Chapter III: Part 3

Whatever else is doubtful we cannot but be sure that Arthur's existence and reputation contributed in no small degree to the preservation of the men of the British race in this corner of the island when they were in danger of being pushed back into the sea by the oncoming Saxons, and it is to this that Cornwall owes in some ways its distinctive character, preserving racial features that are found nowhere else. The men of Ireland and of Wales are related certainly to the original Cornish but there is a distinct cleavage. Arthur may have made his fame known right across England, his victories may have carried him to the capital, Winchester, and beyond, but it is certain that his name will ever be associated most strongly with this far corner of the country where he was born and where he had his homeland associations. And these associations, being the very earliest of the British race surviving, serve to attract from far our Colonial brothers and our American cousins; Tintagel will never lack visitors.

But with the castle we have not exhausted by any means all that is worth seeing here.

Leaving the castle on the mainland we come very quickly to the "little grey church on the windy hill" with its graveyard wall almost swallowed up in rising grass and turf, and some of the tombstones heavily buttressed against the prevailing winds. The church tower must have formed a mark for generations to men of the sea. It stands up straight and bleak with never a tree to hide it. The entrances to the graveyard are over a pavement of round stone bars placed a few inches apart so that the cattle dare not cross them for fear of slipping in between with their narrow hoofs. There are many marks of great age inside the building and the grey stone walls, that have been many times restored, have heard the strong west winds whistling round them from the sea and moaning the tale of the wrecks on the coast for many generations.

All along this coast are steep descents and strange rock freaks. To the north, across the gully leading down to Tintagel Castle, there is a mighty fracture which has split asunder a huge angle of rock, that looks as if it only needed a giant push to thrust it back into the fracture, closely fitting. Yet the chasm below is so sheer and stern that no one can climb up the sides. The sea-birds know it. It was a happy chance for them that made this citadel free from the sullying steps of man, and the steep slopes of brilliant green amid the bare rock surfaces are peppered all over with them as if with a handful of comfits.

The wild music of a host of gulls is the bagpipes of the coast, and arouses the same feelings in the breast of the sea-lover as the pipes do in that of a Scotsman. It is associated with the sound of the surge and the deadly thrust and heavy swell at the foot of the tough cliff. These things tug at the heart of a sea-lover. Lying amid the prickly furze, sheltered for a moment from the deadly wind-whistle, and gazing across that unscalable chasm, we have before us that gull-fortress exactly as it and its kind have been reproduced on the canvas of a well-known painter many many times. What business has he to do the thing so well that we are familiarized with the stern beauty of the haunts of the freest of birds, and feel when we see them in Nature that half the charm has been forestalled by the blunting of our sensibility?

It is no easy task to scramble along these rough cliff edges, and one not to be undertaken by cripples or invalids.

Not very far is one of the valleys so attractive to the Cornish folk, who find in them the growth and snugness that contrast so impressively with their bleak uplands.

Down the Rocky Valley a stream gushes merrily, tumbling in miniature waterfalls every few yards, and meeting at last the oncoming wave with a shock as the sweet water mingles with salt. Everything grows amazingly, and the huge rectangular rocks high overhead on each side of the gully, are mostly draped in masses of ivy. They resemble ruins, as Cornish rocks often do, so that it is frequently most difficult to distinguish the natural from the artificial. Most people's idea of ivy is neat flat clinging stuff but here it grows in lumps, yards in thickness, and decorated with brilliant bunches of black berries in the season when there is little else to compete with it. In the valley which leads from the nearest station, Camelford, to Tintagel just such masses may be seen. The road runs downhill for about four miles, leading mysteriously into what seems the mouth of a quarry. The sides are covered with untidy, loose clumps of furze, with mighty stones, and ever and always, in all corners, moss so rich that it might almost be mistaken for a bed of miniature ferns. Climb up on one side and you get a glimpse into a pool, with sides sheer like a hewn cistern, and something so weird and awful in its onyx depths that it suggests robbery with violence, suicides, hangings, and anything else gruesome, while the water drips perpetually from the green lines of slime on its sharp walls. Further on are the glistening piles of slate from a disused quarry. The real quarry of Delabole, famous far and wide, is behind, beside the railway, from which one may look right down into it. The road to Tintagel opens out at last and then, if we are lucky enough to be going westward at sunset, we may see suddenly a hazy glow as of a forest fire over all the wide expanse of sea and sky, and outlined against it the great black lumps of rock off Trebarwith Strand.

With Tintagel must be associated Boscastle but a few miles along the coast to the north, for hardly anyone who visits the one place will fail to see the other, yet the two are singularly different. Boscastle lies all down the sides of one of those curious clefts, which would be called chines or denes elsewhere, and in this instance the drop is extraordinarily steep. To go sheer down is a feat most people will find difficult, even on foot, and the new road has been designed to help. Even that would be accounted steep in any ordinary place. Down, down it goes into the neck of the funnel, and looks for all the world as if it were leading to a slate quarry, and then suddenly there opens out one of the grandest harbours on the coast, with huge sloping cliffs running alongside and curving round, making the entrance both difficult and dangerous. With their lovely curves and angles they add greatly to the vision. From the heights of these cliffs Lundy Island can be seen when the air is clear. There is an old saw:--

"When Lundy is high it will be dry
When Lundy is plain it will be rain
When Lundy is low it will be snow!"

