Lizard Point

“ Nor is the Lizard Point less useful (though not so far west) than the other, which is more properly called the Land’s End; but if we may credit our mariners, it is more frequently first discovered from the sea. ”

“ When we pass Black Head we come at last in sight of the true Lizard, with the fine reach of Kennack Sands lying between; and for those who can appreciate a walk of surpassing beauty, the best thing to do is to take the path at the top of the cliffs, leading through Cadgwith to the Lizard Point. The walk takes us into the true serpentine region; at Coverack serpentine is largely blent with felspar and crystal. ”

“ I looked narrowly at their nest hole with the thought in mind and saw that the birds had another point of vantage in the way the trunk bulged at the hole—it did not seem as if a large lizard could work itself up the smooth slippery rounding surface, however much given to eggs for breakfast. But in the West Indies lizards walk freely up and down the marble slabs, so it is dangerous to say what they cannot do. ”

“ Continuing our route towards Cape Lizard, we shall perceive that the Serpentine terminates about half a mile before we reach it, and is succeeded by Micaceous Slate, under which, at the Lizard head lie alternate beds of Compact Felspar, containing specks of Hornblende and green Talc. There are two light-houses at this point which front the south, and stand nearly abreast of each other, but unhappily they are too often found to be insufficient securities against the darkness of the midnight storm, and the treachery of the sunken rocks with which this stern coast is beset. ”

“ The Lizard, the Corinum of the ancients, is the most southerly point in England, and the fine rock scenery on the coast continues from there all the way to the Land's End, while isolated rocks in many forms and smugglers' caves of all sizes are to be seen. ”

“ On the summit of the cliffs which form the Lizard Head stand two lighthouses, two hundred and twenty-three feet apart. A covered passage runs between them, in the centre of which are the residence and offices attached to the towers, so that the keepers can communicate without being exposed to the fierce gales of winter. Each of the white towers is sixty-one feet high, and contains a brilliant fixed catoptric or reflecting light.
The Lizard is the most southerly point of England, and although it is exposed to heavy gales the climate is very healthy. ”

“ The Collared or Ring-necked Lizard may be found among the rocks and open woods of the plateau or in desert regions from southern Missouri southward into Mexico, westward to southeastern California and northward to southern Idaho. However, this is its general range, and it is not common over all this territory. Though it has been known to ascend to an altitude of nearly six thousand feet, yet it does not seem to have crossed the Sierra Nevada range, as it has not been observed at any point on the Pacific coast or the interior of California. ”

“ Such then, with an occasional old manor-house and park like Trelowarren, Bochyn, and Bonython, the last near Cury, formerly seat of the old family of Bonython, is the wide district at the back of Lizard Town. Strangers simply hurry over it, by motor-car or Great Western motor-omnibus, all anxious to reach the Lizard itself, and to explore Kynance Cove and be off again.
The Lizard lighthouse is three-quarters of a mile distant from Lizard Town. It occupies the extremity of the point, the Ocrinum of Ptolemy, and is the successor of a lighthouse first erected in 1619 by Sir John Killigrew. ”

“ In the middle of the night she struck upon the Brandies Rocks, immediately under the Lizard lighthouse; thus affording another extraordinary instance of the fatal attraction this, the most salient southerly point of land in England, has for vessels, in spite of the [157] lighthouse exhibiting the most powerful light in the world. The Lizard, Cadgwith and Mullion lifeboats put out, on hearing the news, and landed many of the passengers, and one hundred and forty were taken off by the tug Triton of Falmouth. ”

“ As we were pursuing our route in the afternoon we fell in with a specimen of the remarkable frilled lizard (Chlamydosaurus kingii) ; this animal measures about twenty-four inches from the tip of the nose to the point of its tail, and lives principally in trees, although it can run very swiftly along the ground: when not provoked or disturbed it moves quietly about, with its frill lying back in plaits upon the body: but it is very irascible and, directly it is frightened, elevates the frill or ruff and makes for a tree ”

