CHAPTER XI

FROM LAND'S END TO ZENNOR

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. But Lowestoft looks towards the Teutonic Continent, and the Lizard towards what we may call the Latin; both remain European in their outlook. Land's End has a different attitude; it looks westward, and the migratory instinct of European races has ever taken them towards the West. It is the Bolerion of Ptolemy, the Bolerium of Roman writers, the Penwith of the Celts. Adding a Saxon affix, Simeon of Durham named it Penwithsteort, the "tail of Penwith." There is some doubt about the true meaning of Penwith; Mr. Baring-Gould gives it as "headland of blood," which it might well be as the last battle-ground of a defeated people; another interpretation says the "wooded headland." To speak of it as wooded now seems inappropriate, though we cannot forget the submerged trees of Mount's Bay, nor can we say what might have been beyond when the point reached farther westward. But it is as the last land in England that we cross this windy moorland to reach the sea; and beyond, visible on days of rare clearness, lie the Fortunate Isles of our dreams. Many a pilgrimage is made through the length of Cornwall for this sole purpose—to stand here at the dividing point of two channels, the meeting of two seas, the Titanic outermost gateway that confronts the fury or the rough sport of the ocean gods. The visitors come by car-loads from Penzance or from St. Ives; not only during the summer season but throughout the year—there are always some who wish to see Land's End. They often bring the vaguest ideas of what the sight will be; our visions of Land's End before we see it are often dim, immense, mystical. Our dreams turn westward, to the land of the setting sun—to the great ocean of the unknown that hems us in, beyond which lie the promise, the golden hope, that have lured us onward from childhood, through disappointment and failure and the bitter sorrow of loss—

And so we come to the land's end—the end that is also a beginning. When Tennyson came hither he saw a funeral somewhere near, and he has the brief note, "Land's End and Life's End." The sun had just set in a great yellow flare. There is no spot where sunsets seem more pregnant of[Pg 213]
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[Pg 215] meaning than here, where winds are more haunted by crying ghosts, where there is a deeper significance in the "murmurs and scents of the infinite sea."

But we must come to Land's End in the right mood—with sentiment and inner vision, certainly, but without unrealisable expectations of a mighty gigantic headland, an abrupt tremendous precipice. We shall need the inner vision to contend with some jarring aspects of the reality, which are naturally more aggressive if we come during the holiday season. For the Land's End is a show-place, and we know what that entails. There is a large modern hotel here, just as we find similar edifices in some of the lovely solitudes of the Lizard and confronting the very castle of Arthur at Tintagel. Being there, we must take them philosophically—perhaps even make use of them. The cottage once boasting in the name of the "First and Last House in England" must now take a second place. There are some other aspects of even more definite vulgarisation—the presence of the tripper with his halfpenny newspaper, his bananas, and his mineral waters; there is also too much building here, and the prospect of more. Mr. W. H. Hudson makes an appeal for a national fund that shall buy Land's End and sweep away much of this. He says: "The buildings which now deform the place, the unneeded hotels, with stables, shanties, zinc bungalows sprawling over the cliff, and the ugly big and little houses could be cleared away, leaving only the ancient village of Sennen, the old farmhouses, the coastguard and Trinity House stations, and the old fishing hamlet under the cliff." It is a dream that should not be impossible to realise. But the visitor who stays here after sundown, when the throng has departed, can to some extent realise it for himself. When the dusk of nightfall has veiled the defacements and deformities, he can stay on this ultimate headland alone with the immemorial rocks, the whispering wind, the brooding sea, greeted by the lights of the Wolf and the Longships, with a far twinkle from the Scillies. To the south the skies are searched by the great light of the Lizard. This, indeed, is a vision of peaceful intensity, but there are other times when there is no peace here—when winds buffet the barren downs and waves crash furiously on the caverned crags, when the sentinel rocks of the old country are a horror of wreck and death. Of such a scene it would be more easy to say too much than too little. Even Ruskin, when he attempted to describe Land's End seas in his long convoluted sentences, failed to do anything but give a series of phrases and figures that the mind follows with weariness. Such things must be sketched vividly and briefly, or language only betrays its own limitations.

