Cornwall Part 1

Cornwall.

by G. E. Mitton.

I

POPULAR IDEAS OF CORNWALL

To the mind of the ordinary Briton there is a curious attraction in "getting as far as you can"--a streak in mentality which has accounted in no small degree for the world-wide Empire. In England you cannot in one direction get any farther than the extreme point of Cornwall. Owing to the geographical configuration of Cornwall, the idea is magnified very vigorously into a really gallant effort to "get there," such as might be made by an individual stretching out not only to his full stride, but indulging in a good kick! We feel in very truth we have "got there," on to the edge of something or somewhere. As Wilkie Collins expresses it, the Land's End is "the sort of place where the last man in England would be most likely to be found waiting for death at the end of the world!"

Thus it is that Cornwall holds a special magnet which steadily draws a never-ending succession of strangers. Look only at those who do the feat of cycling or motoring from John o' Groat's to Land's End. Picture them in an indomitable long-drawn-out line, wheel to wheel; shadowy forms flitting over that last--or first--piece of road, full of hope and exultation at the thought of the journey's end, or full of antic.i.p.ation at the journey's beginning. No road in England has been so wheel-worn as that strip running out to the most westerly point of England.

Some there are who are drawn by a similar magnet to the Lizard, the most southerly point of our land, but the attraction is not so potent. From time immemorial John o' Groat's to Land's End has formed the measure of Britain.

For very many years Cornwall has been known for its fine coast scenery, but wild and desolate scenery was not the fashion in Early Victorian days, and there were comparatively few brave souls who penetrated so far. It is rather remarkable to notice how many books about the charm of Cornwall appeared in the sixties, doubtless due to the opening of the Cornwall Railway in 1859. There is Wilkie Collins's _Rambles Beyond Railways_, 1861; J. O. Halliwell's _Rambles in Western Cornwall_ and J.

T. Blight's _Land's End_, the same year, followed by Richard Edmonds's _Land's End District_ the next year.

But Cornwall really began to be known by hundreds of persons in place of tens about 1904, and since then the number of visitors has increased to thousands.

This book is not written by a Cornishman, for the very obvious reason that no Cornishman could for one instant think impartially of his Duchy, any more than you could expect a Yorkshireman to believe that the "rest of England" was in any way to be compared with Yorkshire. The more individual and peculiar a person is, the more deeply is he loved by those who really know him, provided that he has lovable qualities. No characterless good soul ever wins the heartfelt devotion that is the meed of those who have unexpected kinks and corners in their personality, and in the same way a flat, featureless country, carefully cultivated and uninteresting, will never win to itself the true land-love felt for one that is varied, rough maybe, rugged a bit, and in a hundred ways surprising. Of all things human nature hates boredom, and the man or the country who can win free of any trace of boredom insures a reward. Cornwall has in a peculiar measure gained the devotion of its own people. Not only on account of its unexpectedness, but because it stands in some measure apart from the rest of England. The Celtic blood of its older inhabitants, while making them akin to the Welsh and Irish, cuts them off from the Saxons, whom so often and so heartily in the old days they fought.

The geographical position of Cornwall, with three sides washed by the sea, and even the "land" boundary mainly marked by a river, has influenced its sons, who, never being far from the sound of the surging waves, have gained something of the robust aloofness of the sailor. They are friendly to all, but guarded nevertheless; and standing thus apart, marked out by their territory, with small chance to mingle with inhabitants of other counties, the clan feeling among them has grown to be a.n.a.logous to that of the clans in Scotland. All other Britishers are to the true Cornishman "foreigners." How then could a man so imbued with his own and his Duchy's place in regard to the "rest of England" write a book which should convey in any way the real characteristics of his land?

It would be a feat impossible.

The rugged outlines of a well-known face lose meaning with years of familiarity, and are taken for granted; thus it is with landmarks in Cornwall, which would never figure in such a chronicle at all.

Therefore, as this book is intended not so much for those who know Cornwall as for those who will know it sometime in that future which lies beyond the reading of it, the impressions of an outsider are most fitting.

