The Cornwall Coast Part 4

_Photo by Gibson & Sons._]

A little river flows into the Poldhu cove, running down from the charming wooded estate of Bochym, mentioned in Domesday as Buchent.

There was formerly some fine old tapestry and stained gla.s.s in the mansion, but these have gone; however, its oak room with sliding panel and secret staircase remains, and the garden has some remarkable tropic growths. A number of prehistoric relics have been discovered on this estate. Close to Bochym is another old manor, Bonython; it is said that the poet Longfellow was descended from one of the Bonythons, who was an early settler in America. We are now in the parish of St.

Cury, or Corentin. He is a saint better known in Brittany that in Cornwall, but it must always be remembered that the two countries are very closely connected in race and tradition; also even in name, for there was a Cornouaille in Brittany which former chroniclers have sometimes confused with the English Cornwall.

The church, which is chiefly late Decorated, has a very good Norman doorway, and a most interesting hagioscope, resembling that of Landewednack, with the difference that the Cury window is a single light. Much change and mutilation seems to have taken place in this church; a former vicar found many remains of alabaster figures hidden among plaster and debris behind a slab. There is a very singular aumbry or alms-box, formed in an oak bench-end near the door. The rugged old building is finely placed, with a magnificent view over land and sea. But the ordinary visitor takes more notice of Grunwalloe, which is one of the most curiously situated churches in the kingdom, standing where the sea-spray sometimes makes a clean sweep over it. Its churchyard walls rise immediately from the sands of Gunwalloe Church Cove--at times the very graveyard has been invaded by das.h.i.+ng waves; and its little campanile tower is literally built into the solid rock. Thus founded on rocks, it stands old and weather-beaten, in a desolate district of sand-towans. The dedication is to St. Winwaloe, and it must be left to more learned hagiologists to decide who this Winwaloe really was, or whether he was identical with the founder of Landewednack. There are about half a dozen churches with detached belfries in Cornwall, but this of Gunwalloe is perhaps the most striking; the campanile here stands 14 feet west of the main building. It is difficult to account for the peculiarity, but of course there are stories that attempt to solve the mystery. The church itself is said to have been the votive offering of a survivor from s.h.i.+pwreck; some, however, speak not of a single survivor, but of two sisters whose lives were saved here, and who could not agree about the exact position of the church they desired to erect as a thank-offering. The result was a compromise. There are traditions of buried treasure here, as well as of wrecked dollars; and in both cases much time and money have been spent by treasure-seekers.

It is possible that the Goonhilly Downs, which occupy the high-lying and barren interior of this Lizard district, really embody a corruption of the name of Gunwalloe, though the name is generally explained as meaning "hunting down." These downs belong to the true _meneage_ or stony district, but in the past they seem to have been covered with thickets and wild beasts. It is still a lonely, deserted track of country, with prehistoric hut-circles and entrenchments, crossed by two good roads, now often traversed by brake and motor and cycle, leading from Helston to St. Keverne and the Lizard. Leland speaks of "a wyld moor, called Gunhilly, wher ys brood of catyle"; perhaps the cattle were the once-famous Goonhilly nags referred to by Norden. "There is a kinde of nagge," he says, "bred upon a mountanous and spatious peece of grounde, called Goon-hillye, lyinge between the sea-coaste and Helston; which are the hardeste naggs and beste of travaile for their bones within this kingdome, resembling in body for quant.i.tie, and in goodness of mettle, the Galloway naggs." The breed seems now to be extinct, though there are doubtless living descendants; and Goonhilly remains an almost treeless table-land, broken by streamlets where it meets the sea. There are many to whom this inland portion of the Lizard country may seem dreary enough, but others will be touched by its indefinite charm of breezy expanse, the beautiful colour of its Cornish heath, the loneliness of its pools and hollows, the call of its curlews, the hum of its summer bees.

Just below Gunwalloe fis.h.i.+ng-cove are the fine Halzaphron cliffs, on which a transport was wrecked about a century since, and the bodies then buried are said to have been the last s.h.i.+pwrecked persons to be laid in unconsecrated ground. Public opinion rebelled against the so-called heathen burial given to such remains, and an Act was pa.s.sed in Parliament sanctioning their interment in the churchyards of the parishes on which they were cast. Whatever advantage there may be in lying in consecrated earth is now freely granted; the unknown drowned are given the benefit of the doubt, and their bodies committed to the dust in Christian fas.h.i.+on. In parishes like these of the Lizard, and on the north Cornwall coast at places like Morwenstow, this duty of giving Christian sepulture has been no sinecure.