The rocks to which we immediately apply the name Land's End are only about 60 feet above sea-level; there are many higher, even in the near neighbourhood, and there are some more striking. Various fanciful, and for the most part foolish, names have been applied to them, which need not here be repeated. Both here and at the finer rock of Pordenack, a little southward, the rock-formations somewhat resemble those of the Giants' Causeway in appearance. But the noblest cliff of all on this western promontory is that of Tolpedn-Penwith, to reach which we have to pass Nanjisal Cove. Its name, the "holed headland of Penwith," refers to a deep cleft or fissure, which can be explored from the sea when tide and weather permit. Part of this fine bluff is known as the Chair Ladder, and has traditions of a witch, Madge Figgy, who used to take flight with her comrades from this magnificent point, and here would shriek her incantations above the roar of wind and waters. The spot was certainly well chosen. There are some hidden crags, and some that are not hidden, lying off Land's End, such as the Armed Knight, the Irish Lady, and Enys Dodman, which is pierced by a grand natural arch. Rather more than a mile out is a cluster of islets, on one of which, Carn BrÂs, stands the Longships lighthouse, built in 1883 to replace one that had been privately erected; it has an occulting light of over seven hundred candle-power, visible at 16 miles. The lantern has sometimes been shattered by the force of the seas, and the tower rocks so violently that on one occasion one of the keepers went mad with terror and shot himself. When a boat had been signalled and managed to approach, the supposed corpse was slung down to it, and a fisherman accidentally touching the wound, the man revived. The Wolf light is about seven miles out, erected with immense labour and cost on a most perilous reef of rocks. Both lighthouses are often quite isolated by stress of weather.

Photo by][Gibson & Sons.

CHAPTER XII

ST. IVES

Some years since, when the average man spoke of Cornwall he was thinking of St. Ives—and perhaps of Tintagel. These were the two places whose names had taken the public imagination, the one being typical of the Duchy's romance, the other of her everyday life. But in those days love of the picturesque had not quite overcome a dislike of fishy and other smells. Walter White frankly told his readers not to disenchant themselves by going into St. Ives; he recommended admiring it from a distance. The town's name was familiar in popular songs, and it was known as a prosperous fishing-port. Then the artists arrived, and—perhaps more important still—a much improved railway service. At the present day the reputation of St. Ives is assured, yet it is certainly less popular as a holiday resort than some other places in Cornwall; those who come here usually prefer the suburban district of Carbis Bay. Newquay has attained an easy supremacy in popularity; Bude is following in its wake; while South Cornwall has Looe and Fowey, the Lizard, Penzance, with numerous small coast-side hamlets for the delight of quieter guests. But St. Ives maintains its position as a typically Cornish town; its past is thoroughly interesting, and its records ample; it is a striking and in some respects fascinating link between the bygone and the present. Old St. Ives seems to derive entirely from the little headland known as The Island. It was just one of those places that the ancients loved to fortify, almost insular and easily defensible. The dry-stone defence known as the Two Edges was probably constructed by men of the Stone Age; it is certainly pre-Celtic. Other strongholds of the same date may be found at Gurnard's Head, at Trencrom, and at Bosigran, to name only a few. The Island may have been really insular when first fortified. There are remains of an old chapel of St. Nicholas on the point of the headland, and it is difficult to say whether this must be associated with the name of St. Ia; there is also an oratory of St. Leonard, known as "the Chapel," close to the stone pier. We may fairly conclude that both these are later than the cell of St. Ia, which was on the site of the present parish church. This saintly woman must on no account be connected with the dedications of the Cornish St. Ive (pronounced Eve) near Liskeard, or the St. Ives of Huntingdonshire. She appears to have reached Cornwall late in the fifth century, coming in the company of the Irish prince, Fingar, who renounced his kingdom in order to preach Christianity. Fingar is claimed as a convert of St. Patrick. St. Ia is said to have floated to the Island, anciently named Pendinas, on a miraculous leaf, by which is clearly meant a coracle of the kind still to be seen in parts of Wales. Her comrades went on to evangelise other parts of Cornwall, but she remained here, living in a beehive-hut of the style called "Picts' houses," and doing her best to soften[Pg 233]
[Pg 234]
[Pg 235] the faith and manners of the rude inhabitants. It is said that she was martyred by a local king or chieftain, Tewdrig, or Theodoric. She resided here long enough to impress her name permanently on the locality, whose earliest Latin name that we can trace was Parochia Sancte Ye, while the Cornish name was Porthia. The existing church stands on the site of an oratory which was either her own foundation or was erected soon after her death by loving disciples. Till 1409 St. Ives, being only a small fishing hamlet, belonged ecclesiastically to Lelant; but at that date the people petitioned the Pope, through their lord of the manor, Champernowne, that they might have a separate church: "As it had pleased the Almighty God to increase the town inhabitants and to send down temporal blessings most plentifully among them, the people, to show their thankfulness for the same, did resolve to build a chapel in St. Ives, they having no house in the town wherein public prayers and Divine service was read, but were forced every Sunday and holy day to go to Lelant church, being three miles distant from St. Ives, to hear the same, and likewise to carry their children to Lelant to be baptized, their dead to be there buried, to go there to be married, and their women to be churched." In response to this appeal the Pope directed the Bishop of Exeter that the chapels both of St. Ives and Towednack should be made parochial, "with font and cemetery, but dependent on Lelant." The people set to work at once, bringing the necessary granite from Zennor by boat, roads being then quite unfit for transit of heavy burdens. Completed in 1426, the church consists of chancel, nave, and two aisles, with a tower 119 feet in height. The roofs are of decorated wagon-form, with figures of angels at the springings of the braces. The Trenwith aisle was added a little later. In the original church was an organ, very fine for those days; it was destroyed in 1648 by the Puritans. There are some very good bench-end carvings, not all in their original position, and there is a Trenwith brass with the figure of St. Michael ludicrously restored. Many other objects of interest may be noted, both within and without the church, including a fifteenth-century cross in the churchyard, thrown down by the Puritans and re-erected.

