecked almost at the same moment near here. One was the transport
_Dispatch_, returning from the Peninsula with many officers and men on
board; the other was the eighteen-gun brig _Primrose_, bound for the
seat of war. There is a graphic account in the now defunct _Cornish
Magazine_--a magazine that was obviously too good for the public, and
therefore died much regretted by its few but select admirers. It was a
bitter and rough January, 1809. "At half-past three on Sunday morning
the _Dispatch_, an old ship in bad repair, was driven on the rocks
near Lowland Point, and speedily became a total wreck. While men and
women were rushing through the gale with news of this disaster, and
men and horses were being dashed about by the roaring sea, there came
tidings that at the other end of the Manacles another ship filled with
soldiers was foundering. In those days there was no Lifeboat
Institution with its record of gallant services all along the coast.
But there were men of the sort that the grandest lifeboat crews are
made of, and six Porthoustock fishermen, taking the best boat they
could find, went out from their cove across the wind-torn sea towards
the rocks barely discernible in the early morning light. Little it was
that they could do, though, and worn out with their strivings against
the wind and sea, they returned with only one boy and the news that
the vessel disappeared almost immediately after she struck, at five
o'clock, and all except the boy were lost." In those two wrecks that
morning about two hundred lives were lost. The noble heroism of the
Porthoustock men came to the ears of Government, and ten guineas were
sent to each man. More than a hundred of the drowned were buried in
St. Keverne graveyard, an Act having just been passed that allowed
bodies cast up by the sea to be admitted to consecrated ground.
Another notable wreck was that of the emigrant ship _John_, in 1855.
This time the disaster may have been a result of carelessness, for the
weather was fine; in any case, the vessel got on the Manacles. Some
boats were launched and selfishly filled, but the captain apparently
thought there was no cause for alarm. Those in the boats took the
tidings to Coverack, but in the meantime a wind had sprung up; a
message was sent across and Porthoustock men set out to the rescue.
There were many children on board; the crew, unlike true Britons,
thought only of their own safety; the ship was settling fast, leaving
only the rigging for such survivors as could cling to it. After many
gallant attempts, and three journeys to and from shore, the brave
fishermen managed to save all that were left on the wreck, but 196
were drowned. There was another rich harvest for St. Keverne
graveyard. The memorable blizzard of 1891 of course paid its tribute
of wrecks to these shores. The largest loss was the _Bay of Panama_, a
Liverpool boat of 2,282 tons, making for Dundee with jute from
Calcutta. Eighteen of her crew were lost, some being frozen to death.
On this occasion a most wonderful feat of courage and endurance was
accomplished by a man of Porthoustock, that village of brave men. It
was important that telegraphic messages should be despatched from
Helston, and a man named James volunteered to carry them. He reached
Helston with infinite difficulty, and found the place practically
snowed up, all communication broken. Against strong advice he resolved
to push on to Falmouth, distant at least fourteen miles by road, the
roads almost impassable with snowdrifts. He began his journey by pony,
but soon had to leave the animal behind. Once he was near succumbing,
but a rest in a wayside cottage restored him; the last two and a half
miles he covered by crawling on his hands and knees, being too
exhausted to walk. Falmouth was reached at last, and the messages from
Porthoustock, St. Keverne, and Helston were delivered. But the tale of
wrecks is not finished. In 1895 the _Andola_ was broken here, its crew
saved by the lifeboat from Porthoustock. More recent, and the best
remembered of all, is the wreck of the _Mohegan_, in 1898. She was a
boat of 7,000 tonnage, leaving Gravesend with about 150 persons on
board. She struck one of the Manacles, and within twenty minutes was
submerged with the exception of masts and funnel. Rescue proved very
difficult, but the lifeboat saved forty-four; all the remainder were
lost. One of the Porthoustock lifeboat crew that did the rescuing had
been also active in taking succour to the _John_, forty-three years
earlier. It needs these records of heroism to relieve the sadness of
such a chronicle.
