Bodmin

“ This school Queen Elizabeth endowed with about 16l. 13s. 4d. per annum revenues out of the Exchequer for ever.
The name Bodmin anciently comprehended no more than the town or borough itself, as it is now taxed in the Exchequer; for in the Domesday tax Beni, Lanlaran, now St. Lawrence, and Lantallan, were districts rated by themselves, though now consorted under that name of Bodmin parish and town. ”

“ From the preface of the editor of these accounts we glean some interesting particulars, all the more interesting as we have no reason to think that Bodmin was any exception. The accounts “exhibit a remarkable unanimity in the good work. Every one seems to have given according to his means and up to his means. ”

“ And now, after all this pottering in the [155] narrow lanes about Newquay, there are many who will be craving for a comfortable run on an open road. These I advise to join the Truro and Bodmin road near St. Columb Road Station, and drive over a series of breezy heaths, on a good surface with no serious hills, to Bodmin: thence to follow the Fowey to Liskeard and run up to Launceston: and from Launceston to return to Bodmin across the moors. This is a fine run and a real refreshment.
There is no lack of history in Bodmin, the “dwelling-place of monks,” the burial-place of St. ”

“ The interior of the county cannot be regarded as beautiful, consisting of a backbone of elevated land, wind-swept, and over a large area covered with mine-ramps and the skeletons of abandoned machine-houses standing up gaunt amidst the desolation. But the valleys are always beautiful, and the Bodmin moors, if not so lofty and broken [5] as Dartmoor, are yet fine, and Brown Willy, Rough Tor, and Kilmar are really noble tors.
On the Bodmin moors is Dozmare Pool, the only lake, excepting Loe Pool, that exists in Cornwall. It is small and shallow. ”

“ The town principally consists of one long street, running nearly a mile from east to west; the houses in general, are low, decayed, and irregular; but much improvement has been made within the last 20 years. Some centuries ago, Bodmin appears to have been of 124much greater extent, and more populous, than at present: it was probably largest, and contained the greatest number of inhabitants, about the fourteenth century. It is now smaller than either Helston, Liskeard, Megavissey, and Penryn; and considerably smaller than St. Austell, Truro, Redruth, Penzance, or Falmouth ”

“ On their abolition the town unquestionably fell into great decay, till about the middle of the last century, when roads were made in all directions, and Bodmin, from being almost inaccessible by the modern system of travelling, became an extensive thoroughfare; the market has grown into one of the first in Cornwall, and the whole town is renovated by trade and industry. ”

“ Bodmer, Johann Jacob, a distinguished Swiss critic, born near Zurich; the first, by study of the masters in literature of Greece and Rome, France, England, and Italy, to wake up Germany to a sense of its poverty in that line, and who aided, along with others, in the inauguration of a new era, which he did more by his republication of the Minnesingers and part of the “Nibelungen Lied” than by his advocacy (1698-1783) .
Bodmin (5) , the county town of Cornwall, supersedes Truro as capital; an important agricultural centre; has large annual fairs for cattle, horses, and sheep. ”

“ The nightmare passed, we got ourselves together at five in the morning, drank tepid tea, and ate the inevitable bacon and eggs furnished one for breakfast in England, and, before lunch, had passed Bodmin, crossed Bodmin moor (a little Exmoor) , and skirted Dartmoor, just north of Great Links Tor, arriving at Exeter at high noon. ”

“ BOD (Cym.-Cel.) ,
a dwelling; e.g. Bodmin, in Cornwall, corrupt. from Bodminian (the dwelling of monks) ; Bodffaris (the site of Varis) , the old Roman station on the road to Chester; Hafod, the name of several places in Wales, corrupt. from Hafbod (a summer residence) ; Bosher or Bosherston, corrupt. from Bod and hir, long (the long ridge abode) , in Wales.
BODDEN (Teut.) , BOD (Scand.) ,
a bay, the ocean swell; e.g. Bodden (an arm of the sea which divides the island of Rugen from Pomerania) ; Bodden-ness (the headland of the bay) , on the east coast of Scotland. ”