Historically, St. Ives has played no great part, but what may be called its domestic annals are singularly varied and full. The chief events that can be called historical are a landing of the French at Porthminster during the reign of Henry VI., and the anchoring of Perkin Warbeck in St. Ives Bay, in 1497, when he was proclaimed as Richard IV. St. Ives was also concerned in the Western Rebellion of 1549, when the Cornishmen rose on behalf of their ancient religion. There was a question of language also, as well as of faith, as we may see from the articles of complaint:—

This rising, which began in Devonshire, rapidly spread throughout Cornwall; it was, indeed, the fiercest and most serious of all the risings against an enforced Reformation. It ended in disaster; many Cornishmen were killed either in the field or by hanging afterwards; among whom was John Payne, mayor or portreeve of St. Ives. Of the religious aspect of the quarrel nothing need be said; but it is certain that the compulsory introduction of the English Bible and Prayer Book proved the death-blow of the Cornish language. It did not die at once, but it speedily began to languish, and two centuries later was practically extinct. During the Civil War St. Ives sided with the Parliament, and its church, therefore, does not contain the letter of thanks from King Charles that is so commonly seen in Cornish churches. The little town was always strong in local patriotism, and sturdily nursed its own interests as a fishing port; yet a study of its Borough Accounts proves that it could be generous at times, and these accounts are such delightful reading that a few extracts must be quoted. They begin with the year 1573; the quaintness of diction and the "indifferent spelling" add piquancy and remoteness to some of the entries.

Many of these have to do with expenses towards the keep of foundlings, burying of the dead by the parish, and other charities; thus, a very few years from the commencement, we have:—

The charitable doings of these good St. Ives folk were evidently very numerous and very varied; but these entries are not all of almsgiving. Thus, in the same year as above, we have the following:—

Also:—

Many of the entries have to do with licensed beggars, or shipwrecked seamen, or the raising moneys for the deliverance of foreign captives; but the variety is endless and delightful. Thus, after reading of a shilling bestowed upon "a man of Irelande that had his barke stollen by pirats," we have the record of a similar sum paid "ffor a paire of breches ffor John the lasar." This John seems to have cost the parish sundry amounts for his breeches and jerkins; but in 1596 it would appear that St. Ives was quit of him, if it is he to whom the following refers:—