There are people who go to Cornwall once for a holiday and return to it ever and again, when they get the chance, unable to find satisfaction anywhere else; the "atmosphere" of the country has entered into their blood. They think with an ache of the coast in all its cruelty and glory, they picture the bright blue of the rain-washed skies in a burst of sunshine, and they recall the great "hedges" with a foundation or core of stone, generations old, overlaid by an ample covering of turf and gra.s.s, a hot-bed for the stonecrop and hart's-tongue, fern, primrose, or foxglove.

But what is a catalogue of words? It conveys nothing, any more than a catalogue of the names of books. Unless one can conjure up feelings, the attempt to explain the grip of the Duchy on recollection is useless. The clammy sea-wind on the face, the sense of great s.p.a.ces, the grandeur of the coast, with its solemn, immovable rampart of cliff, and the pulsing life of the cold spray, for ever beating and frilling against the hard, glistening surface--these enter into consciousness. Of all things living, the swing of the seagull on motionless wings over a cavernous hollow brings one nearest to the realization of a dream.

Others again go to visit the Duchy and come away disappointed because they have not found exactly what they wanted or expected. They take small children to coast places of which they have only heard by name, and are dismayed to find there is no sand, no beach, no bathing--only hills steep as the blue slate-roofs; and a good deal in the "people's"

part of the town, which is narrow, slatternly and disagreeable. But it is one of the traits of Cornwall that she embraces such wide variety and shows such startling contrasts close up against each other. There are certainly a great many places where there are no sands at all, nothing but sheer wild cliffs falling perpendicularly to the sea, pierced by gigantic caves, to be explored at low tide only, and a small strip of shingle on which bathers are warned to enter at their peril, for the huge breakers from the Atlantic roll in continually, and one moment you are over head and shoulders in the smother of their foam, and the next stand naked to the winds, with a villainous undertow sucking away the pebbles from beneath your twitching soles. Carew, Cornwall's best-known historian, speaks of the Duchy's "long, naked sides." The writer on geology in the _Victoria County History_ says: "It has been calculated that a single roller of the Atlantic ground-swell (20 feet high) falls with a pressure of about a ton on every square foot." Places where such forces are felt are the Poles apart from the usual English seaside resort, sarcastically described by "Q" as "A line of sea in front, a row of hotels and lodging-houses behind, all as flat as a painted cloth, with a bra.s.s band to help the morality." Yet even in Cornwall if you want sandy beach you can have it. There are sands that stretch for miles, firm and flat, such as the famous beaches at St.

Ives; and in most places, even the rocky ones, there is some provision made for bathing of a sort.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARBIS BAY]

I think the reason why a small proportion of people are disappointed in Cornwall is that the advertis.e.m.e.nts are focussed on one aspect only. In almost every one of them is the mildness of the climate insisted on, and this gives rise to semi-invalidish ideas. It is true that semi-invalids who go there in winter in search of warmth can find suitable places if they know where to go. Cornwall as a whole must have an equable climate, or we should not see the growth of exotic plants out of doors--myrtle, tree-geranium, aloes, palms, and camellias, to name only a few of the most abundant--but the whole county is by no means a hot-bed of warmth, and the winds are frequently very cold indeed. There are everywhere now first-cla.s.s hotels, with the ample lounges which have superseded the shut-up drawing-room and smoking-room compartments of earlier days, and these hotels mostly have verandahs so placed that the glorious sun can flood them while the winds are kept at bay. There those who come to recuperate can bask in delight, and draw straight from the Atlantic the pure fresh air, which has a wonderfully tonic effect.

"The lungs with the living gas grow tight, And the limbs feel the strength of ten.

G.o.d's glorious oxygen."

Two such verandahs come up before me as I write--that at Fowey, raised high, and overlooking the most lovely harbour along the whole coast, shut in by rising banks almost like a Norwegian fiord; the other, the verandah at Housel Bay Hotel, where, facing due south, you may sit in an atmosphere of summer which is indeed like a climate usually only to be looked for many degrees further south.

