William Maskell

“ But a few days go by, and the seeming monotony has gone also; the air, so to say, begins to tell, and without knowing why or wherefore, there comes a sense of increased strength and cheerfulness; the first impressions of loneliness and sameness have turned to interest and pleasure in much of novelty and strangeness; the freedom and freshness of the sands, the rocks, the whole country round, force by degrees a charm which cannot be resisted; constant changes of the sea, in colour, in waves, in brilliance,—never seen two days alike,—follow one another, in quick variety ”

“ We cannot have everything, and if we want fine shells, we must go to the edge of a smoother sea and by the wash of lighter waves than what we find in the full face of the great Atlantic. Yet, in justice, it must be added that very perfect specimens of one of the most fragile and uncommon of English shells, the purple Helix, have, twice or thrice, been picked up amongst the rocks or on the sands at Bude. ”

“ The haven or harbour at Bude is in shape something like the section of a pear, from which the end at the stem has been cut off. It faces west; on the north side the cliffs for about a quarter of a mile are low; on the south they are lofty, with beds of rock and reefs below them. Upon the north side, below the cliffs, stretches a magnificent reach of sand, firm and dry at low water, for the length of between three and four miles. ”

“ Unhappily, there was but one small ship lying in the harbour at the time; it was impossible to get an efficient crew together, and the life-boat could not be of use.
The instant that the ship struck, the seas broke over her: and there was no doubt left that all on board were in the extremity of peril. The men at the helm ran forward; and the whole of the crew were together on the forecastle, holding on by anything to save being washed over. As she heeled towards the land when the waves struck her, a raft that had been got ready could now be seen, lying close to where the sailors were. ”

“ If, on the contrary, the decision is to bring them in, the flag is hoisted on the Chapel Rock, and the hovellers’ boat is rowed out to the point of the breakwater. Then, if it be really a doubtful, which (in fact) means a dangerous, tide, people flock down to the breakwater and the cliffs, and watch each ship as she steers for the entrance and tries her chance. Women are there, whose husbands, sons, and brothers are on board, and often the anxiety deepens into something worse. Happily, cases of the wreck of Bude ships are rare, and, for many years, still rarer with loss of life. ”

“ Hence it is that there is very little exaggeration in saying that ships seldom get into or out of Bude without some slight risk. Let the weather be ever so moderate, there may be a little roll of the sea on, and the wind may drop, and the ship drift upon a rock; or, from ignorance of the locality, a strange captain may keep his vessel a little away from the Chapel Rock,—too close to which, generally, he cannot go,—and so, run in upon the sand or reefs to the north. ”

“ And every hollow of the reefs, every crevice of the rocks, is filled with life: in pools of water, clear and transparent as crystal, swim thousands of marine animals, amidst waving forests of seaweed, endless in colour and variety. Probably in no part of the English shores is so wide a field open to the inquiry of the naturalist as this portion of the coast of Cornwall. Rare plants, and rarer seaweeds, will reward his search; but, for the conchologist, very little. Scarcely a shell, even broken in half, will be gathered in a day, a perfect one hardly ever. ”

“ The coast of Cornwall, from its northern extremity, 10 miles from Bude, southward to Trevose Head, which is distant about 20 miles, sweeps in a long curve, to which the name of Bude Bay is given in the maps. The coast is terrible throughout the whole extent. Rock-bound, with cliffs rising often to the height of 300 and nearly 400 feet, there are only a few breaks of sand here and there, at distant intervals, interrupting the constant dash of the waves against the very bases of the cliffs. ”

“ Such being the undeniably dangerous nature of the harbour, there is no want of interest, and excitement often, at every time of high water. The most exciting case is, of course, when some vessel must make the attempt, on account of heavy weather outside and a gale of wind upon the coast, which prevent altogether any chance of beating out of the bay. At such times, except to mark the tide, there is no need of any signal. The cliffs are lined with people, many also on the breakwater, in spite perhaps of the seas running over it: the rockets are brought down ”

“ The advantages of this canal are very great. Ships, once inside the lock, can lie safely in the basin, and the whole country is benefited by the conveyance of coals, timber, and other traffic into the interior.
More than all, the canal supplies the neighbouring villages, within a circuit of perhaps twenty miles, with the famous Bude sea-sand. For centuries this has been taken from the beach in front of the village, and for centuries no lasting increase and no decrease have been marked. ”

“ In a great storm it is almost alarming to sit in it, and listen to the terrific gusts of wind which come against it with unbroken force. Though at so great a height, the small strong windows are often broken by the stones and pebbles driven up the side of the cliff by the power of the wind. ”

“ But upon the other side, every house or little row of houses, though not always perhaps built with the best taste, shows as plainly as words could tell it, that the careful hand and eye of a liberal landlord have been over them for years. ”

“ There was bliss in that mediæval ignorance: we are very wise and learned in our own day, and we have lost all the old imaginations and romance.
A few words must suffice for a description of the shore which lies to the north of the Breakwater. As we have already said, the cliffs on this side have at low water at their base not low rocks and reefs, but a superb range of firm sand, more than three miles in length. This gives to Bude its great variety: on the one hand you have rocks; upon the other, sand ”

“ On the one side there is little sign of care or expense in keeping the houses in repair, or of attention to the wants of those who live in them: and not a few of the buildings which are under the control of the proprietor, exhibit a very narrow escape indeed from the general look of a dilapidated little Irish town. ”

“ It is probably to this clearness and purity of the atmosphere upon the western coast of Cornwall that we must attribute, after all, the chief cause of the great partiality which so many visitors feel for Bude. People, utter strangers, have often been known to come there ”

“ This forms a good shelter for vessels once inside, but limits the entrance of the harbour to the narrow space between its extremity at the rock and the north cliffs: not exceeding, perhaps, 300 yards: and even this space is not all equally available for vessels entering the port. The real entrance is as narrow, except under very favourable circumstances of weather, as the channel of the little river which deepens close under the Chapel Rock towards the sea. ”