Immediately after this eightpence is given "to a pore lame sowldior hurted in the quenes servyce in yrland having a lisens." The town could make merry at times, as we find when sixpence was paid "for a pynte of Secke when our burgesse Mr. Harrys was chosen"—which is very moderate compared with Falstaff's payments for the same liquor. In 1626 we read that special harbour-dues were levied to pay for the repair of the "peere or Kay of St. Ives"; in which dues there were special charges for English vessels and somewhat higher for "Alients." The writer is of divided mind as to the spelling of pier, for he passes from "peere" to "peor." It is interesting to note that "All alients for roulinge on the sande te paye pr tonn IId."; which does not refer to any merry sport of rolling on the sands, as sometimes practised by exhilarated visitors, but to rolling of fish. It was doubtless a useful provision that "noe garbadge of ffishe or stinkinge ffishe should be cast above full sea marke att neape tide on the sande." What with the queer wordings and the defective punctuation, it is sometimes difficult to fathom the exact purport of entries. Thus, about the year 1629, we have mention of two shillings given "to a poore distressed scholler that came to our towne from Germanie the 27th of ffebruarie to seeke passadge home from Ireland." Query, where was the poor "scholler" going? In 1640 the famous silver wishing-cup was presented to the town by Sir Francis Basset, being about a foot in height; it was really drunk from in old corporation festivities, but the wine was latterly dipped from it in a ladle. It is inscribed as follows:—

A little later we read of sixpence paid "to one that did whipp the mayde that would drowne herself"; from which it is clear that the town did not encourage suicide. Just below is, "Item, more to six distressed Bristoll men their vessell being taken att Sea, 4s. 6d." There are many such entries, of which St. Ives may well be proud.

But these accounts also bear record of less peaceful proceedings. Under the year 1681, after an entry of four shillings received from "ffower offendors for their breach of the Saboth," we have a chronicling of disturbance caused by St. Just men, and a fine on them "for their riotous assembling into the Borough." A little later is the item: "Pd constables to putt St. Just men to Lanceston, £6 9s. 6d."; also 5s. "paid Mr. Robinson to dress their wounds." It is pleasant to think that the St. Ives folk were such good Christians. In 1685 the borough paid some attention to the condition of its drum: "Pd Henry Anthony for new making the Towne drum 2s. 6d." Later, there is a payment to Henry Barber for beating the same. Immediately after there is much to-do about some sugar stolen by a man named Teage; sugar was a costly luxury in those days. One of the items is this: "Spent by Mr. Trentwith, Mr. Robinson, my self & Mr. May, at St. Earth, Gwynear, Camborne and other places to discover the Sugar stollen by Teage being out two dayes, £1 3s. 6d." It is amusing to notice how the writer's modesty held good until he had recorded the names of Trentwith and Robinson, after which it rebelled and insisted on taking precedence of Mr. May. This Teage business caused a deal of trouble, and many witnesses were carried to Launceston as evidence against him, at great expense; yet the borough did not scruple, shortly afterwards, to expend a shilling "for poynts to whip the boyes veiweinge the parish bounds," and another shilling for the drummer on that occasion. In 1681 there was trouble with the vicar who served the three parishes of St. Ives, Towednack, and Lelant, about the payment of tithes; the vicar seems to have been non-resident, and often attended to his pastoral duties at inconvenient times. In 1690 King William's victory at the Boyne cost the borough a pound in merry-making, to which we may add the following entry of 5s. 6d. "for a Tar Barrell and Syder." In the same year an itinerant beggar seems to have won alms from the authorities under a false ticket:—

Under the year 1693 we are reminded of perils, now happily impossible, that then lurked around these shores. There is an entry of half-a-crown paid to William Thomas "for his labour to goe to ffalmouth to give an account that two ffrench privateers lay in our bay"; and a little later another half-crown was given "to ffower poore boyes that were taken by a ffrench privateer." The beginning of 1698 seems to have been especially devoted to charities; we have record of sums given to two distressed men and their children whose houses were burnt; to two poor Irishmen cast away at Zennor; to a poor traveller and his wife, a seaman who had lost his hand, a captain who had lost all his goods by wreck, and a poor disbanded soldier. Also, four shillings given to two "poore soldiers which came from Silly." It has generally been understood that Scillonians object to their name being spelt in this manner; yet we have a later entry of expense "examining the Silly Soldiers." One is tempted to quote much further from these alluring records, and they certainly assist us considerably in understanding the old-time ways of living, as we ramble about the tortuous byways, nooks and corners of St. Ives. In the letter the accounts are strictly local; in the spirit they may be taken as typical of almost any West Country town of that date, and they have the frequent touch of humanity that relieves bare figures from monotony.