“ Between Bodmin and Launceston stretches the wild tract of country known as Bodmin Moor. A more desolate region it would be hard to find or one more covered with relics of primitive man. Norden has said in writing of Cornwall, "The rockes are high, huge, ragged and craggy not only upon the sea-coaste ... ”

“ We follow'd the road after this very moodily; for Delia, whom I had made sharer of the rebels' secret, agreed that no time was to be lost in reaching Bodmin, that lay a good thirty miles to the southwest. Night fell and the young moon rose, with a brisk breeze at our backs that kept us still walking without any feeling of weariness. Captain Billy had given me at parting a small compass, of new invention, that a man could carry easily in his pocket ”

“ The elevation of the land, which dried up the channel between the Land's End and the mainland, preceded the depression which sunk the now submerged forests.
To the north of the great granite boss that forms the Bodmin moors a ridge of cold moors rises, setting its back against the Atlantic and feeding the rivers that flow south with the rain that pours over it. Very little can be grown on these heights: they produce a little barley, but are mainly covered with rushes, coarse grass, and furze bushes. No considerable heights are reached till we come to Carnmarth and Carn Brea, each only 700 ft. ”

“ Over Dartmoor and the Bodmin moors “the old men’s workings” may be seen; hardly a gully has not been streamed, every river-bed has been turned over. The face of the moor is in places welted to such an extent that it alters the character of the scene. These workings are now grass-grown; they are very ancient, and clearly were conducted open to the sky. As the miners worked up a river-bed they built a colander behind them of rude blocks of granite, through which the stream might flow away, and many a rivulet now runs underground through these artificial passages. ”

“ A tower of Tudor date, in the cemetery, marks the site of a chapel of the gild of the Holy Rood. Part of the buildings of a Franciscan friary, founded c. 1240, are incorporated in the market-house, and the gateway remains in an altered form. At Bodmin are a prison, with civil and naval departments, the county gaol and asylum, the headquarters of the constabulary, and those of the duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry. Cattle, sheep and horse fairs are held, and there is a considerable agricultural trade. The borough is under a mayor, four aldermen and twelve councillors. ”

“ This place, three days’ march north-west of Momien, is described as a town of one thousand houses, surrounded by a stone wall twenty feet high, and defended on one side by a deep stream, and altogether stronger and more flourishing than Momien. Its position must be at a high elevation, as in winter the swamps are frozen hard enough to bear men on the ice. ”

“ Bodman had no intention of risking a shot, for he moved away clumsily on his snow-shoes, with which he was no adept, it appeared.
X-Ray chuckled as though tremendously amused.
“Just hear him growling like a bear with a sore head, will you, Phil? My stars! but he does hate a fellow who has the gall to sass him to his face. I guess he’s so swelled up with a sense of his importance, that he expects everybody to fall to trembling when he says so high and mighty like: ‘I am James Bodman, huh!’”
“I feel that I did the right thing, X-Ray,” said Phil, working away industriously. ”

“ The distant view of the Grampians; the pure, bracing air, whether the wind blows it from the sea on the east or from the mountains on the west; the lawns, the trees, the old house, picturesque in itself, and interesting in its associations, render Monboddo a most pleasant abode. In the time of the old judge it was no doubt bare enough. Where there are now lawns and flower-beds there most likely corn and turnips grew, for he was almost as fond of farming as he was of the ancients. When he received our travellers, "he was dressed," says Boswell, "in a rustic
Monboddo. ”

“ I climbed to the top of the Omuvereoom, whence I had a very extensive view of the country to the eastward; but, excepting a few periodical water-courses which originated in the sides of the mountain, nothing but an immense unbroken bush was to be seen. It was in vain that I strained my eyes to catch a glimpse of Omanbondè, which we were told lay only about five days' journey hence, and at the northern extremity of Omuvereoom.
Elephants occasionally visited this neighborhood, and even breed near a fountain somewhat farther to the northward. ”