“ Agnes Light, on one of the Scilly Isles, revolving every minute, at an elevation of 138 feet above high water. Next are made the two Lizard Lights, which crown the rugged cliffs at the southernmost point of the English coast. In the deep curve between this bold headland and the craggy promontories of Bolt Head and Start Point, lie the revolving light on St Anthony’s Point, and the two lights on Plymouth Breakwater; while out at sea, almost in front of Plymouth Sound, and midway between the Lizard and the Start, the waves beat and swirl around the Eddystone. ”

“ Just south of Dollar is the old smugglers' cave known as Raven's Hugo. Below this to the extreme point of the Lizard the coast is a series of jagged cliffs and clefts, with tiny coves and black chasms. For seaward and distant views it is best to take the head of the cliffs, but for the caverns a boat should be used, and this of course necessitates caution. We have now reached Lendewednack, the true Lizard parish and the most southerly in England. Apparently the dedication, like that of Towednack, near St. Ives, is to a St. ”

“ From these huts, and their situation, we concluded that at some seasons of the year the weather here is invariably calm and fine; for the inhabitants have no boat which can navigate the sea to so great a distance, in such weather as we had from the time of our first coming upon the coast. As we saw no animals upon this place but lizards, I called it Lizard Island ”

“ Lizard Island, which is, as I have before observed, the largest and the northermost of the three, affords safe anchorage under the north-west side, fresh water, and wood for fuel. The low islands and shoals also which lie between it and the main abound with turtle and fish, which may probably be caught in all seasons of the year, except when the weather is very tempestuous; so that, all things considered, there is not perhaps a better place for ships to refresh at upon the whole coast than this island. ”

“ The rock is almost severed by a fissure opening towards the sea: a wave surges in and spurts from the orifices on the landward side, then recedes and sucks the air back through them. From the cove at Kynance down to the extremity of the Lizard the scenery is everywhere fine. Here is the southernmost extremity of England, there being three headlands jutting into the sea near one another, the westernmost being the Old Lizard Head. Upon the middle one are the lighthouses that warn the mariner. Black cliffs above, and a sea studded with reefs below, give this place a forbidding aspect. ”

“ Lizard Island is conspicuous from a distance, on account of its peak*--the central part of a mountainous ridge running across the island, and dividing it into two portions, of which the eastern is hilly and the western low, and intersected by small ridges of slight elevation. The island is about 2 1/2 miles in greatest diameter; the rock is a coarse grey granite, easily decomposable. A large grassy plain enters westward from the central ridge--a portion of this, half a mile from the beach, densely covered with coarse grass and reeds and scattered over with Pandanus trees, is usually a marsh. ”

“ Its habitat includes Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
The Zebra-tailed Lizards.
These are small ground lizards found from Texas to California, especially in the dry sections. They run with great rapidity with the tail curved upward, which exposes the markings of the lower surface. Frequently they run like the Collared Lizard, on the hind feet. The black-and-white tail markings account for their name.
The Spotted Lizards.
These are small ground lizards found in many states from Kansas to California and southward. They are very quick in their movements. ”

“ There is a tradition that the Lizard people were formerly a very inferior race. In fact it is said that they went on all fours, till the crew of a foreign vessel, wrecked on the coast, settled among them, and improved the race so much that they became as remarkable for their stature and physical development as they had been before for the reverse. At this time, as a whole, the Lizard folks certainly have among them a very large population of tall people, many of the men and women being over six feet in height. ”

“ Lizard Town simply grew at haphazard, on the extremity of the level, heather-clad waste of the Lizard promontory, and with so little directing hand or purposeful mind that its component houses form hardly any recognisable lines of streets, running in any definite directions. They may be fitly likened to a flock of sheep huddled together, facing all ways, to escape a tempest raging from all quarters at once. The population appears to a casual observer to consist wholly of families of Jose and Roberts, all inter-related, like the Cadgwith people, who are all either Janes or Stevenses. ”