We come across traces of an ancient Cornish family at Carminow, the eastern creek of Loe Pool; but the most tangible relics of the Carminows now remaining are the two effigies in the church of Mawgan-in-Meneage, in which parish we find ourselves once more after having made the tour of the Lizard peninsula. Various tales are told of the Carminows; it is said they claimed descent from King Arthur--it is even said that a Carminow fought against the Romans at their first landing, which would carry them far eastward of Cornwall. Hals thought that the Mawgan figures were brought from the old chapel of their manor-house, which stood here by the Carminow creek; but Blight is of opinion that the effigies were removed from Bodmin. In Loe Bar we have a formation slightly resembling the famous Chesil Ridge of Dorset, and the bar at Slapton Sands in Devon; but this Loe Bar is on a much smaller scale. Being formed of very fine pebbles, the waters of Loe Pool are in ordinary times able to percolate to the sea; but after much rain there is more water than can thus be carried off, and it was formerly the custom to cut the Bar at such times that the superfluous flood might rush through. A culvert has now been constructed for this purpose, so that the cutting of the Bar is now superseded. A writer who was at school at Helston tells us that "when the floods became serious, and the Loe too near Helston to be pleasant, there was a solemn function performed by the men of Helston, with the Mayor at their head, called breaking the Bar. The Loe was so full that a small trench cut between it and the sea let out the waters; there was then a rush of water and the Loe became connected with the sea by a deep chasm through which the tide flowed. I have never seen the Bar broken, but I have seen the deep chasm in the bar of sand with the tide flowing in and out. The natural forces which originally made the Bar restored it, and in the course of some months it became the same as before." Mr. Hind says he was told by a sailor that "when he was a boy Loe Bar used to be broken once a fortnight"; but we sometimes exaggerate the things that we remember of our boyhood, and certainly the cutting can never have been as frequent as this. C. A. Johns, who knew Helston well, says that it was rarely necessary to cut the Bar more than twice a year, sometimes not even once; and further, describing a cutting, he says: "In a few hours a deep mighty river is bursting out with inconceivable velocity, and engaging in violent conflict with the waves of the ocean; as the two meet they clash together with terrific uproar, while the sea for twenty, or even thirty miles, is tinged of an ochreous hue. Even at the Scilly Islands the cutting of the Loe Bar has been notified by the altered colour of the water." As the pool belonged to the lord of Penrose, it was customary to present him with a purse containing three-halfpence to obtain his permission for the cutting of the Bar. All this is a thing of the past, but Loe Pool remains as the only sheet of water in Cornwall worthy to be termed a lake, with banks finely wooded and carpeted with flowers. In shape it is more like a broad river than a lake, and it is in fact the land-locked estuary of the Cober, cut off from full intercourse with the sea by this pebbly and sandy spit.

Helston claims that it was once a seaport, with vessels sailing close up to its walls; and the formation of the Loe Bar, which destroyed all access, is said to have been one of the accidents of the doomed Tregeagle, whose story will be told later. The Pool is about seven miles in circ.u.mference, and affords some excellent fis.h.i.+ng; it is the one great attraction that Helston can boast. When Tennyson wrote his "Morte d'Arthur," the germ from which all his Arthurian Idylls sprang, and in some respects the finest portion of them, he described how the knight Bedivere carried the wounded Arthur after his last battle--

"And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, A broken chancel with a broken cross, That stood on a dark strait of barren land.

On one side lay the Ocean, and on one Lay a great water, and the moon was full."

It has been sometimes imagined that this "great water" was none other than Loe Pool, and certainly the spot has a better claim than Dozmare on the Bodmin Moors; but the placing this last battle in the West at all is merely a concession to fancy, and to the desires of West Countrymen. History tells us that Arthur's last fight must almost certainly have taken place in Scotland. But Tennyson's localities are a land of dream and myth; we do better not to try to identify them--their beauty may go with us from place to place, their atmosphere bring peace and soothing to us wherever our steps may be.

