Arthur L. Salmon

“ An air-voyager dropped from a flying-machine upon the roof of a Padstow house would never think that he was in Cornwall. If he walked out to Stepper Point, or strode some miles westward to Trevose Head, the first land sighted in old days by Canadian timber vessels trading to Padstow, the majestic sweep of coast, the jagged headlands and scattered rocks would certainly suggest Cornwall; but the estuary of the Camel from Wadebridge to Padstow, although beautiful, has no claim to the epithet wild. The panorama induces reflection, moves one to a mood of gentle melancholy ”

“ The very appearance of Cornwall is eloquent of its granitic structure; nothing less enduring could have survived the stress to which it is daily exposed. All softer measures have been eroded by the fierce wash of Atlantic seas; what we may consider a gaunt, bare backbone has stood the test, and the Cornish coast to-day confronts forces that would play havoc with the more yielding and gentle curves of east and south-east England. ”

“ Perranporth itself, since the advent of the railway, is drawing some visitors away from Newquay, in quest of equal beauty and greater quiet. The village stands on the cliffs above a small cove, from which there is some fishing, and northward runs a fine stretch of sand. There are capabilities here for almost unlimited growth, and the district, inland and seaward, is full of charm. The coast is hollowed and arched into wonderful caverns, where the deep blue and green waters break with gentle swell or dash with infuriated violence. ”

“ It comes pure from the Atlantic or from the down-lands, from craggy cliffs or grassy uplands; there is the wonderful glamour of the sea reaching inland to possess and dominate the peaceful charm of the country-side. The inhabitants in this quiet stretch of coast depend rather on agriculture than on fish for their maintenance; the coast is too unprotected, and there is no tolerable harbour to which fisher-boats might run for safety. The cottages for the most part have a pastoral atmosphere, and not the savour of fish and tangle of nets that we meet in so many seaside villages. ”

“ As a matter of fact Penzance now, with its admirable train service, seems nearer to Paddington than many places that are not half so far off; every express that comes westward brings a savour of the great city with it, just as each train that leaves Penzance carries material evidence of Cornwall's existence into the very heart of old London. All the flowers from Scilly go by this route, and the Penzance neighbourhood has many flowers, fruits, and early vegetables of its own to dispatch to Covent Garden, together with a considerable quantity of fish. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are some shops, respectable if not imposing, and a goodly supply of inns; a fine church and a notable old Cornish manor-house. But all the time one has a sense that the real life of the place is the river behind these houses; even the leisurely little railway station does not seem of much consequence, though it acts as a feeder of the boats that busily ply here. Quite obviously this is no resort of mere pleasure, and it is all the more pleasurable for that; it has set itself to live sturdily, not troubling to attract the idler and the luxurious. ”

“ There are stretches of undulating upland, with fragrant turf, gorse, bracken; valleys almost too low for sunlight to enter, the wild and tortuous mouths of rapid streams, patches of meadow and pasture, with lonely cottages and isolated church-towns. Different from the southern coast in aspect, more desolate, less fertile, there is yet a special charm even in the desolation, a stimulating appeal in the solitude, and a marvellous purity in the bracing winds that blow, sometimes with ruthless violence, from a thousand leagues of ocean. ”

“ When we turn from the Mawgan district to make our way towards the Padstow estuary the grand, broken coast goes with us, ever presenting new aspects of varying beauty—coves of golden sand succeeded by gaunt, caverned headlands, with here and there a craggy islet lying among the tumbling breakers. The great plateau of the Bodmin Moors here touches the coast, bringing its profusion of prehistoric remains—though in that matter there is little of Cornwall that is not plentifully endowed. ”

“ But days are not all of storm and wreckage; there are many times here when the waves lap peacefully against the old stone piers, when the air is soft and delicious, and when the women at their doors, engaged in their everlasting task of knitting jerseys for their men, can chatter of the happiest subjects without dreaming of storm or shipwreck. This is the calmer mood in which visitors generally find Polperro.
Probably not many visitors will trouble to inquire into the derivation of the name of Polperro; they will be content to know that it is Cornish. ”

“ There is indeed an atmosphere of mystery and of myth brooding over this region, with its gaunt, turf-clad headlands, its drifting sand-towans, its tracks and [Pg 272] stone hedges and lonely church-towns. It is easy to yield to the spirit of dream and imagination—to see with other eyes than we use in city life, to hear with other ears, to believe more and dispute less; the very air is an intoxicant and a stimulant to fantastic vision. ”

“ Of course, this only applies to the town, not to its situation, its fine cliffs and broad sands; Newquay townsfolk might with a little foresight have made their leading street into a most attractive promenade by leaving one side open towards the sea. As it is, the streets are resorted to for shopping and business purposes, and for nothing else; they have nothing else to offer. Commonplace on this plateau above the cliffs, the coast becomes glorious below, eaten out as it is into grand caves and hollows, with alluring stretches of weeded beach and firm shell-sand. ”

“ Close to its undulating slopes lies the grandeur of a glorious coast, meeting the deep blues and greens of the Atlantic. On the headland across the Bay there are barrows that tell of days before the coming of Saxon and Norman; and among these sport numberless rabbits, vanishing with marvellous quickness at the slightest movement. In storm all is magnificence; in calm there is the brooding of a fathomless peace. It is a perfect rest to lie on the sandy dunes or breezy warrens, gazing dreamily at sky and waters. ”