If the word of the inhabitants is to be trusted the last contingency must come seldom indeed!

The name Boscastle comes from Bottreux or Botreaux-castle, spoken quickly and run together. The site of the castle, which had ceased to exist by Queen Elizabeth's reign, is still pointed out. The town lies in two parishes and the church of Forraburry, belonging to the one, stands well up on the western cliff.

Care must be taken in climbing about the shore for the cliffs are very steep. Just to the north or east is Pentargon Bay, cutting deeply into the land, and near it the Seal Caves though seals seldom come there now. The waves dash in with tremendous force, especially with a westerly wind, which is common, when some grand sights may be seen. The black walls of the slate rock and the white spray of the shattered waves and the strange blue tint of the sea compose some pictures finer than any that have yet found their way on to a painter's canvas.

VI

THE SANDY BEACHES OF THE NORTHERN COAST

What a splendid series of resorts lie along the northern coast of Cornwall! Take them in order as they come. St. Ives, Newquay, Padstow, and Bude, leaving aside for the moment the smaller ones, or those like Boscastle and Tintagel, which stand in a class by themselves and have been already referred to. All these four have certain characteristics in common but each has a distinct individuality. That is one of the charms of Cornwall, nothing is cut to a pattern. By far the best-known is of course the first mentioned, St. Ives, with its splendid bays or "porths," with acres of firm sand, and its unrivalled golf-links at Lelant. It seems odd that a place should be able to face due east in Cornwall, yet somehow part of St. Ives manages to do it, that part of it which is on Porthminster Bay and is most favoured by visitors. The town is curiously placed, for the older part lies on a neck or isthmus protruding northward between two magnificent bays, and it is the curve on each side of the neck that makes the east and west side face respectively Porthminster or Porthmeor. From the east you look straight across to Godrevy Point and lighthouse.

St. Ives could never pall because it is not all to be seen or understood at a glance, and those who stay there longest admit they know it least. Seen from almost any point there is a view which demands attention, whether it be the green ruggedness of the island--only technically an island--against the soft blue of the sea, with the terraced lines of drab houses rising in tiers in front of it, or the harbour with its boats and screaming gulls and the old weather-worn church abutting on it. The prevailing tones of all the buildings are drab and grey; drab stone, drab stucco, drab paint with pale slate-grey roofs; a little red brick or tile would be an improvement from an artistic point of view.

It is an odd feature of Cornwall that however bare and treeless some parts are, and they could hardly be barer in the Hebrides, yet the towns are generally warmly encompassed by trees. It is so at Penzance and it is so here. Woods rise behind the houses, and the richness of the evergreens makes a shelter even in winter, while the ferns are inexhaustible in number and of great variety. The season is only for two months of the year, August and September, during which months the place is packed and the numerous inhabitants who live upon the yearly godsend of the "foreigners'" money, are hard put to it to supply accommodation; but all the year round there is a certain number of visitors who find in the clean fresh air, the glorious golf-links, second to none, and the wide views, just what they need. It is true that tiresome change at St. Erth junction has to be faced before reaching the town, but this is nothing compared with the days when the junction was the very nearest point of rail, and the rest of the journey had to be completed by road. This was altered in 1877 and the innovation was a great factor in the growth of the town. The road approach from this direction is well graded and has a good surface, but from the Zennor side so much cannot be said. A new road is being cut through and the approach improved, but even when it is completed, there must still be the long and precarious descent through a squalid part of the town to face.

The region of the visitors is mainly above the station, facing Porthminster Bay, where terraces of houses exist for the sole purpose of providing accommodation, but there is a secondary part above Porthmeor Bay where rows of neat little houses claim their share. Down on the harbour front and curving round behind it is the old town with its indescribable jumble of what can scarcely be called architecture; where outside staircases, and overhanging first-floor rooms with no visible means of support, twisted archways and narrow passages are inextricably mingled. The names of some of these places are quite delightful, Puddingbag Lane, Chy-an-Chy, Street-an-Garrow, Bunkers' Hill, and the Digey, while away westward is Clodgy Point. The old inhabitants must have had a genius for nomenclature.

St. Ives is the haunt of a colony of artists who rival those at Newlyn, and what with artists, fishing and visitors, the rest of the inhabitants manage somehow to live. But the fishing is not what it was; gone are the golden days when the shoals of pilchards announced by the "huers" from the Malakoff bastion were sufficient to provide a good livelihood for the whole town:

"The pilchards are expected on the coast in October, when their appearance gives rise to general excitement at a place like St. Ives. Often have been described the patient watching of the _huers_ on the cliffs, who with a huge trumpet at length announce their joyful discovery, and by the waving of bushes telegraph the movements of the shoal marked by the colour of the sea and its hovering escort of gulls; the rush of men, women, and children to the shore with shouts of _heva! heva!_ which is Cornish for the classic _Eureka_; the marshalling of the seine boats; the shooting of the huge nets; the enclosure of the luckless victims by myriads; then the hurried orgy of capturing, pickling, and storing, stimulated by its promise of prosperity to the whole place."