It is probable that the origin of the name of Helston is the Cornish _hel_, "water," as at Helford and Hayle; but some Saxon derivations have been suggested, and certainly the name was once Henlistone. It is a clean, bright little town of about five thousand inhabitants, with a broad main street. Relatively, the town was once of greater consequence than now; its earliest known charter was granted by King John, with many later charters from other monarchs. It was an active centre of mining, and became a stannary or coinage town. The Grammar School (now extinct) was notable in the days of Derwent Coleridge, son of the poet, who was headmaster here at a time when Charles Kingsley was pupil; the second master was Johns, known to all botanists by his _Flowers of the Field_, and to all lovers of Cornwall by his _Week at the Lizard_. Kingsley utilised his knowledge of this corner of Cornwall when he wrote his _Hereward_, and there is no doubt that he derived much good from his schooling under such excellent masters as Coleridge and Johns. When writing of Helston it is customary to say a great deal about its Flora, or Furry Day, the 8th of May--a relic of old Maytide saturnalia. Though the dance through the streets to a special kind of hornpipe, in at the front doors and out at the back, is still continued, the old spirit that actuated it is dead--it has become very much of a make-believe, a show for visitors, a galvanised custom that might as well be decently buried.

If we believed the guide-books, we might imagine that Cornish folk were still a gay, childlike, merry-making people, carrying on the customs of their forefathers, cheris.h.i.+ng the old traditions, nursing the old myths and superst.i.tions, dreaming dreams and seeing visions.

Even writers who might know better try to present them as a race apart, sharing to the full in that character of mysticism and vision which is attributed to Celtic peoples. As a matter of fact the Cornish are by no means gentle-minded simpletons nor poetic visionaries, though, of course, there may be a few of either cla.s.s among them; and these nominally Celtic folk have no greater power of imagination than the natives of other English counties nominally Saxon. There is a strain of difference--something that is possibly pre-Celtic--something at times sinister, pa.s.sionate, incoherent; but there is nothing that is more romantic, more thoughtful, than may be found in the average countryman of the southern counties. We have all met delightful Cornish people--hospitable, kindly, lovable; but, thank G.o.d, such are to be met with elsewhere. It is not that the Cornish are to be under-valued or slighted, but they are to be defended from the foolish claims of casual visitors and the equally unwise a.s.sertions of some natives. There is one grave charge that may be laid against the people--Mr. W. H. Hudson made it in his beautiful book on the Land's End: this is a charge of cruelty, especially against birds. There could be no good in repeating this--it is never pleasant to say things that sound unkind and perhaps uncharitable--unless it be that when the people realise that certain practices are thought cruel by outsiders, they may in time come to see the cruelty themselves. There is also the supposed religiousness of Cornwall. From reading certain books we might be led to imagine that Wesley found the Cornish savages and left them Christians. He did a great deal certainly--let no one say a word against that n.o.ble-hearted man. But the aspects of Wesley's teaching that took chief root in Cornwall, as also in Wales, were just those parts on which he himself would have laid least emphasis--the excitability, the emotionalism. We do a grave wrong to Wesley in giving his name to those manifestations of frothiness and of undue familiarity with the Deity that have too often been cla.s.sed as Wesleyanism. These, coupled with sectarian bitterness against the Church of England, may flourish if their votaries desire; but why should they take the name of one who was an earnest and sober-minded Churchman? Of course there is much in Cornwall of which Wesley or any other religious teacher might well be proud; but there are other aspects also, and plenty of room for those who shall teach the people love, charity, and tenderness towards all forms of sentient life.

CHAPTER VIII

MOUNT'S BAY

From Loe Bar the Porthleven sands take us on to the busy little fis.h.i.+ng-port of Porthleven itself, whose mother-parish is Sithney. It is becoming quite a popular watering-place, not only with Helston folk, who have only about two and a half miles to come, but with visitors from a greater distance. Porthleven is now a separate parish, with a modern church of its own, and a large Methodist chapel at Torleven that cost 3,500. Its name clearly embodies that of St.