But though this aspect is the keynote of almost every advertis.e.m.e.nt, or at any rate every winter advertis.e.m.e.nt, it is by no means the most prominent or characteristic one of Cornwall, which appeals far more to the hardy than the weak. When I think of Cornwall the vision that comes before me is not that of sheltered sun-bathed balconies, but rather of a high wind making the breakers frill around the jagged bases of the cliffs, while above, amid the towans or sandhills covered with bent gra.s.s, the golf-b.a.l.l.s fly. The tang of the air seems once again in my nostrils, carrying with it an exhilaration that makes the blood race in the veins and entirely prevents tiredness. Only in one place elsewhere have I felt that exact stimulus, and that was far west in the neighbouring land of Brittany, near the Point du Raz, which stretches razor-like into the ocean, and in many respects strikingly resembles a bit of the Cornish coast. Many people will object that this is exactly what they understand Cornwall does not offer; on the contrary they have heard apologies for its stuffiness and the relaxing qualities of the air. Why yes, if one visits it in the height of summer, and goes to one of the many places situated in a hole or funnel and facing south, it might be very relaxing indeed; but the "advertis.e.m.e.nts for invalids," if one may so call them, usually refer to early spring and it is in early spring that the invigorating breezes may be found almost anywhere the whole way round, while the northern coasts are never stuffy even in summer.

Besides unusual golf facilities another feature appealing to the hardy and sound are the cliff paths, mere coastguard tracks, unfenced and unspoilt, which circle the whole coast. Those who keep to roads will never see the real Cornwall and that is why so many motor-bound souls miss it. One may wander for days on these cliff paths, lured on from point to point and bay to bay, always rejoicing in something new or glorious, something which beckons onward. At the foot of the vertical walls of rock are tiny sandy bays for ever cut off from the foot of man even at low tide, and inaccessible to all save the sea-birds, who well know it! My mind brings back visions of great pieces of rock, torn and ripped from their hold, and apparently flung pell-mell on the beach.

Except that they are usually three-cornered and not columnar, they are somewhat like the drongs of Shetland in their piercing sharpness.

Remarkably fine specimens of these isolated rocks are seen at Kynance Cove, near the Lizard, and at Bedruthan Steps, in Watergate Bay; but almost everywhere some stand up aloof from the neighbouring cliff.

[Ill.u.s.tration: KYNANCE COVE]

Whoever loves the wild desolation of the northernmost Scottish coasts will feel at home in Cornwall. Of course the cliffs are not nearly so high--most of the Cornish cliffs could go four times into the finest specimens of Mull or Shetland--but there is not much lost by this. The human mind can only grasp up to a certain amount of size conveyed by the eye in vertical measure, and after the first awed glance down a 1,000-foot cliff, when the mind is almost stunned, the impression rapidly wears off, and all the grandeur needed is equally well conveyed by 300 feet of sheer precipice, while the details of the natural carving and the play of the wild birds on its crevices are far better observed.

The popular idea of Cornwall in the minds of those who have not been there is that there runs a long raised ridge down the middle like a spine, and that from this on each side the ground slopes away to the sea; but this is a very misleading idea. Cornwall is all hills, and yet has none to boast of. Brown w.i.l.l.y, not far from Launceston, reaching to 1,375 feet, is the highest, but yet there is very little flat land anywhere. If you took a silk handkerchief, crumpled it up in your hand, and threw it on the table, it might fall somewhat as Cornwall is const.i.tuted. The people who live there are used to hills and not afraid of them. Why should they be? In most of the towns--and almost every small village is a "church-town," while every stream is a river--the streets are often at about the angle of an ordinary house-roof, and as a rule there are miles of hill to be negotiated in rising out of the towns for they lie in hollows or crevices, corresponding to the folds of the handkerchief. This is not wonderful considering the fact that the wind blows freely from the sea on both sides, and that it is in the hollows and sheltered nooks that vegetation flourishes. There are of course exceptions. Take such a town as Launceston. One main street has been engineered to go round in curves, so as to enable horses--horses bred to the work--to get up it, and at the top there is a bit of level, but most of the other streets fall sheer down. When babes who can scarce toddle scramble forth from their living-room on to a road slanting at an angle of forty-five degrees or more, which forms their only playground, naturally their leg muscles get strengthened, and as they grow up and have to start off to school, or return from it, up a hill that taxes the sinews of a "foreigner" till he groans, they make nothing of it. Roads seem to wander at their own sweet will with no inclination to the Roman ideal, but they never wander to avoid inclines; they tilt up and down again with the most gracious equanimity, and a man on a cycle who has struggled up a steep ascent and feels at last he will be able to reap the reward, as often as not finds the descent too perilous to ride without the utmost caution. Cornwall is not a county for cyclists except they be strong in the leg; but it is good country for those pedestrians who measure the day's journey by what they have seen and not by ground got over as the crow flies, for they can follow the enchanting little paths winding in and out by the great headlands of the coast.