In connection with the flourishing condition of Methodism at St. Ives, it is important to remember that John Wesley paid the town as many as twenty-seven visits, beginning in 1743 and ending in 1789. There was already a society of his followers here when he began his visits, but they were very unpopular with the majority of the townsfolk, who accused them of sympathy with the Pope and the Jacobites. Wesley's own reception was very mixed; he received some countenance and a good deal of mob violence. Not only the vicar and curate of St. Ives were against him, but he had a still more formidable opponent in Dr. Borlase, the antiquarian vicar of Ludgvan. When a parishioner tried to persuade Borlase that Wesley's preaching was doing good, he exclaimed, "Get along; you are a parcel of mad, crazy-headed fellows." Yet two years after his first visit Wesley was able to describe St. Ives as "the most still and honourable post (so are the times changed) which we have in Cornwall." But when he paid his fifth visit, in 1750, it is clear that opposition had not died out. He tells us that: "Having first sent to the mayor to inquire if it would be offensive to him, I preached in the evening not far from the market-place. There was a vast concourse of people, very few of the adult inhabitants of the town being wanting. I had gone through two-thirds of my discourse, to which the whole audience was deeply attentive, when Mr. S. sent his man to ride his horse to and fro through the midst of the congregation. Some of the chief men in the town bade me go on, and said no man should hinder me, but I judged it better to retire to the room." We may be sure it was no personal shrinking, but a regard for the public peace, that caused the preacher's decision. Twenty years later he wrote: "Here God has made all our enemies to be at peace with us, so that I might have preached in any part of the town. But I rather chose a meadow, where such as would might sit down, either on the grass or on the hedges—so the Cornish term their broad stone walls, which are usually covered with grass." Of his last visit he says that "well-nigh all the town attended, and with all possible seriousness. Surely forty years' labour has not been in vain here." The numberless meeting-houses and Bethels throughout Cornwall bear at least one form of testimony to the enduring fruits of that "forty years' labour."

There are other things besides Methodists at St. Ives; there are painters and pilchards. The colony of artists here is almost as famous as that of Newlyn, and there are at least sixty different studios. Pictures from St. Ives have won world-wide fame; in fact, artistically, Cornwall would have long since become stale were it not for its inexhaustible charm. The painters bring something of a Latin Quarter element with them, and are by no means limited to British in nationality. Mr. Stanhope Forbes says: "I remember finding in a house at St. Ives where I was calling, four painters of four different nationalities. In that town Zorn, the well-known Swedish artist, painted his first oil picture, which now hangs in the Luxembourg, and for it his palette was set by an equally celebrated American painter who at that time resided there."

The studios are specially thronged during the winter months, as the climate allows much open-air work; in the summer many of the painters fly to other hunting-fields, leaving Cornwall to the tourist. The Cornish have grown accustomed to the painters by this time, and cease to regard them with wondering curiosity; they are recognised as having distinct local uses. Many of the pictures now displayed in exhibitions bespeak a close intimacy between the painters and the fishermen. But the pilchards are of still more importance to the little huddled town where the fishers live; and these usually begin to arrive about August, when the huers have already taken up their position on the high places around, in order to signal the first sighting of the shoals. The huers are on watch from August till late October, and it is the method of taking by seine that renders their signalling of great importance. The exact position of the fish must be ascertained before the seine-nets are dropped to enclose them. The takes are sometimes enormous, but seasons greatly vary, as the fish are governed by laws of feeding whose operation we cannot easily trace. The average annual taking of pilchards in Cornwall is estimated at 20,000 hogsheads. Gulls in countless numbers hover above the fishing-boats, and swoop down for their share in the spoil; sometimes, however, scared away by the more powerful gannets, with whom they dare not dispute. At times the gulls are a distinct nuisance and something more to the fisherman; they will snatch fish from his very boat, and the constant loss must be very considerable; yet there is a superstitious idea that the gull is the fisherman's friend—an idea in which we might rejoice more if it led the men to be equally humane towards other living creatures. The same mercy is by no means shown to the gannet. But a more serious enemy of the men is the dogfish, who tear their nets; and the fishers are taking their revenge by trying to popularise this fish as an article of food, under the name of the "flake." Besides the prevalent fishing with seines, there is much drift-fishing from St. Ives, taking place at night; the boats being dotted about within and outside the bay, with their headlights showing like twinkling stars. The St. Ives men are not dependent on pilchards only, happily for them; in winter their seines take many mullet, which are mostly sent to Paris. The shore-seine used for these is comparatively small; it is coiled and passed round the school, and the two ends then drawn ashore. Here, as elsewhere, the men are usually parcelled into companies—a kind of limited share-company; they take turns in shooting the nets, and profits are shared. The control of affairs by husband and wife is a different sort of share-company; the wife is supreme mistress at home, but the man becomes "boss" as soon as he gets his sea-boots on. Many mackerel are often brought to St. Ives, and the men go still further afield after herring; but somehow the catch of the pilchard seems the most distinctively local feature, and the fish, once common much further east, is still an important actuality to all the Land's End fishing ports. The typical Cornishman has always been a fisher or a tin-miner; and both still flourish.