Levan, whom we shall meet again near Land's End. An a.s.sociation with that saint gives it a tolerable antiquity, but the place lacks any picturesque garb of the ancient, and its chief pleasantness lies about the harbour. There are fine views of Mount's Bay to be gained from the higher grounds. The harbour and docks were incorporated a century since; the pier is 465 feet long, and the basin has stout granite jetties. Granite and china-clay, fire-bricks and fish are exported here, and the fis.h.i.+ng done is fairly extensive. The harbourage is good, but rather difficult to make in rough weather; south-westerly winds drive the seas fiercely against its mouth. As might be imagined, wrecks have been plentiful here, and along the Methleigh sh.o.r.e are the graves of many drowned persons--interred here in days when the right to consecrated earth was denied. The coast had also an evil reputation for wrecking--not what the underwriters style "act of G.o.d,"

but the dark and mysterious crime of luring vessels on a rock-bound sh.o.r.e:--

"G.o.d keep us from rocks and shelving sands, And save us from Breage and Germoe men's hands!"

The parish of Breage has a specially attractive church, dedicated to St. Breaca, who landed in the Hayle estuary some time in the sixth century; she was an Irish lady, said to have been the sister of St.

Uni, of Euny Lelant and other churches. The church is large and shapely, but its ancient character has hardly been preserved by the redecoration that took place in 1890, though happily that restoration revealed some fine frescoes that had been covered with whitewash. One of the figures is the popular one of St. Christopher, like that of Poughill in north Cornwall; other figures are St. Michael, St. Giles, and St. Cury. The altar-slabs are old, and may once have been taken from altar-tombs. There is a good tower-arch, a five-shafted font, and excellent wagon-shaped roofs; chancel-screen and reredos are modern.

Of the two bells, one, the tenor, is the largest in Cornwall, with a diameter of 54 inches; it is said that there was formerly a peal, but that the bells were recast into this single form. It is natural to find traces of the G.o.dolphins here, their seat being so near. The national history has much to say of one G.o.dolphin only, Sidney, the Lord Treasurer, whom Macaulay treated not too tenderly; but Cornwall knows of many, and is especially loving to the memory of Margaret, the wife of Sidney, whose tomb is in the church of Breage. She has had the benefit of a memoir by John Evelyn, her faithful friend, and his account of her is a beautiful picture of womanhood. Being appointed Maid of Honour to the d.u.c.h.ess of York in her twelfth year, the girl retained her purity in a Court that was notoriously impure, and it was thus that she met her two friends, the young G.o.dolphin who married her nine years later, and the older man Evelyn, who gave her devotion and tender counsel. It was in 1678 that Margaret G.o.dolphin died, after the birth of her only child. A few days before her illness she had written to her absent husband: "If I might, I would beg that my body might lye where I have had such a minde to goe myselfe, att G.o.dolphyn, among your friends. I believe, if I were carried by sea, the expense would not be very great; but I don't insist on that place, if you think it not reasonable; lay me where you please." To Cornwall her sorrowing husband brought her, laying her in this church of Breage, where her remembrance is of a very sweet savour; and when we recollect how fondly her lord had loved her, and how he never sought to fill the vacant place, we must needs think with greater gentleness of one who, for his age, was a patriotic and high-minded statesman. An earlier G.o.dolphin had been one of the "four wheels of Charles's Wain." There are heroic memories clinging to the now extinct family; and it is well to find that at least the name survives in vital fas.h.i.+on here around their old manor-house. That house is now a farm, but it retains traces of old manorial grandeur--some panelled rooms with great windows, a hall with lofty fireplace, and the fishponds of the gardens. On the seaward side of the house rises G.o.dolphin Hill to a height of about 500 feet, giving a n.o.ble view of St. Michael's Mount and Bay. There are many remains of former mining. Tregonning Hill, close by, is somewhat higher, and its summit has a fine entrenchment with a striking inner vallum. The Latin epitaph to Margaret G.o.dolphin upon her altar-tomb was written by Evelyn, and the same inscription was placed upon her coffin. It is followed by her favourite motto, the beautiful _Un Dieu, un amy_ ("One G.o.d, one friend"). Evelyn knew better than to write any fulsome compliments upon her tomb.

A little westward of Tregonning is Germoe, its church dedicated to St.

Germoe, or Germoc. The pinnacles of the Perpendicular tower are specially notable, while the gable-cross and corbels of the porch are of a kind rare in this part of the country. The body of the church is Decorated, but its font must be far earlier; it is rather like a huge stoup, of remarkably rude formation, and may perhaps be Saxon in date.