Cornwall is no place for being in a hurry.

Many of the most famous sights, such as the great outlying cliffs at Gurnard's Head, and the Logan Rock, are not anywhere near a road. The roads keep inland, and for very good reason. These places have to be reached over long, sloping fields, and entail a good deal of scrambling--ideal places to resort to for a whole day with picnic provision, so long as one has a clear head and steady foot, but not to be sought as a "side-show."

Very many of the little coast places too are down at the end of what may be called long shafts, and to the ardent cyclist, intent on mileage, to go down, down, down, for miles till he can see the cows grazing in the fields high overhead, and to arrive at last at a little port where a few old salts sit and smoke and idle, and there is no way of getting out again but by the funnel, is a matter for as strong comment as conscience permits. Yet again for those who love what is beautiful and unhackneyed, there is charm beyond measure in the spirit of these places. In Polperro, which might be a bit of Brittany planted wholesale in our land; or Fowey, with its unforgettable harbour, where the blue tide creeps up like a stain of spreading dye; or in Mullion, with its huge rounded ma.s.ses of rock lying off the coast.

Another popular idea of Cornwall, also mistaken, is that the interior of the Duchy is hideous and only the coast beautiful. There is much that is ugly no doubt; raw places where the half-grown mounds of rubbish and crumbling chimneys mark disused tin-mines; where the sharp and hard outlines of slate shriek at you everywhere; where ragged, scrubby fences break up an endless series of barren-looking fields, and the whole landscape gives the impression that it is flying at a terrific speed westward, heading into the prevailing wind, because all the trees and shrubs that have managed to survive it at all are bent nearly double.

But what of the glorious wooded slopes in Bodmin neighbourhood where smooth roads wind between the rich growth of woods? What of the famous valleys such as Luxulyan and others? There is plenty inland attractive enough if one knows where to look for it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AT POLPERRO]

Perhaps this impression as to the interior has grown because the painting fraternity, now a recognized part of Cornish society, mostly paint views on or near the coast, having settled chiefly at and near Newlyn and St. Ives. Mr. Lewis Hind, in his book on Cornwall, says: "Probably two hundred canvases are despatched each year from the Delectable Duchy to Burlington House and elsewhere; of this number seven-eighths have been painted in Newlyn or St. Ives.... The great centres are Newlyn, St. Ives, and Falmouth, and the votes of the Cornish contingent, it is said, can turn the scale in an election at the Royal Academy."

The truth is, Cornwall must be taken in bits, and often the most hideous lie close up alongside the most attractive; however they only help to intensify that which is very good. People who look too cursorily are the most often disappointed.

Wandering about Cornwall certainly induces one ache, and that is the ache to be more knowledgeable. Those lucky creatures who know something of botany and geology here have delights not unfolded to others.