Alas! they come but scantily now and there is not much of any sort of fishing to be had. Though just enough to account for the brown-sailed boats lying in the harbour and the blue-jerseyed men belonging to them without which, it may be presumed, the artists would find some paucity of material and perhaps disappear also.

St. Ives would not be a Cornish town if it lacked hills and there are plenty to give exercise to leg muscles; but yet there are some places almost flat, and one has only to descend to the sands to secure a perfectly horizontal walk!

This is not a guide book and there is no need to go into detail about the ancient church in the very midst of the workers, or the restored tiny chapel out on the "island" that really once was an island, which overlooks as in blessing the drying nets that blacken the green of the grass on the slopes below. The chunk or bite out of this island on the east is Porthgwidden Cove, and the Foresand runs from here to Penolva Point whence begin Porthminster Sands. On the hill behind the town rises the hideous Knill monument where the little girls dance around on July 25 every fifth year, in memory of the conventional alderman who left such directions in his will, and yet after all is not buried here.

The impression carried away from St. Ives is of light and freshness and space, and of width of sand that would attract attention anywhere, but which here in Cornwall is phenomenal; and of enough modern comfort and cleanliness to make things very pleasant though within reach lies the old kernel of the town in piquant contrast.

The name Porthminster means "church of the sands" and it is curious that the church should thus be referred to in one of the principal place-names when the St. Ives' people had originally to go to Lelant for their services, marryings and buryings. Finding this state of things intolerable they petitioned for a church of their own and completed it in 1426. It was built close to the shore for the obvious reason that the stone of which there was abundance in the neighbourhood, could be more easily brought by water than overland, but it was not so near the sea as now, for in the seventeenth century "there was a field between the churchyard wall and Porth Cocking Rock, and sheep grazed on it."

The church of Lelant was rapidly being overpowered by the sand which has swallowed up many ancient oratories or "cells" built low down on the shore, and it was only saved by the planting and rapid spreading of the coarse rush grass which binds the surface of the towans together in a kind of mat and prevents the sand from drifting.

St. Ives with its eastern aspect is fresh even in the summer, and yet strange to say not very cold in winter, as the flowering shrubs which grow so well testify.

Newquay is not at all like St. Ives; it has no quaint muddled fishing town behind the "visitors' front," and it lies all along the top of high cliffs so that its main street is almost level, or at any rate, level for Cornwall. At one end is Towan Head not unlike St. Ives' Island, and from thence the bay runs in great scoops or curves cut off from each other except at low tide. These sandy bays, surrounded by high cliffs, resemble to some extent those at Broadstairs, and the aspect of Newquay is the same as that at Broadstairs for it faces mainly north. It is airy and spacious and light, and its signmark of originality lies not in its front so much as in its back, the long estuary of the Gannel River which forms a kind of back-door entrance. But villas and boarding-houses are rapidly springing up along the Gannel estuary, facing south, with their backs to Newquay proper, and thereby a bit of very fine wild land is being spoilt. There are excellent golf-links along Fistral Bay and huge hotels have sprung up to reap what harvest of visitors there may be, indeed it is a stock joke to say of Newquay, as may be said with much truth about Oban, "every second house is an hotel."

No one who looks at the map even cursorily can fail to note the extraordinary number of places in Cornwall beginning with the prefix St. This would be natural in Roman Catholic Ireland but it is whimsical in Methodistical Cornwall. It is, however, but one of the many signs of the very ancient history of the place which gives it so much charm. These reminders keep cropping out constantly among the modern surroundings, as the granite outcrops on the Bodmin moors and again at Land's End and the far-lying Scilly Isles, which are too but granite peaks.

Newquay for all its newness lies in a district of ancient memories. Only a mile or two away eastward are St. Columb Minor and Major, in fact Newquay itself is really in the parish of St. Columb Minor. Not far from St. Columb Major there is one of the most perfect remains of an ancient castle of the earthwork kind. It is called Castle-an-Dinas, or, locally, King Arthur's Castle. It is enclosed by three rings of earth and stone, of which one was probably strengthened by a moat, and the inmost part covers an acre and a half. But a little way from St. Columb Major on the other side is St. Mawgan at the end of the Vale of Lanherne, one of the well-wooded rich Cornish valleys which are so much admired by the inhabitants. Cornish people go for their picnic-parties and pleasure days to a valley as most people would to the seaside.

Newquay Bay is really one crescent or horn of a much larger bay extending right up to Trevose Headland, and within this sweep lies Watergate Bay and Bedruthan Steps with its detached rocks and fine natural scenery. Dividing Watergate and Newquay Bays is Trevalgue Head, an island connected with the mainland by a footbridge. Here the sea-pinks flourish abundantly covering all the ground with their frilled blossoms when in flower. They do well almost anywhere in Cornwall, but exceptionally well here, and the sheet of pink-tinged ground, caught as a foreground to a vivid summer sea, is a sight not to be forgotten. The only thing that spoils the fine cliff effects is that the whole coast here and northwards is composed of slate--a substance which does not lend itself to beauty of line or colouring.