But the structure known as St. Germoe's Chair, in the graveyard, is even more curious; it consists of three roofed sedilia, fronted by two pillared arches. W. C. Borlase thought that the erection was simply an altar-tomb, but, as another writer has said, "there is more than one story attached to this chair. One is to the effect that the saint sat in the central chair with the two a.s.sessors, one on either side of him; another legend is that the priests rested in the chair; whilst a third is that pilgrims to the tomb of the saint also rested therein.

Be that as it may, however, it is possible that this is a shrine, and that the body of St. Germoe rests underneath it." There is a folk-rhyme attaching to the parish:--

"Germoe, little Germoe, lies under a hill, When I'm in Germoe I count myself well; True love's in Germoe, in Breage I've got none; When I'm in Germoe I count myself at home."

Pengersick in this parish has still some remains of a castle built in the time of Henry VIII. by a man named Milliton, but there was evidently a far older castle here belonging to the Pengersicks, and a cl.u.s.ter of ancient legends gathered around the place. Cornish imagination usually stopped short at folk-lore and gave nothing to literature; in folk-lore it was certainly rich. One of the stories is of a former inhabitant of the castle who had doings with a king's daughter abroad, and when she followed him to his Cornish home, he threw both the lady and her child into the sea. The boy was rescued by a pa.s.sing vessel (of course to return later); the woman changed into a white hare, who one day ran in front of the man's horse, startling it so that it rushed with its rider into the waves, and both were drowned. White hares play a striking part in Cornish traditions.

Another story says that the castle was purchased by one of the Millitons, who, having murdered a man, shut himself up here in terror and remorse. A further legend speaks of another Milliton who lived here with a wife whom he hated, and whom he often tried to get rid of, but her wits proved equal to his. At last, feigning reconciliation, he invited her to sup with him, and then suddenly told her that the wine she had drunk was poisoned. "Then we die together," she answered, "for I had my doubts and I mixed the contents of the goblets." A terrible tempest came on, and wild shrieks came from the chamber; the servants, hastening to the room in alarm, found their master and mistress lying dead on the floor, while looking through the window they could see their spirits being carried off in triumph by a winged demon. It is singular how legends of this nature should attach themselves to certain localities and persons; but the occupants of Pengersick appear to have had differences with the clergy in old times, and the priests generally contrived to blacken the characters of those who became obnoxious to them. It was a terrible power, the making or marring of future reputation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PRUSSIA COVE.

_Photo by Gibson & Sons._]

On the coast the beautiful Praa sands stretch for a mile towards Prussia Cove, with Praa Green at their head; the sands in its season are glorified with wild convolvulus, and the gently lapping waves often have little enough to tell us of their disastrous fury in time of storm. But enough has been said on the dismal subject of wrecks.

Human remains, supposed to date from the Old Stone Age, have been found at this spot; they, if they could speak, might tell us something well worth listening to. But their memories would be of a Cornwall very different from the present, and they would probably look to see St. Michael's Mount in the midst of a forest.

If we are tired of s.h.i.+pwrecks, perhaps we are not tired of smugglers, and we come on their footsteps in very vivid fas.h.i.+on at Prussia Cove, whose original name was Porthleah. The place was a veritable hot-bed of smuggling long before the days of John Carter, prince of smugglers, who went by the name of King of Prussia, and gave its present name to the little cove. Some say that in boyish play-fights he always a.s.sumed the name of King of Prussia, and the t.i.tle stuck. In Cornwall his reputation quite over-shadowed that of his Continental namesake; so that when the news of the battle of Jena and the defeat of the real King of Prussia reached West Cornwall, a Mousehole man exclaimed, "Misfortunes never come single; I'm sorry for that man. Not more'n six weeks ago he lost three hundred keg o' brandy, by information, so I'm towld." Carter had a brother almost equally famous, Captain Henry, and the two between them, with much able a.s.sistance, rendered this coast a very hot corner for the Preventive men. Sometimes it very closely resembled actual war, as when the smugglers, mounting a small battery, fired openly on a revenue cutter. "A smuggler chased by a revenue cutter, being somewhat pressed, ran through a narrow channel amongst the rocks between the Enys and the sh.o.r.e. The cutter, not daring to venture amongst the shoals, sent her boat in. And the King, with his merry men, opened fire on the boat. They loaded up the little guns so that every time they fired the guns kicked over completely backwards, and had to be replaced. The boat was driven back, and the cutter held off for the night. Next morning the fight was renewed, the cutter opening fire from the sea, while a company of riders fired from the hedge at the top of the hill on the rear of the men in the battery.