“ The shining Bodden with its bays and little islands lay beneath us, to the north was the sea, to the west the sea, to the east, right away on the other side of distant Rügen, the sea; far in the south rose the towers of Stralsund; close behind us a forest of young pines filled the air with warm waves of fragrance; at our feet the turf was thick with flowers,—oh, wide and splendid world! How good it is to look sometimes across great spaces, to lift one's eyes from narrowness, to feel the large silence that rests on lonely hills! ”

“ It forms a well-known landmark to all navigating the coast. The summit, it is believed, has never been reached by human feet.
The fishing village or town of Bodöe, on the main-land, is one of the regular stopping places for the steamers that ply on the coast. It contains some fifteen hundred inhabitants, all toilers of the sea, and is the chief town of Nordland. Some few of the houses are large and comfortable, being of modern construction, forming a strong contrast to the low turf-roofed log-cabins which are to be seen in such close proximity to them. ”

“ Thomas Bodza's idea therefore of a continuous European waterway almost deserved to be called sublime.
Such exaltation is innocent enough in itself. It is found, more or less, in every race, and is especially vigorous wherever an impoverished, orphaned stock is aware of the existence of a powerful, dominating, gigantic kinsman beyond a mountain range.6 Unfortunately, however, this exaltation did not remain an empty poetical dream in the bosom of our village pædagogue.
6 E.g., The Slovaks in north Hungary, who know that Russia lies beyond the Carpathians. ”

“ The mountain became a senseless giant; the waterfall changed to a commonplace ribbon: and the pine trees blended into the lethargy of dwarfs. The gray rock on the mountain was still gashed [77] into the face of a woman but her outlines were those of a transfigured virago. Eric strapped on his pack; gazed down at the rock, with the smile of a merchant emerging from drunken memories, and strode toward it. When he reached it he hammered away a flat fragment, for remembrance, and returned to the mountain path, with an expressionless face. ”

“ The first person seized by him was a woman. “Of what stock art thou?” asked Boduanchar. “I am of the Charchiuts,” answered the woman. The five brothers led all the people to their own place; after that they had cattle; they had also attendants to wait on them, when eating. Boduanchar took his first captive as wife and she bore him a son from whom the Balin clan was descended. Boduanchar took another wife and by her begat Habichi, who in time had a son Mainyan Todan who took as wife Monalun, from whom seven sons were born to him; the eldest of these was Katchi Kyuluk, and the youngest, Nachin. ”

“ Bommel is a small town on the edge of the river, surrounded by wood enough to make it remarkable in Holland; light, neat and pretty. The two principal streets cross each other at right angles, and are without canals. Being at some distance from the general roads, it is ill provided with inns; but one of them has a delightful prospect, and there is no dirt, or other symptom of negligence within. The inhabitants are advanced enough in prosperity and intelligent curiosity to have two Sociétés, where they meet to read new publications; a luxury, which may be found in almost every Dutch town. ”

“ At Boma the hilly, mountainous region commences, the groups of undulations rising gradually to a height of 2000 feet above the sea. The river is still navigable in this region, up to Vivi, 110 miles from the sea, though the channel is reduced to a width of 1500 yards. From Vivi to Isangila, a distance of fifty miles, is the lower series of Livingstone Falls. From Isangila to Manyanga is a navigable stretch of eighty-eight miles. ”

“ The wide steppes destitute of hills and trees, which stretch to the north of the Black Sea, of the Caucasus, and of the Caspian, are by reason of their natural conditions—more especially from the variations of temperature fluctuating between the climate of Stockholm and that of Madeira, and from the absolute destitution of rain or snow which occurs not unfrequently and lasts for a period of twenty-two months or longer—little adapted for agriculture or for permanent settlement at all ”

“ As we journeyed on a course somewhat parallel with Omuvereoom, we fell in with a sort of vley river—if river it could [159] be called, since it consisted alternately of dry, open spaces and deep gulleys. Both banks of this peculiar water-course were hemmed in by one vast thorn-jungle, which seemed to defy the passage of man or beast. It was doubly fortunate, therefore, that we met this river, as its sides served as a good and open road, while a plentiful supply of water was afforded by the occasional pools. ”