But by far the most "saintly" associations of Newquay are on the other side. Across the Gannel is Crantock called after St. Crantock, St. Patrick's great friend, one of the three bishops chosen to revise the laws of Ireland after the country was converted to Christianity. Crantock landed here and built his church. A mile or two away on the shore is the Holy Well, still visited by curious men and maidens, and within the memory of those living held to have a miraculous power of making rheumatic men sound again. Holy wells in Cornwall are almost as plentiful as saints, possibly the one is always associated with the other as the outward sign of wonder-working power.

The extraordinary stretch of sand called Perran Beach would be remarkable anywhere, but it is more remarkable still on the rock-bound coast of Cornwall. Norden, with unconscious Irishism, describes Perran as being "almost drowned with the sea sande." The whole region for three miles in length and as much in breadth is sand alone. Inland a few plantations of pines struggle to survive just beyond its zone, and the little slate-roofed houses have a strangely glaring unfinished look; the hedges which divide up the land show here and there straggly scrubby bushes all bent violently eastward by the prevailing winds, and in the dreary corner of sandhills between them and the sea is somewhere to be found the tiny chapel of St. Piran, which is very interesting because it is the very earliest ecclesiastical building to be found in the land. It dates from the eighth or ninth century and is only twenty-five feet long. It was covered with sand as if buried in a snow drift and for seven centuries was completely lost. It is probably to this it owes its preservation. Sir A. Quiller-Couch's irreverent but amusing story concerning it in his _Delectable Duchy_ is known to most people. St. Piran, or Kieran as he is called in Irish, came over from Ireland in the sixth century and settled down here, where many wonders grew up about his name and his fame spread far and wide. Hundreds of people who never enter a modern church find themselves strangely impressed by this little ruined church buried amid the sand dunes with its record of between thirteen and fourteen hundred years of sanctity behind it. The very name Perranporth and its neighbour Perranzabuloe are so peculiarly and distinctly Cornish that they draw the inquisitive to them. The latter means Perran in the Sand. There is some very curious rock-scenery near Perranporth, where all the fantastic freaks of caves and natural arches, so common in Cornwall, can be seen at their best.

Far deeper than the inlet of the Gannel at Newquay is that of the River Camel, near the mouth of which Padstow stands. This is an estuary filled with water at high tide and lying in long melancholy reaches of sand at low tide. Padstow clusters round a very old-fashioned little port, where seafaring men congregate and discuss the weather and prices. There is not a great deal of fishing and only a little general trade, as the mouth of the river requires ticklish navigation. There is an enormous hotel standing on a height, and a very attractive church with an old Elizabethan mansion of the Prideaux-Brune family behind it. But all the sands are on the other side of the estuary, at Rock, whence the ferry-boat paddles to and fro about every hour. The rolling dunes have been utilized for fine golf-links and the all-encroaching sand has done its best to swallow up the little chapel of St. Enodoc, as it once succeeded in doing with St. Piran's; so far it has been kept at bay, but it still drifts in whenever it gets the chance. The links run out in the direction of Pentire Point, one of the fine coast headlands. It is very remarkable in Cornwall how constantly names are duplicated, one might imagine it would give rise to difficulties to find a Pentire Point here, and an East and West Pentire Point at the mouth of the Gannel near Newquay, many miles south, and just below this Pentire Point is Hayle Bay, and opposite Lelant near St. Ives we have again Hayle at the mouth of the river. Newlyn by Penzance is well known, and Newlyn East south of Newquay not so well. We have St. Just in Penwith and St. Just in Roseland. There are doubtless many other instances.

Of all the four seaside places discussed in this chapter Bude has perhaps most strongly its own character. Whoever heard of a seaside place with a sweet-water canal running down the beach? Canals are not usually associated with beauty and the very word canal is enough to frighten off many people. But the canal at Bude is quite peculiar. It only serves the purpose of a harbour for the ketches or fishing-boats apparently, and a very awkward harbour it makes too when a distracted ketch harassed by the strong flowing tide and baffled by a teasing wind, noses this way and that and fails to hit the narrow entrance. Then, a thing of beauty and distress, she heels over on the beach as the tide runs out, and the natives gather round to speculate whether she will "break her back" or not.

Bude possesses a breakwater too, but the oddest breakwater! For, instead of curving round like most normal ones, it sticks out straight into the sea and forms a favourite public promenade, with the added excitement that in rough weather you may very easily be swept off the hog's back of rounded stones and dashed to pieces against the rocky masses on either side.