Cornwall is a paradise for the botanist and geologist, because for the former there are rare species and some altogether unknown elsewhere, such as the _Erica vagans_ so often mentioned, which grows in the neighbourhood of the Lizard. In fact Cornwall possesses more specialities in plant-life than any other county in England. For the latter because even the amateur can see the wonder and difference of the rocks: the pink tinged granite of Land's End, the great granite tors inland on the moors, and the variegated serpentine at the Lizard, as well as the cruel, sharp-edged slate of the northern coast. While as for the archaeologist is there any part of Britain that affords him such endless material? A mere enumeration of the ancient stone crosses, the standing stone circles, the cromlechs, the British huts, the earthworks, the cliff-castles, the hill-castles or camps, the stone graves, the chambered c.u.muli, the barrows, and other relics of a long-past age, would fill pages. The moors are covered with them and the bare heights above Land's End are a rich hunting-ground.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COAST NEAR THE LIZARD]

This evidence of the lives and habits of the very ancient inhabitants adds much depth and flavour to the "atmosphere," and especially when it is remembered that the original Cornish are the purest example of that old race--the British. Mr. W. H. Hudson, in his book _The Land's End_, quotes Lord Courtney's saying: "The population of Cornwall in general has remained much more h.o.m.ogeneous, much more Celtic in type, than in other parts; and of all Cornwall there is no part like this [Penzance and Land's End district] in which we meet with probably so pure a breed of human beings."

The nation now calling itself British has Saxon, Teutonic, French, and Norse blood in its veins, as well as that of the original stock; but when the successive waves of invaders swept over the country, they usually exhausted themselves before reaching this remote corner, into which the oldest island stock was swept up.

This probably accounts for the queer impression one often gets in Cornwall of being abroad. It comes suddenly, rising like one of the Cornish mists and enveloping one, until suddenly the conviction that one is across the sea, far from home, flows almost overwhelmingly over the mind. There is much more likeness and kinship between parts of Cornwall and parts of Brittany than between Cornwall and most of the rest of England. There is no doubt that Cornwall differeth not as "one county from another county," but as one county from all the rest. Here, where the British race had its last stronghold, the stamp of the national characteristics was retained in its effects much longer than elsewhere.

Nowadays of course there is intermarrying and travelling, and frequent streams of new blood coming in--half the people you speak to are not Cornish at all--but still there is something remaining which stamps them as a whole. It has often been noticed that there are traces of Spanish blood to be found in the dwellers in the extreme west where many of the great Spanish galleons were wrecked in bygone days; just as there are found brown faces and black hair in the Fair Isle of the Shetlands, where half the population intermarried with some Spaniards of the great Armada wrecked on their coast. In this part of Cornwall one constantly sees women with clear-skinned faces, dark-brown eyes and hair, of a distinctly foreign type. The people, with their rather remote and surface friendliness, have often been described. They will greet you pleasantly and courteously--courteous manners have lingered here--small boys, and men too, still salute a stranger in pa.s.sing with a greeting, and if one asks the way the answer will be no abrupt direction, but a careful and minute description repeated until clearly understood. Even in Wilkie Collins's time the people were noticeable for their courtesy.

He says: "The manners of the Cornish of all ranks, down to the lowest, are remarkably distinguished by courtesy--a courtesy of that kind which is quite independent of artificial breeding, and which proceeds solely from natural motives of kindness and from an innate anxiety to please.

Few of the people pa.s.s you without a salutation."

As it was then so it is now.

Yet everywhere one feels a want; there is a lack of something. Perhaps it is they are too matter-of-fact; a pa.s.sing jest leaves them puzzled.

There is none of the dry humour of the Scot, which makes every man you meet on the road in Scotland instinctively approach a remark from what may be called the humorous angle. As an example of the Cornish lack of this quality, when I remarked to a man who was showing me a real fine golf-links stretching over the sandy towans of bent-gra.s.s, "these sandhills are simply made for golf," he answered: "Oh no, they were not made for the links; they were here long before!"

The people simply don't understand a.n.a.logy or imagery; their minds are very literal. In this part of the world they may well be literal, for the hard necessity of making a livelihood from very poor material must crush out fun. Yet in spite of many hardships endured, it is a rare thing to see a pale or miserable-looking child. The children are round and rosy, with st.u.r.dy legs, as indeed they may well have for they need them. This general well-being cannot be altogether attributed to the pure air, because in the Shetlands and on the West Coast of Scotland where the air is just as pure the children are usually brown and thin.

It may be that this is due to the lack of milk, the heaths of Scotland affording scant pasturage, while the constant moisture of the air in Cornwall makes the gra.s.s grow richly.