This turned the tables on the smugglers, who sought shelter in Bessie Bussow's house." Nothing serious appears to have happened, however.

Bessie Bussow, who kept the "Kiddleywink" inn, has pa.s.sed to immortality in connection with Bessie's Cove, which Nature seems to have contrived especially for the doings of smugglers. The tempting caverns remain, but we cannot compa.s.s much smuggling now, however much we might like to; and the coves are chiefly devoted to crabbing. Men like the Carters were heroes in the profession and gave it a certain amount of dignity; romance and picturesque colour it always had.

Perranuthnoe, a little beyond the modern Acton Castle, whose situation is of great beauty, is locally known simply as Perran; the second half of its name seems to point to an earlier saint than Piran. Perhaps there was a St. Uthnoe whose name survives also at Sithney. The fourteenth-century church is very interesting, with a granite figure of St. James over the south doorway, said to have been brought here from Goldsithney, about a mile inland. Another mile along the coast, and we are at Marazion--

"Where the great vision of the guarded Mount Looks towards Namancos and Bayona's hold."

It is the presence of the Mount that gives its wonderful charm to this wide Bay, beautiful in itself, but from this feature receiving something of the mystic and spiritual, a touch of varying suggestiveness, a glamour of the remote and the unusual. There is nothing else quite like it in Britain; to match and surpa.s.s it we have to go to that other Mont St. Michel across the Channel. There is a strange kins.h.i.+p in the two Mounts; but in spite of the superior architecture of the Norman eminence, we might not perhaps be very willing to take it in exchange for our own Cornish mount of St.

Michael. It is natural that myth and tradition should haunt here and at Marazion, whose very name has an Oriental suggestion of romance about it. And yet the name seems to mean nothing more romantic than a market-place; and in spite of its alternative Market-Jew, seized eagerly by those who are trying to prove that all Britons are Israelites, neither name must be taken to denote any connection with Jews or Jerusalem. The oldest name was doubtless _Marghas-iou_, meaning "the markets" in an early form of Cornish; and in a later form of Cornish we have _Marasion_, which meant the same thing. But Camden says that the name Market-Jew arose from the town's having a market on Thursday, the day of Jove or Jupiter--_quod ibi mercatus die Jovis habeatur_; an explanation that is probably quite fanciful. Of course, the name has been held to prove the claim of St. Michael's Mount to be the Ictis of the ancients, but the idea that the natives would have carried their tin across to this incommodious little islet for the sake of selling seems absurd, when we consider that they could have sold it much better on the mainland. The description by Diodorus Siculus, often quoted, has a tempting look, but it cannot persuade us that the Mount was Ictis. He says: "They that inhabit the British promontory of Belerium, by reason of their converse with merchants, are more civilised and courteous to strangers than the rest. These are the people that make the tin, which with a great deal of care and labour they dig out of the ground. Then they beat it into square pieces like a die, and carry it to a British isle, near at hand, called Ictis. For at low tide, all being dry between them and the island, they convey over in carts abundance of tin." To suppose that Ictis was the Isle of Wight would carry us too far back, for it was only in prehistoric days that Wight was connected to the mainland so closely; and the general conclusion now seems to be that Ictis was the island of Thanet, in every sense convenient for the traffic. Our connection with the Continent has always been most intimate at this eastern corner, and the tin was conveyed along the trackways from west to east. Sea pa.s.sage was a consideration in those days. That Phoenicians and other eastern merchants came to the Cornish coasts cannot be denied, and for those who came by sea from the Mediterranean Cornwall was more convenient than Kent; but the more regular centre of traffic must have been at the eastern corner, and in no case can we suppose that this steep rock would have been selected as a market-place. Marazion is different, and may have welcomed many early traders; but there is little to record of its past. It was certainly a smelting-place for tin. Formerly in the parish of Hilary, it now has a church of its own. Historically its chief incident seems to be the attack by the French in 1514; and there was also trouble here in connection with the religious revolt of 1549. The mother-church at Hilary stands so high that it is said St. Ives folk used to make a regular allowance to pay for its spire being whitewashed, that it might serve as a mark at sea. Spires are rare in Cornwall, and this one, of early Decorated style, is of special interest, having happily survived the fire that destroyed the main building in 1853. There are some curious blocked spire-lights. Outside the church is an oblong stone of some size, of which the only decipherable words are _Noti-noti_, with some indistinct symbols. This has been interpreted as the inscription of a certain Notus; but others have regarded it as simply a Roman milestone.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT, FROM MARAZION.