“ Whatever claims other places may set up, Penzance is truly the business capital of western Cornwall, the metropolis of the Land's End district. It is first and foremost a market-town. Of course, it is also a coasting port and fishing port and a watering-place; but none of these things so wholly absorb it as do the weekly markets, when countryfolk from all the neighbouring villages throng Market-Jew Street with their conveyances, their parcels and packages, their cattle, their eager chatter. These people and their forbears have made Penzance what it is ”

“ Its activity is maintained by the daily arrival and departure of cars from Camelford, Bude, Otterham, and Tintagel, bringing many visitors in the summer season. Some come to stay, but most make only a fleeting call; Nature has placed grave obstacles in the way of Boscastle's ever becoming a fashionable watering-place. Its charm is unique and undeniable; but it appeals to the artist, the sturdy pedestrian and climber, the lover of solitude that at times is absolute desolation, rather than to the parent of a family. ”

“ It pervades the air wildly and lingeringly. Those who come late to the ford and hear this sudden strange call draw rein and turn backward; it is better to drive the weary distance to the bridge than to brave a crossing when this warning is abroad. Those who are familiar with this country-side, with its dim lingerings of Celtic tradition, its strange borderland of myth and reality, know the meaning of the cry in their hearts, though, perhaps, they decline to give mention to it with their lips. ”

“ The western promontory of granite to which we give the name of Land's End is not the grandest piece of coast in these parts; but it has the prestige of a deep sentiment attaching to it, and there is no other spot in England that draws visitors with such a powerful attraction. In one sense the Scillies are the true Land's End, beyond which the deeper gulfs of ocean lie; and, again, there is another land's end at the Lizard, the southernmost point of England, and yet another at Lowestoft, the most easterly. ”

“ We read in the memoir of Tennyson that in the year 1848 he felt a craving to make a lonely sojourn at Bude. "I hear," he said, "that there are larger waves there than on any other part of the British coast, and must go thither and be alone with God." So he came, with the subject of his Idylls simmering in his mind. He found the great rollers, the grand, open coast, the solitude; these are still there, to be found of all that seek. There may be some lessening of the solitude, but only in parts; Bude has not yet become widely popular; it is the haunt of those who love bracing air and quiet. ”

“ The fisher-folk have spent a good deal on improving their harbour. The coast is grand and cavernous. On both sides, near Newlyn and at Lamorna, there is some busy quarrying; the quarries at Lamorna supplied much of the granite for the Thames Embankment. Being a favourite trip from Penzance, the cove at Lamorna is pretty well known; it opens to the sea from a very beautiful little valley formed by the Lamorna stream, wooded with hazels and alders. There need be no complaint just here that Cornwall is treeless, though beyond and above the land stretches unwooded and desolate. ”

“ There is a charm in the endless sand-blown dunes that stretch on both sides of the estuary, but dismal weather can make them desolate, and wild weather converts them into a howling waste; while Hayle itself, with some small shipping and industry, is a place that the lover of beauty does not often care for. But it is not altogether to be despised, and it is conveniently situated on the main Great Western line. This Hayle district was once the great landing-place of saints from Ireland, who came here rather numerously about fifteen centuries since ”

“ We know what the narrow seas can do on East-Anglian and Kentish shores; and the same work of coast-erosion that we there see proceeding before our very eyes must have taken place in Cornwall before the days when historians could note it. The denudations that left our stark Cornish coasts as we know them now for the most part occurred in times that are dim and legendary. We hear of the havoc by an uncertain voice of tradition; we dream of a lost land of Lyonesse, of which only the Scillies remain ”

“ Both places, but especially the Steps, afford a very favourite excursion from Newquay, seven miles distant; and whether the journey is performed on foot, or by cycle, motor-car or carriage, it is full of interest and beauty. It is best to come during the ebb of a spring tide, when the coves and caves may safely be explored; at other times there is grave peril. The caverns at Mawgan Porth are remarkably fine, and the grandly wild stretch of beach can hardly be spoken of with too great enthusiasm. The coast is as pitiless as it is beautiful, and many relics of wreckage are often washed ashore ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is no gloss of false romance about the place; the ruins have not the hollow pretentious grandeur of some Norman castles; what we see is the unadorned, unveiled reality of a majestic coast, the low, stark walls of ruin on an immemorial site, the naked wind-beaten church on the heights, the sea breaking into gaunt caverns below. ”

“ The lighthouse is finely placed and its white tower is a conspicuous mark along the coast. The eastward projection of this headland is Navax Point. A little beyond is the deep and narrow gorge of Hell's Mouth—not the only spot so named in Cornwall—whose dim caverns and beach are said to be more frequented by seals than any other part of the Cornish coast; but the seals will soon be a thing of the past—they are foolishly and cruelly shot by men whose instinct is to shoot everything. The caves were once haunted by smugglers also, and their operations were admirably seconded by Nature. ”

“ Here in the West Country hundreds of rich acres are held by the monastic orders. The country parson has now to fight against his old opponent, the Methodist or Baptist, and his older opponent, the priest of Rome. But the winds that sweep across the meadows and sand-dunes, the waves that lap peacefully or dash thunderously, tell us nothing of these old and often dismal quarrels. They are but secular things after all; the things that are eternal reach deeper than creed or vestment. ”