Owing to the fact that Bude Bay is on a coast facing sheer west, the quarter of the wildest winds, the waves drive in with great force sometimes. The thunder of the surf on the shore may be heard like the deep pedals of an organ and all the air is hazed by the flying scud. To see the sun drop like glowing copper straight into the sea, behind ridge upon ridge of the "wild white horses" is most impressive. The strata of the rocks on the shore are most weirdly bent and contorted. It is difficult to conceive the state of convulsion which twisted them into the shape of innumerable up-ended triangles, one within the other, fitting like puzzle-boxes, or bent them right back like gigantic hooks. There is one great layer of rock which looks like the back of a whale, half a-wash, with all the ribs showing.

Bude is peculiar in the fact that it has all sorts of scenery combined in one place. The high downs covered with short grass lie north and south, and between them is the bay covered at high tide but showing a fine stretch of easily accessible hard sand at low water; while, as may be gathered, the rock scenery is well worth seeing. Here, as at so many places along this coast there are excellent golf-links, in this case in the very centre of the straggling town on the "Summerleaze." There is a second golf-links on the heights above Wrangle Point, belonging to the old Falcon Hotel by the bridge.

About two miles inland is Stratton, the scene of the victory of Sir Bevil Grenville over the Roundheads, a victory which was within an ace of being a defeat. The Earl of Stamford had marched into Cornwall, with forces of about seven thousand men, and camped at Stratton, where he was attacked by Sir Bevil with half the number and defeated. Grenville came of a famous Cornish family which numbered among its members Sir Richard, who with his little ship the _Revenge_, tackled the great Spanish galleons and managed to damage many of them before he fell mortally wounded as is recorded in Tennyson's much-quoted poem!

Further north still, the very last place of note on the Cornish coast, is Morwenstow, visited by hundreds of people because of its association with its one-time vicar, the Rev. Robert Stephen Hawker, a muscular Christian of a peculiarly pungent personality. His generosity and kindliness toward his fellow-men was unstinting, but he was withal full to the brim of eccentricity. He married while still a youth of twenty at the University, his godmother, who was twenty-one years his senior, and they lived happily together until her death in extreme old age. Hawker believed in ghosts and was exceedingly superstitious; there are many curious stories still current as to his doings, and the life of him by the notable novelist Baring-Gould is well worth reading.

VII

THE INLETS OF THE SOUTH COAST

Fowey is perhaps the best known by name of all the Cornish towns. This is due in some measure to its being the home of Sir A. Quiller-Couch, who has made it familiar to thousands in his stories of _Troy Town_ and _The Delectable Duchy_. But people who go to Fowey should be prepared to find it unlike anything anywhere else. Fowey Harbour is a long narrow slit penetrating into the land and closed in on each side by very steep hills which drop down sharply to the water. On the west lies Fowey town close to the mouth of the harbour, built on the hillside. It consists of one long narrow street, so constricted that only here and there, where the houses fall back a little, has it been found possible to drop in a few feet of pavement, otherwise foot-passengers take their chance with the traffic. There are houses on each side. Those on the seaward side are built right on to the water so that many of them have ladders hanging from their backyards by which the men can climb down into their boats. Passing casually along the main street and glancing into an open doorway one sometimes sees the passage falling downwards like an open shaft, the lower end a rectangle of blue dancing water!

On the other side the levels, if they can be called levels--for there is hardly a foot of level land anywhere--rise high overhead. In following any of the quaint crooked streets it is possible at one moment to look up at school children playing in a courtyard high overhead and five minutes later to survey the same children shortened in perspective by being seen from above!

In the very midst of the town is the splendid old church, and near it, but so tucked away it is not easily discovered, is Place House, the seat of the Treffrys, an old Cornish family. The oldest parts of this have stood since 1457 and it is said that here once was a palace of the old Earls of Cornwall, which is quite probable, as they could hardly have chosen a better spot.

If we pass on by the long narrow main street we come out eventually on heights terminating in Gribbin Head. But Fowey is not recommended for people with weak hearts unless they intend to sit upon the charming verandah of the hotel as suggested in the first chapter. Wherever one turns there are steep hills to negotiate, and the magnificent views gained across the deep inlet must be bought by hard labour. Yet having said that it is but fair to add that nowhere in Britain are there sights to beat these. The harbour lies like a Norwegian fiord between its hills, and the water ranges in all imaginable blues and greens as the light wanes and changes, while there are ever coming and going craft of many kinds. Fowey is not a fishing village; anyone who said it was would have to reckon with Sir A. Quiller-Couch! The harbour is visited by ships in search of cargo such as the china-clay which forms so large a proportion of the export, and the graceful vessels, often sailing-ships, which come to fetch it, are towed in and out by the little tugs which work unceasingly about the narrow straits. And the inlet is one of the most popular for yachts all along the coast. There is here reproduced a most interesting chart of Fowey Harbour, drawn in Henry VIII.'s time, and now in the British Museum. This reproduction is taken from Lysons' _Magna Britannica_. As will be seen, it shows Lostwithiel, Liskeard, and even Bodmin, with a pictorial representation of the stags grazing in Restormel Park. Even at that date the twin forts guarding the narrow entrance to the harbour were "decayed."

