There are several reasons why one should visit Roscoff, apart from the good and sufficient reason —for those who like to take their travelling individually—that nowadays one rarely does. I doubt if the real Brittany—the Bretagne bretonnante of speech, clothing and song—is anywhere less sophisticated; while for an Englishwoman who is one-half Welsh, Roscoff has old affinities, historical and domestic, romantic and homely, but all harmonious and affectionate.

A small granite fishing-haven on the northerly seaboard of Finistere, Roscoff owes the fig-trees and magnolias of its walled gardens to the Isle de Batz, some three miles of rocky island, surmounted by a tall white lighthouse, which lies couchant across the entrance to Roscoff’s almost landlocked harbour. Only a mile or so of channel intervenes between Batz and the mainland; and you can sail across, if you will, and see the island’s only treasure—the stole of St. Pol-de-Leon laid carefully by since the sixth century. It is said to be a Byzantine stole of blue silk tissue, cheerfully embroidered with huntsmen, dogs, horses and falcons; and its accredited owner, St. Pol, was one of those genuine but legend-bedizened evangelists between Wales (or Cornwall) and Armorica, whose antecedents and exploits were (as I have been informed and believe) the bane of the learned compilers of the Dictionary of National Biography. Being entirely incompetent to sift the views of the D.N.B., of the Bollandists, and of the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, all of whom have lavished themselves with different results on St. Pol, I will only submit that Paulus Aurelianus of Pen hoen in Glamorganshire (or Cornwall) seems to have fled from the onus and honor of a British bishopric, only to be tricked (by a sealed letter borne by himself) into accepting a French one.