Picturesque and artistic St. Ives clusters narrowly about the harbour and on the neck of the Island; the more modern residences and lodging-houses stretch above Porthminster Beach, with a popular development at Carbis Bay. More inland suburbs are chiefly devoted to the mining that has suffered so many vicissitudes—flourishing, then decadent, and now flourishing again. One such centre is Halsetown, a mining settlement founded something less than a century ago by James Halse, of the old Cornwall Hals family; he was a solicitor and a mayor of St. Ives, intimately connected with the mines. But in this rather unattractive quarter we are less likely to think of Halse than we are of Sir Henry Irving, who spent his childhood here. The reputation of a great actor becomes very much a phantom affair after a few years; but as we still associate the name of Garrick with a brilliant period of the Georgian age, so the name of Irving must always be linked with the later brilliant period of the Victorian. To the younger generation of theatre-goers he is fast becoming like a half-mythical demigod—one of those whom the elder folk mention with regretful shakings of the head when newer favourites are lauded. The actor was not born in Cornwall, but in Somerset; his mother, however, was a Cornish woman named Behenna, and one of his aunts was Mrs. Penberthy, wife of Captain Isaac Penberthy, whose captaincy of course referred to his position as overseer of mines here at Halsetown. Hither Irving was brought in his fourth year, and his memories of Cornwall remained vivid to his dying day. "I recall Halsetown," he said, "as a village nestling between sloping hills, bare and desolate, disfigured by great heaps of slack from the mines, and with the Knill monument standing prominent as a landmark to the east. It was a wild and weird place, fascinating in its own peculiar beauty, and taking a more definite shape in my youthful imagination by reason of the fancies and legends of the people. The stories attaching to rock and well and hill were unending; every man and woman had folk-lore to tell us youngsters. We took to them naturally—they seem to fit in wisely with the solitudes, the expanses, the superstitious character of the Cornish people, and never clashed in our minds with the Scriptural teachings which were our daily portion at home. These legends and fairy stories have remained with me but vaguely—I was too young—but I remember the 'guise dancing,' when the villagers went about in masks, entering houses and frightening the children. We imitated this once, in breaking in on old Granny Dixon's sleep, fashioned out in horns and tails, and trying to frighten her into repentance for telling us stories of hell-fire and brimstone. The attempt was not too successful." Mrs. Penberthy was a Methodist and a teetotaler, of deeply religious instincts; yet the boy's life with his cousins was evidently free and uncramped. The uncle was strong, somewhat passionate, but lovable. If there was some sternness in the home atmosphere, there was also plenty of affection, and that is the most vital point. "Halsetown gave me a good physical start in life, at any rate," said the actor. "I attribute much of my endurance of fatigue, which is a necessary part of an actor's life, to the free and open and healthy years I lived at Halsetown, and to the simple food and regular routine ordered by my aunt. We rambled much over the desolate hills, or down to the rocks at the seashore. There was plenty of natural beauty to look for, and I suppose we looked for it. I know the sea had a potent attraction for me. I was a wiry youth, as I believe, when the time came for me to join a London school."