St. Keverne, whose church stands high at rather more than a mile's
distance from the sea, is a place of striking interest for its
situation and its traditions. It is not easy to say who Keverne was;
some, such as Leland, Whitaker, and Mr. Baring-Gould, say that he was
none other than St. Piran, retaining his original Gaelic name of
Kieran. But it is difficult to see why he should remain Kieran here,
while he became Piran or Perran in connection with all his other
Cornish churches; and there is the awkward fact that St. Piran's Day
is the 5th of March, while St. Keverne's is near Advent. Dr. Borlase
thought that the two are distinct persons; and, identifying St.
Keverne with the _Lannachebran_ of Domesday, he supposes a Celtic
saint named Chebran or Kevran. Tin has never been successfully worked
in this parish, and there was a local saying that "no metal will run
within sound of St. Keverne's bell," supported by a tradition that the
saint cursed the district because of the irreligion of its people.
Piran, the patron saint of tinners, would hardly have called down such
a curse, though he might have done so if greatly provoked. But if not
metalliferous, much of the parish is exceptionally fertile and
verdant, in contrast to the barrenness of the Goonhilly Downs. Without
attempting to decide authoritatively as to the personality of Keverne,
we may at least be amused by the curious story told about him, which
brings a strong touch of human nature into the record of one who is
otherwise so hazy. It is said that he was visited by St. Just of the
Land's End district, and that when the more western saint departed,
after freely indulging in Keverne's hospitality, he carried away
Keverne's drinking-cup--some say his chalice. Shortly after the
departure, Keverne discovered that his cup was missing, and he guessed
at once that his saintly friend had taken it. In great heat he
hastened after the guest, and while passing Crowza Downs he pocketed a
few large stones for future use. Presently he saw St. Just plodding
along in the distance, and shouted after him. St. Just was too deeply
absorbed in religious meditation to notice the cries. Finding shouts
were useless, Keverne began to throw his stones, and these proved more
effectual. St. Just dropped the chalice and hurried away home. Keverne
had three stones left, and he satisfied his still heated feelings by
hurling these after his visitor; which done, he took up his cup and
proceeded homewards. It is said that these stones lay in a field near
Germoe till last century, when they were broken up for road-metal, and
that they consisted of a kind of gritstone common enough to the Crowza
Downs, but quite unknown in the district where they lay. The field in
which they lay actually bore the name of Tremen-keverne, the "three
stones of Keverne"; and if we need further proof than that, we must be
sceptical indeed. The tale is valuable as a picture of Celtic
saintdom; no monkish fabulists would have told such stories of Latin
saints. Without approving of St. Just's action, he seems nearer to us
than if he had run about with his head under his arm or perpetrated
any other of the absurdities often attributed to the conventional
Romish saints. St. Keverne's is a large church, the largest in West
Cornwall, being 110 feet in length; and it was collegiate before the
Conquest, afterwards passing to the Cistercians of Beaulieu. There are
some curious traces of former rood-lofts which seem to speak of
eastward enlargements. The bench-ends bear the symbols of the Passion.
In the south aisle are the arms of Incledon, famous singer of a past
century, who began his career at Exeter Cathedral when eight years
old, and later became celebrated at Bath, at Vauxhall, and at Covent
Garden; he was a native of St. Keverne.
In this parish, about a mile and half southward, is the delightful
little fishing-village of Coverack, which is deserving and winning a
quiet popularity. There is no pretension about the place, though it
can boast one hotel, a modern chapel-of-ease, and the usual small
conventicles. Being sheltered from the north, and with a rich soil,
every cottage garden luxuriates in great hedges of mesembryanthemum;
and, as we find further west, the fuchsias grow like trees. Coverack
indeed is an oasis in a district much of which is stony and desolate.