_Photo by Gibson & Sons._]

There is another stone, formerly outside the church but now taken within, which gives the name of Constantine Caesar, thus establis.h.i.+ng its date as 306. Marazion is a pleasant little place, but of course its chief interest is as the stepping-stone to St. Michael's Mount. It is well known that Mount's Bay gives many traces of submerged forest, and the old Cornish name of the Mount, meaning "the h.o.a.r rock in the wood," gives further evidence. William of Worcester tells us that it once stood six miles from the sea, in a track of country that must have been a portion of the lost Lyonesse. The archangel himself is said to have appeared on its summit in the fifth century, but we need not a.s.sociate the name of the Mount with any visit of this sort, for churches on high places were constantly dedicated to the charge of St.

Michael, with the idea that he could protect them from evil powers of the air. There may have been a religious cell here at a very early date, but the earliest establishment of which we are certain is the chapel endowed by Edward the Confessor, and gifted to the monks of St.

Michel in Normandy. The position of the Mount caused it to become not only ecclesiastic but a secular stronghold, and it is in this connection that it chiefly claims historic notice. In the time of Richard I. it was held for King John by Henry de Pomeroi, but in no part of the country was John greatly beloved, and on the return of Richard from captivity the garrison surrendered voluntarily, Pomeroi, it is said, committing suicide. During the Wars of the Roses some fugitives from the battle of Barnet gained admittance to the Mount in the disguise of pilgrims, and then, declaring themselves, held the castle against all comers. Doing his duty as sheriff of the Duchy, Sir John Arundell was killed in attacking them, and they resisted till a pardon was granted them. In those days almost the only danger in such a spot was the risk of famine; apart from that the place was practically impregnable. Yet during the religious rebellion of 1549 it twice yielded to attack, being taken for the King during the absence of its governor, Arundell of Lanherne, and retaken by the Cornish; in both cases we must suspect that the defence was half-hearted or the supplies insufficient. In the Civil War Sir Francis Ba.s.set held the Mount for the Royal cause, but surrendered after a gallant defence when his case became hopeless. The Mount is now the seat of Lord St.

Levan, the representative of the St. Aubyn family, who gained possession after the Ba.s.sets; and the little hamlet of St. Michael lying at its foot is occupied by their retainers. The entire rock is only about a mile in circ.u.mference, yet room is found on the very small portion of level ground for a tennis-court, and even golf is sometimes played. Anciently a resort of pilgrimage as the shrine of St. Michael, the pilgrims that now cross by the causeway at low tide, or are rowed over to the small quay, are lovers of the romantic and the picturesque; but they are not allowed to ramble at will about the buildings. Only a part is shown, including the chapel, which is Perpendicular with some older fragments. The tower was a sort of lighthouse or beacon for the guidance of fishermen--churches have often fulfilled this double purpose, a lighthouse for both worlds; and the lantern is now known as St. Michael's Chair, with a tradition that whichever of man and wife sits there first will thereafter rule supreme in all domestic matters; but the true Chair, as Carew described it, was "a little without the castle," a craggy seat on the western side of the Mount, where there was once an oratory. There was good reason why pilgrims should resort hither in the past: "Know all men that the most Holy Father Gregory, in the year from the incarnation of our Lord 1070, bearing an affection of extraordinary devoutness to the Church of St. Michael's Mount, has piously granted to all the faithful who shall reach or visit it, with their oblations, a remission of a third part of their penances." The human aspect peeps out in the mention of alms and oblations; centres of pilgrimage have always had a rich pecuniary value. Southey deals with St. Michael's Chair in one of his ballads, which reminds us that St. Keyne, whom he also treated poetically, is supposed to have visited the Mount when she came to Cornwall--to which we must add a surmise that this saint may not have been a woman at all, but was really St. Kenwyn. The Mount is only insular during high tide, yet at such times, exposed to the full force of the sea, the pa.s.sage sometimes becomes impracticable; and there are many low tides when it is not safe or even possible to cross the causeway. Perhaps at any time those who see the rock from a distance can best appreciate its charm. From Marazion to Penzance there are three miles of flat, uninteresting road--perhaps the dullest bit of coast-road in all Cornwall, were it not for the beauty of the Bay.