In Henry III.'s reign Fowey men rescued some of the ships of the men of Rye, and Fowey was therefore honoured by the Cinque Ports "with armes and privileges." In the time of Edward III. Fowey supplied more ships to the King's Navy than any other port in England, which is an amazing fact. At the Siege of Calais there were forty-seven ships from this little place! The men of Fowey were always known as bold sailors, having been brought up upon the water it seemed their natural element. So stung were the French by the wasps issuing from this nest that they made a descent on Fowey in 1457 when Lady Treffry, whose husband was not at home, led the defence and helped to beat back the attackers to their ships.

In later times Fowey earned a base reputation for being the harbour of pirates and eventually was punished by being obliged to transfer its ships to Dartmouth.

Those who like boating and sea-fishing will find plentiful opportunity here to indulge in both.

Just opposite Fowey town a deep bite into the land cuts off a projecting tongue, reached from the west by ferry, and the piled houses upon it, falling down their mountain-side, lack something of the beauty they might easily have had in such a situation. But further down, where at Bodinnick ferry passengers are carried to and fro there is much to admire. Bodinnick is an inland village which has fallen by accident upon a seashore, at least that is the impression it gives. The walls are lined with bladder seaweed, the seaweed that goes "pop" to the delight of children. This hangs in black masses above the incoming water, but over it rise woods and trees, and ivy and ferns, and all the paraphernalia of a country lane. The ivy in fact tumbles riotously down on the top of the seaweed! The cottages, maintaining their balance with difficulty on the perilous slope rising from the ferry, are covered with rose bushes. Candytuft and violets come out in their season to creep over the rough stone walls; white pigeons flutter overhead and glimpses of large-leaved plants of a kind more often associated with a tropical climate, peep at one from backyards. There is nothing conventional or suburban about Bodinnick! It takes no trouble to clear away the bits of broken crockery or rusty tins; perhaps it likes the feeling of homeliness they give, and the sleepy cats appear to like it too.

From Fowey there is one road and only one, which leads across the headland westward to Par sands, but there is a choice of two routes by railway, one running along beside the inlet, which is of course the mouth of the River Fowey, and giving lovely views of the wooded reaches about the mouth of its tributary the Lerryn, which, following the custom of rivers in this district, has a considerable inlet to itself. While Penpoll Creek, nearer the sea, affords a comfortable harbourage even in a very high wind. But the one road and the two railways do not sum up all the ways of getting out of Fowey, for you may persuade the burly round-eyed old salt who has spent his life in crossing and recrossing hundreds of times, to put you over at Bodinnick, and then you can wander at your own sweet will by any of the innumerable tracks over the great rectangle bounded on the west and north by Fowey River (which turns at a right angle about Bodmin Road), and on the east by Looe River. This lump of land is cut up and seamed by valleys and broken by hills. On the sea-line, about halfway across, is the tiny fishing village--really a fishing village this time--of Polperro, than which no quainter thing exists in Britain. You drop down, down, down, to Polperro until you can look up and see the cows grazing high overhead as you might in an Alpine valley, and then you plunge into the miniature confused streets of the town, and following them at random may or may not come out at the little port, and walking along the rude jetty see the outer harbour and the small beach. The smell of fish is strong in the air; the fishing-boats lie in neat rows, supported by legs to prevent their heeling over when the tide runs out. The houses cluster on the steep hillside in terraces, and below them a collection of blue-guernseyed stout-booted men, with wholesome sea-tanned faces, lounge about as if they were the idlest set in Christendom, though their work demands the hardest toil and greatest endurance of any calling man can follow.

Polperro is strangely like a little town in Brittany and has something about it also which recalls the inland villages tucked away in the spurs of the Alps or Apennines above the Riviera. It is easy to imagine that anyone having visited it and trying to recall where he had looked upon such a scene, would search his memory for tours abroad and never think of England.

A good road leads up out of this valley on the Looe side and once the hill is surmounted it may be remarked with surprise that at the cost of going a little round it actually tries to keep on the level; that is not a practice habitual to Cornish roads, which seem to take a pure delight in a switchback manner of progress. This road was cut in 1849, the means of arriving at Polperro before that being something like falling down the face of a cliff. Polperro was the home of Jonathan Couch, the naturalist, grandfather of the novelist Sir A. Quiller-Couch, who lives a short way off at Fowey. Mr. Thomas Couch's _History of Polperro_ embodying his father, Jonathan Couch's, notes, and published in 1871, may still be read with interest. He pictures himself standing on the height of Brent. "Immediately below are the harbour, valley and town of Polperro; the Peak with its striking jagged outline and massive black colouring; the sail-loft resting in a recess on its side; the ledges of rocks here and there hollowed into caverns, and the quays, between which are the fishing-boats riding quietly in tiers. Further up among the hills which shut this scene in you see strange, and apparently confused, groups of houses, having a general tint of whitewash, and, above them, on the southern side, the little Chapel of St. John."