“ The name, which first applied only to the most southern headland, was not given from any fanciful resemblance to a Lizard, but appears to be a corruption of the Cornish words Lis-arth, lis being the secular enclosure, the palace or court, as distinct from lan the sacred enclosure, and arth meaning high. Lizard Town is a cluster of houses, growing in number to meet an increasing popularity, of which Landewednack is the church town, about half a mile distant; it is served by motor-buses from Helston, and in time there will doubtless be a branch line of the railway here. ”

“ And seven days were all we could allow ourselves at the Lizard, if we meant to see the rest of Cornwall. We began to reckon with sore hearts that five days were already gone, and it seemed as if we had not seen half we ought to see, even of our near surroundings.
"We will take no excursion to-day. We will just have our bath at Housel Cove and then we will wander about the shore, and examine the Lizard Lights. Only fancy, our going away to-morrow without having seen the inside of the Lizard Lights! Oh, I wish we were not leaving so soon. We shall never like any place as we like the Lizard." ”

“ Oh, it is the thing at the Lizard. My boys—and girls too—consider it the best fun going. The launce is a sort of sand-eel peculiar to these coasts. It swims about all day, and at night burrows in the sand just above the waterline, where, when the moon shines on it, you can trace the silvery gleam of the creature. So you stand up to your ankles on wet sand, with a crooked iron spear which you dart in and hook him up, keeping your left hand free to seize him with. ”

“ Points to be noted in the external appearance of the Common Lizard, when we have succeeded in capturing one, are the fact that the entire body is clothed with smooth, slightly keeled, and scarcely overlapping scales, small on the upper side, excepting the head, where they are large. On the underside, too, they are larger, especially from the breast to the vent, where they become broad plates, of which there are six rows, the two central rows being much smaller than the lateral ones. ”

“ To the southward juts out the Lizard, and to the westward Land's End. While the latter is the westernmost extremity of England, the Lizard is usually the earliest headland that greets the mariner. The Lizard peninsula is practically almost an island, the broad estuary of the Helford River on one side and a strange inlet called Loo Pool on the other narrowing its connecting isthmus to barely two miles width. To the northward of the Helford River is the well-known port of Falmouth. ”

“ Before we have got very far we are brought up short by an immense hole or funnel, cut clean-lipped from the short turf, and just the shape of one of those paper twists shop-keepers make for sweets. It is much larger in circumference than the Funnel at Tol Pedn. No railing protects the edge; people at the Lizard are supposed to have their wits about them. By lying down flat and approaching cautiously, we can peer over and see that here also the sea runs in on the floor. This is one of the cliff vagaries made within the memory of man. ”

“ All around is the level, treeless, windswept heath of the Lizard district, but down in this sheltered hollow one is in the atmosphere of a conservatory. Perhaps one person among every hundred of those who come to Lizard Town discovers Church Cove and the village of Landewednack, which is the mother-village whence Lizard Town, half a mile away, has sprung; and the ninety and nine return home, having just caught a glimpse of the lighthouse, and think, vainly, they have seen all there is to be seen. ”

“ Sometimes he walked alone in the mountains where men do not go even to-day, for he feared nothing—-neither the ravening spirits of the dead, nor the Lizard People, who in those days lived in the interior of the island. Fifty generations of men have lived and died since our ancestors came to this island; they found the Lizard People already in possession of the land. Ta 'a ta Moo, they called them—half human, half lizard; able to climb among the cliffs where no man could follow. ”

“ They may now and then be discovered under large stones, if there is a crevice, in the meadows. They do not in the least resemble the ordinary ‘land-lizard,’ which is a much coarser-looking and larger creature, and is not an inhabitant of this locality: at all events it is rare enough to have escaped me here, though I have often observed it in districts where the soil is light and sandy and where there is a good deal of heath-land. The land-lizards will stroll indoors if the door be left open. ”