CHAPTER IX

THE PENZANCE DISTRICT

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 fis.h.i.+ng 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; they have not sought to beautify it much--a reputation as a holiday resort has been thrust on the place by its convenience, its commanding position as the gate-town of Land's End; Penzance did little to advertise itself, but the visitors have come, and are coming, and the town is doing its best to give them a fair entertainment. Though from the coast or the sea it often makes a fine appearance, the town is one of utility rather than of adornment. It feels that its existence is fully justified, without having to resort to artificial attractions. It builds no pavilions or gla.s.s-houses or aquarium, it needs no constructed lakes to retain its sea, nor towers to emulate rocks that Nature has denied. Primarily a place of business rather than of pleasure, one soon learns to admire and to respect it; there is nothing garish and little that is fas.h.i.+onable about it. Not many of its buildings are calculated to make an impression on the visitor, except the Market Hall that makes Market-Jew Street a rather striking thoroughfare, and the church of St. Mary, which has at least a charm of position. The Munic.i.p.al buildings are a handsome piece of architecture; but it is not in these features, nor in the Morrab Gardens, in spite of their subtropical vegetation, that the charm of the town lies. That charm is a certain homely friendliness in the aspect of the place, the bustle, the soberness and geniality of its people. Further, Penzance is a good place to get away from--which sounds like a left-handed compliment, but has really quite other meaning; it is a fine centre for the whole far west of Cornwall.

As a town Penzance cannot claim great antiquity, though its district is remarkably rich in prehistoric remains. The name is _pen-sans_, the "holy headland"; evidently misread by the town authorities as "holy head," when they adopted the head of John the Baptist as the town arms. There was an ancient chapel standing on the present Battery Rocks, and this without doubt was the sacred headland which the t.i.tle refers to. The mother-parish was St. Madron, about 2 miles to the north-west; and it is by no means clear who Madron was. Some think he was an Irish Medhran, some a Welsh Madrun; some even a.s.sert that he was none other than the great Padarn of Wales. But in 1835 St. Mary's was built at Penzance, on the site of an old chapel to Our Lady, of which some relics are preserved. The town was granted a market in 1332, a charter in 1512, and in 1614 deeds of incorporation. But the most important event in the history of early Penzance was its burning by the Spaniards in 1595. There was an old Cornish folk-rhyme which foretold that--

"They shall land on the rock of Merlin, Who shall burn Paul, Penzance, and Newlyn";

and perhaps this led the inhabitants to regard the enemy as invincible when they really did land, especially as their descent took place on a rock at Mousehole that bore the name of Merlin. The Spanish were left to do pretty well as they pleased, burning and pillaging Mousehole, Paul, Newlyn, and Penzance, but they thought it advisable to retreat to their galleons in Mount's Bay for the night, and next day, the countryfolk having plucked up some heart, and there being rumours of English seamen drawing near, it was found prudent to decamp altogether. A new town rose from the ashes of the old one, but there was further trouble in the time of the Civil War, and Penzance suffered for loyalty to the King. Under the circ.u.mstances we must not look for any remains of great antiquity in the town, though that which is historical antiquity is mere youth in comparison with the immemorial age that invests this farthest corner of Britain with a garb of wonder and mystery. Close to Chyandour (the "house by the water"), and not far from the Penzance terminus, is the Lescudjack encampment, or castle, which carries us back to the early settlement of the sh.o.r.es of Mount's Bay; only about three miles inland are the huts of Chysauster, where there was evidently an extensive village in days long before Penzance was dreamed of. Whether it was that this farthest neck of land became the refuge of driven races, pushed further and further westward by new encroaching hordes, it is certain that the Land's End district offers more relics of prehistoric antiquity than any other equal tract of land can show.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PENZANCE.

_Photo by Gibson & Sons._]