The down-lands around are purple in its season with the beautiful
Cornish heather, and golden with gorse, while dodder grows freely over
the hedges; near the shore there is abundance of squills, sea-holly,
and sea-campion. The descent to the village is a sharp drop; visitors
usually alight above from their coach, and walk down the steep zigzag
road. It is not surprising to read that this secluded spot was
formerly notorious for smugglers, but now it peacefully devotes itself
to fishing, and to the entertainment of guests who can appreciate
quiet loveliness. Pilchards are still caught here, with the
old-fashioned seine-nets; but their numbers have much decreased. We
can realise what the pilchard has been to Cornwall when we read that
in 1847 over 40,000 hogsheads were exported to Genoa, Leghorn, Naples,
Venice, &c., estimated at more than a hundred million fish. The annual
catch now is about half this quantity, and some proportion of these
are retained for home consumption. When we pass Black Head we come at
last in sight of the true Lizard, with the fine reach of Kennack Sands
lying between; and for those who can appreciate a walk of surpassing
beauty, the best thing to do is to take the path at the top of the
cliffs, leading through Cadgwith to the Lizard Point. The walk takes
us into the true serpentine region; at Coverack serpentine is largely
blent with felspar and crystal. Perhaps in the future these sands of
Kennack will be thronged by thousands of holiday-makers, but they are
better as they are, haunted by seabirds and washed by tides of
ever-varying aspect. Several small streams run to the sea here, and at
Poltesco the sands are broken by a gorge of lonely and romantic charm,
with a charming cascade, opening into Carleon Cove. There was a
serpentine factory here once, but it is deserted; the water-wheel
turns no longer. It may be said that this walk from Coverack along the
cliffs is not easy; it is rugged, undulating, tortuous, and Cornish
miles sometimes seem very long. But it repays. When we reach Cadgwith
we seem to be genuinely at the Lizard. We have come to a port of crabs
and lobsters, and of painters.
[Illustration: COVERACK.
_Photo by Gibson & Sons._]
Cadgwith is certainly a most picturesque and attractive little
place, and if it does not share the luxuriant fertility of Coverack,
it has the compensation of being nearer to the wonders of the Lizard.
It is in the parish of Ruan Minor, and this is a dedication to a saint
whose name we also find at Ruan Major, Ruan Lanihorne, and Polruan
near Fowey. He also appears at Romansleigh in Devon. He seems to have
been an Irishman, some say converted by Patrick, who travelled widely,
and when in Brittany was accused by a woman of being a were-wolf; she
said he had eaten her child. The king of that part, who favoured the
saint, said, "Bring him hither. I have two wolf-hounds; if he is
innocent they will not harm him, but if there is anything of the wolf
about him they will tear him to pieces." The dogs came and licked
Ruan's feet; and the child whom he was supposed to have eaten was
discovered hidden away. However, the saint found it well to leave
Brittany for Cornwall. He is said to have been buried at Lanihorne,
but Ordulf, who dedicated his abbey at Tavistock to the honour of Mary
and St. Rumon, professed to have brought the saint's relics to his
Devon foundation and there enshrined them. It proves how slightly
Saxonised that part of Devon was, and how powerful was the Celtic
tradition, that Ordulf should have selected a Celtic saint for his
monastery. A portion of Cadgwith is in the parish of Grade, which is
supposed to be a dedication to the Holy Creed; but here, as at
Sancreed and St. Creed, Grampound, we may be safe in believing that
there was a living personality behind the dedication, not a mere
abstraction. Churches had definite founders in Celtic days, and there
was a certain St. Credan who may be responsible for all these. But
does the ordinary visitor care much about these questions of
dedication and saint-lore? Probably not. South of Cadgwith are some of
the grand caves and rock-freaks that have a more immediate appeal, and
north of the hamlet some of the best serpentine is obtained.
Serpentine is a blend of silica and manganese, so named from its
imagined resemblance to a snake's skin; its colour varies from green
to red and brownish yellow, and is often remarkably beautiful. It has
been used with striking effect, architecturally, in Truro Cathedral;
while with regard to its use for ornaments and decoration, the visitor
has many opportunities of judging for himself.
When we remember the seas to which these shores are exposed, it is
easy to understand how the coast has been eroded into its present
contorted and cavernous condition. Massive rocky frameworks have
resisted the action of the waves, but softer measures have yielded;
the shore has been licked into hollows, basins, caves, by continuous
water-action, and the process continues unendingly. One remarkable
excavation of this kind is the Devil's Frying-pan, covering about two
acres, which the sea enters through an archway of rock at high tides;
the pit is nearly 200 feet deep. Literally, it is a cave whose roof
has fallen in. Close to this is Dollar Hugo, a cave whose roof has not
fallen nor seems likely to, with a magnificent gateway of serpentine.