Though many new and better-class houses have been built, this description still holds good. The cliffs all round are very sheer and steep, dropping straight into the water, which is deep up to the base. In some of the little old houses there are low, dark rooms smelling strongly of fish and brine, with the beams showing. Mr. Thomas Couch says: "In the old home of the Quillers [his mother's family] there was hanging on a beam a key, which we, as children, regarded with respect and awe, and never dared to touch, for Richard Quiller, Jane's father, had put the key of his quadrant on the nail with strong injunctions that no one should take it off until his return [which never happened]; and there, I believe, it still hangs." This doubtless gave "Q" his idea for the key on the beam in that curiously unequal story, _Dead Man's Rock_.

The two Looes, East and West, facing each other across the mouth of the river,--which here _looks_ like the mouth of a river and not a fiord as at Fowey--are easily understood. You can see them both from the bridge, whereas in Fowey on first arrival it is very difficult to know where you are and I doubt if anyone really knows even after staying there awhile, for there is no place where you can get a comprehensive view unless it is from the opposite shore at the expense of much toil and trouble. The Looes lack the picturesqueness of Fowey but on the other hand you can get about much more easily and there is bathing on the front. The woods lying inland have a great and peculiar charm. Not very far above the bridge the river bifurcates, the two branches being east and west to match the twin-town. Here in the wide sandy estuary sea-birds congregate, and the boats are drawn up in rows beneath the overhanging trees, which come right down to the very lip of the water. It is difficult to contemplate without amusement the golden era before the Reform Bill when this little place returned four members to Parliament, two for the handful of houses each side of the river! It is difficult--but perhaps not quite so difficult--to realize that Looe sent twenty ships to help King Edward III. to besiege Calais.

But these inlets we have been sketching are small indeed compared with the mighty harbours of many ramifications such as those at Devonport and Falmouth. Devonport has already been touched upon elsewhere, and we can pass on now to Falmouth with its wide opening in Carrick Roads and the long thin fingers or tongues of water diving deep into the heart of the land. One of these goes up to Truro and it is one of the popular excursions from both towns to sail up and down in the summer steamboats from one to the other. Falmouth itself lies along both sides of the neck of land ending in Pendennis Point, and, though on a much larger scale, is in that respect not unlike St. Ives in situation. The southern side boasts the beach and what may be called Villadom for its share, and the northern looks upon the harbour and faces over to the hamlet of Flushing where the ferry runs continually. There are steep streets in Falmouth as everywhere else in Cornwall, and even the main street passing all along beside the water, mounts a tough hill toward Penryn. The glimpses of the crowded harbour and the variety and picturesqueness of the boats and ships that find their way in are a never-failing source of interest and pleasure.

Before the days of steam Falmouth was of more importance than it is now, and many a sailing ship started from here with a cargo of passengers who had travelled as far as possible on land before committing themselves to the uncertain sea. But Falmouth is particularly known for having been the starting-place of the Royal Mail Packets which went to America, the Indies and other parts of the globe. The mails were sent down by the authorities, who chartered armed brigs with a crew of thirty men and sent them off to run all the risks of the sea and to fight if need be in defence of their valuable cargo. Many a stubborn fight there was too and many the weeping widow of Falmouth who mourned her man in vain. It is supposed that Falmouth first became a station for "packets" in 1688, and the number sailing from the port was increased from time to time until in 1763 there were boats going to Lisbon, the West Indies and New York continually. Therefore for about 150 years, until 1850, Falmouth was the port for the mail-packets, but when steam power was applied to ships she lost the mail service which was transferred to Southampton.

There is a school of artists here, an offshoot from the Newlyn school, which seems to have been the parent swarm of many a cluster.

The castle on the headland, now in the hands of the military, dates from the time of Henry VIII.

Facing Pendennis Point are the jagged jaws of another peninsula singularly like a crocodile's head. On the lower jaw is St. Mawes, a pretty little place with a rising hill behind. This peninsula is called by the pretty name of Roseland, which has however nothing to do with flowers, being derived from Rhos, the Celtic word for heath or gorse.

About a mile along the southern shore of Falmouth is the Swan Pool, a sheet of fresh water cut off from the sea by a narrow bar of sand, and supposed by the Falmouth folk to outrival completely the better-known Looe Pool near Mullion.

The whole of the Lizard peninsula is nearly shorn through by the Helford River, which almost reaches across to Looe Pool. If this is the heel of Cornwall, it, like the heel of Achilles, is vulnerable, and nearly severed by the slash! There is less to say about the Helford River estuary than any other. Beyond the fact that it was once a well-known harbourage for pirates it does not seem to have any striking title to fame.

It is rather odd that though Cornwall is so liberally endowed with coast-line, so that at no part of the Duchy is one really far from the sea, yet she should have in addition these delightful winding waterways cutting deeply and widely into her south coast and affording excellent means of transit.