The name is sometimes spelt Dolor, suggestive of grief, but its origin
is not easy to trace; Hugo seems to be a corruption of the Cornish
word _fogou_, meaning a cave. Johns, who wrote a very interesting book
about the Lizard some sixty years since, said that "of all the caves
that I have ever inspected, this wears the most perfect air of
mysteriousness and solemnity. At the entrance it is large enough to
admit a six-oared boat, but soon contracts to so small a size that a
swimmer alone could explore it. Its termination is lost in gloom, but
as far as the eye can discriminate the water is unceasingly rising and
falling with a deep murmuring sound, which is reverberated from a
great distance, and falls on the ear with a most imposing effect. The
colouring of the rocks at the entrance is magnificent. The base is of
a deep rose-pink; the sides rich dark brown, with blotches of bright
green and rose colour; the roof purple and brown. The water is very
deep and of a fine olive green, and, being remarkably clear, the light
stones lying at the bottom are distinctly visible, among which at my
last visit we could descry great fishes, probably bass, pursuing
shoals of launces." By "launces" the writer meant what we should now
call the lancelet. Just south of Dollar is the old smugglers' cave
known as Raven's Hugo. Below this to the extreme point of the Lizard
the coast is a series of jagged cliffs and clefts, with tiny coves and
black chasms. For seaward and distant views it is best to take the
head of the cliffs, but for the caverns a boat should be used, and
this of course necessitates caution. We have now reached Lendewednack,
the true Lizard parish and the most southerly in England. Apparently
the dedication, like that of Towednack, near St. Ives, is to a St.
Winoc or Gwynog. There is a church with the same name (Landevenech) in
Brittany; yet there has been some attempt to prove that Winwaloe,
whom we find at Gunwalloe on the western side of the headland, was the
founder. This seems unlikely, unless it can be shown that Winwaloe and
Winnow or Winoc were the same person. The church is interesting in
itself, and beautifully placed, giving traces of many periods of
architecture, from Norman to Perpendicular. The font, which happily
was preserved by former coats of whitewash, is Early English; it bears
the inscription "Ric. Bolham me fecit." The lofty south doorway is a
very good specimen of Norman; the pulpit, which is modern, is of
serpentine, and there are serpentine tombstones in the graveyard. Like
St. Keverne, this is a burial-ground of the wrecked. It has also been
the sepulchre of persons dying from the plague, of which there was a
severe visitation in 1645. It is said that, about a century later, the
soil where its victims had been buried was dug to receive shipwrecked
seamen, and that, in consequence, the plague reappeared. The bells
have Latin mottoes and some curious bell-marks. The blending of
granite with darker local stone in the tower has a rather singular
effect; it makes the walls look like a chequer-board. Landewednack
claims to be the last place where a sermon was preached in the Cornish
tongue, in 1678; as was natural, the old language lingered longest in
isolated districts of the Lizard and Land's End. It may be guessed
that some of his younger hearers would not have understood the
preacher, for the language had already greatly decayed. It was never a
particularly rich dialect of the Celtic, and left no remains worthy to
perpetuate its existence. Norden, who wrote in the middle of the
sixteenth century, stated that "of late the Cornishe men have much
conformed themselves to the use of the English tongue, and their
English is equal to the best, especially in the eastern parts. In the
weste parts of the countrye, in the hundreds of Penwith and Kirrier,
the Cornishe tongue is most in use amongste the inhabitants." A little
later, a loyal Cornishman bewailed "our Cornish tongue has been so
long on the wane that we can hardly hope to see it increase again;
for, as English first confined it within this narrow country, so it
still presses on, leaving it no place but about the cliffs and sea, it
being now almost only spoken from the Land's End to the Mount, and
again from the Lizard towards Helston and Falmouth." The inevitable
happened, just as somewhat the same process has taken place in Wales,
in Ireland, and in the Scottish Highlands. In these three countries
the old tongue had the aid of a powerful literature. Welsh and Erse
may be very long in dying out, as we hope they will be; yet nothing
can prevent the people of Wales and Ireland becoming bi-lingual, and
this can only have one ultimate result. Commercially, a single
language is necessary to the nation, and there has never been any
doubt as to which that language must be. And some of those who cling
to their vernacular as a proof of their Celticism may be making a
great mistake; speech is never a proof of race, and survivals of other
blood than Celtic adopted dialects of the Celtic speech.