VIII

CORNISH TOWNS

If an enquiry were made among the Cornish towns as to which of them it were fittest to mention first, it can be easily imagined that one and all would claim the honour for themselves. And truly each has something to say for itself. Penzance is the town best known to the majority of visitors, because the railway ends there, and "London to Penzance" has become almost as common a phrase as "London to Cornwall." But so far as we are concerned we need not bother about Penzance as we have already given it full space. Truro could advance good claims for she is the seat of the Bishop's See and possesses the modern cathedral, the only one in the Duchy, and also she is the educational centre with fine county education offices. Bodmin, however, is really the county town as the Assizes are still held there, an honour she has disputed with Launceston for many centuries, the Assize Courts having swayed to and fro between them. Even now there is talk of removing them from Bodmin owing to the difficulty of getting there. Bodmin is not on the main Great Western line but only connected with it from Bodmin Road by a branch line. Launceston can outshine the others by reason of her fine ruin of the ancient castle and an historical record second to none, but at present official recognition she cannot claim.

Beyond these three we need not go. The coast-towns have been already visited, and as for smaller ones inland, such as Liskeard, Camelford, Redruth, Cambourne, Callington and Helston, they cannot hope to compete.

Truro is just the picture of what one imagines a market-town to be. On market-days its open spaces are filled with country carts and the quaint little covered-in omnibuses, like those used by the peasantry of France on their immensely long straight roads. There is a buzz and clamour of talk outside the doors of the old Red Lion Inn, or, as it now seems to be the fashion to say--hotel. This is the house in which Samuel Foote, actor and dramatist, was born in 1720; his father was at one time Mayor of Truro. The house is worth seeing on its own account, for it has a massive carved oak staircase--alas, thickly overlaid with varnish, and some moulded ceilings unusual in an inn.

Truro is well watered, as it stands between two small rivers which join in the creek by which steamboats go down to Falmouth through pretty wooded scenery. The town itself is quite tolerably flat for a Cornish town, but long hills run up out of it on all sides. The oldest part of the cathedral is that which was the parish church, incorporated into the new building. About the cathedral there have been many opinions, but a modern cathedral can hardly escape severe criticism considering that it has to compete with all the dignity and reverence of those which have stood hundreds of years! The white stone shows up well, and though the town is more or less in a basin the tall spires are seen from the surrounding hills to advantage. There are good shops in Truro and much that is of interest, including the very fine collection in the Museum of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, now housed in a worthy building. Here anyone who has wandered in the hills and over the barren moors and seen the relics of hoary antiquity so freely scattered, can look with seeing eye on the more valuable specimens which have been found and are now cared for and preserved where they will not be stolen or lost.

Even in Domesday Book Truro is mentioned, and at that time there were two towns, Great and Little Truro, standing under the shadow of a fortress held by the Earls of Cornwall, now vanished, though its site is known and pointed out near the station. The town's charter was granted in 1130 and renewed in 1589, so it is not much matter for wonder the inhabitants look upon it as the first city in Cornwall, and, in olden times, so bore themselves that they earned for their city the nickname of "Proud Truro."

The cathedral was in great part due to the energy of Bishop Benson, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who was made first Bishop when the See was created. Bishop Benson "delighted in the Cornish people and was never tired of observing and analyzing their character." He did much for Truro in many ways.

Bodmin stands almost in the middle of the Duchy with two long fingers, that of the inlet of Fowey on the south and that of the inlet of the River Camel on the north, pointing directly at it. It is a very quiet little town but has somehow managed to preserve its charm. The fine old parish church, almost worthy to take rank as a cathedral, is in the midst, easily to be seen. The church is the largest in Cornwall and parts of it date from 1125. It once had a very striking spire, destroyed by lightning in 1699. Bodmin means the Monks' Town, and even though it has the enormous barracks built in the usual style, just outside, it still keeps something of the monkish atmosphere. Bodmin scorns Truro's claims of long descent, turning to Athelstan as its founder. Athelstan, who founded here in 926 a Benedictine Priory of which some traces even now remain. The town is in a beautiful and well-wooded neighbourhood, and anyone taking the trouble to climb Beacon Hill just outside will be rewarded. It was at Bodmin in 1498 that Perkin Warbeck, who had disembarked near Land's End, gathered 3,000 men together and started his disastrous campaign by launching himself against Exeter. In Bodmin meet, or rather "meet with a gap between," the two rival railways--the Great Western and London and South Western; the latter station is a terminus, and the line running northward connects the town with Wadebridge and Padstow. The former comes from Bodmin Road where it joins the main line, and continues also to Wadebridge.

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 ... but also the inland mountayns are so crowned with mightie rockes as he that passing through the country beholding some of the rockes afar off may suppose them to be greate cyties planted on the hills, wherin prima facie ther appeareth the resemblance of towres, howses, chimnies and such like."

Though he flatters the Cornish highlands in calling them mountains, yet it is true enough that the tors out-cropping in this region do take on most curious shapes. The most remarkable of all is the unstable-looking Cheesewring, southwest of Launceston, and rather difficult of access. Here stones are piled one on the top of the other, each larger than the last, till the effect is that of a gigantic and misshapen mushroom. But it was not built deliberately, it just happened so. How--no one knows, but the suggestion is that the mass was once banked in by earth, which was washed away, leaving the bare pinnacle of stone. In the midst of the moor Brown Willy and Rough Tor rise with considerable picturesqueness, and their surfaces are strewn with the old beehive huts of a people whose history is lost.