The Knill monument mentioned by Irving claims a little more attention. John Knill, born at Callington in 1733, after being articled to a Penzance solicitor, became collector of Customs at St. Ives, and in 1767 was chosen mayor. A few years later Government sent him to Jamaica to inspect the ports; he was private secretary to the Earl of Buckinghamshire, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; and in late life he became a practising solicitor at Gray's Inn, as well as magistrate for the county of Middlesex. He died in London, 1811. Long before this date he had erected his own mausoleum on Worvas Hill, near St. Ives, and to this his remains were brought. Among many legacies, his will directed that certain ceremonies should be observed once every five years, on the festival of St. James the Apostle; £10 to be spent "in a dinner for the mayor, collector of Customs, and clergyman, and two friends to be invited by each of them, making a party of nine persons, to dine at some tavern in the borough; £5 to be equally divided amongst ten girls, natives of the borough and daughters of seamen, fishermen or tinners, each of them not exceeding ten years of age, who shall, between ten and twelve o'clock of the forenoon of that day, dance for a quarter of an hour at least, on the ground adjoining the mausoleum, and after the dance sing the 100th Psalm of the old version, to the fine old tune to which the same was then sung in St. Ives Church; £1 to a fiddler who shall play to the girls while dancing and singing at the mausoleum, and also before them on their return home therefrom; £2 to two widows of seamen, fishermen or tinners of the borough, being sixty-four years old or upwards, who shall attend the dancing and singing of the girls, and walk before them immediately after the fiddler, and certify to the mayor, collector of Customs, and clergyman, that the ceremonies have been duly performed; £1 to be laid out in white ribbons for breast-knots for the girls and widows, and a cockade for the fiddler, to be worn by them respectively on that day and on the Sunday following." These observances have been duly performed, the last date being 1906, when many visitors attended to witness the proceedings.

A little eastward of Carbis Bay is Lelant, the mother-parish of St. Ives. Its full title is St. Uny Lelant, and the dedication is to the Irish Eoghain or Euinus, whom we find in Brittany as Uniac. There are other traces of him in Cornwall, as at Redruth and Sancreed; and it is probable that he arrived in Cornwall about the same time as St. Ia, but the fullest traditions of him relate to his Irish life. The word "Lelant" is explained as Lan-nans, the "valley-church"; in old books we still find the parish named as Lanant. The stronghold of Tewdrig, who murdered St. Ia and other saints, is supposed to have been on the coast here, its traces concealed by the sweeping sands that very nearly made an end of the village entirely, as they really did destroy its one-time harbour. A number of skeletons of prehistoric date were discovered when cutting for the railway to St. Ives, proving the early occupation of these coasts. Norden, writing more than three centuries since, says that Lelant was "sometyme a haven towne, but now of late decayed by reason of the sande which has choaked the harbour and buried much of the landes and houses; many devises they use to prevent the absorption of the churche." But the cultivation of the sand-rush, arundo arenaria, has done what the other "devises" failed to do; and the rushy towans have now provided an ideal golf-course, which prospers though the little town is somnolent. It is here that St. Ives visitors do most of their golfing, and the ground is described as "a natural seaside course, with charming views in all directions. The holes are rather short and tricky, and put a premium on local knowledge. Last, but not least, Lelant can boast a climate absolutely ideal for golf in winter." Lelant Church is interesting, but has lost its fine old bench-ends and screen. It is connected with the memory of a former vicar, Parson Polkinghorne, who was a renowned ghost-layer, a redoubtable fox-hunter, and a skilled hurler. His exorcising formula is said to have commenced with the words "in Nommy Dommy," and we are told it was in Latin throughout—as we may believe from this specimen. But the days of the exorcist are over now—there are no ghosts to lay, or only such as will not be laid.

There is a ferry at Lelant, taking the traveller across the Hayle creek to sandy Phillack, one of the mother-parishes of Hayle. This is the narrowest section of the Cornish peninsula, and from Hayle River to Mount's Bay is only about four miles across; a good road makes the journey from sea to sea. It is just a neck of land dividing north from south, and persons susceptible to climatic change say that the difference can be noticed when they get half-way across. Hayle, a little waterside town of less than two thousand inhabitants, is not particularly attractive. 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; those who came from Wales usually landed near Padstow or came to Cornwall by way of Devon. One such Irish saint was Gwythian, who built his oratory a few miles north of Hayle, and the remains of this rugged little church have lately been rescued from the sands, with a special service of commemoration held over it. The Irish saints brought their style of building with them, and such relics as those of St. Piran and St. Gwythian are exactly similar in style to the oldest memorials of the same nature in Ireland. The masonry was of the simplest—a mere laying of rough stones together without mortar. Some have supposed this oratory of St. Gwythian to be the earliest religious building surviving in Britain, but it is very difficult to say anything definite. If the little church really survived as the saint left it its claim would be a good one, but, like St. Piran's, it is more likely to be a century or two later. Visitors must not expect to learn much about the saints or about the monuments from the countryfolk, either here or anywhere else in Cornwall. With luck they may get a few quaint notions and superstitions out of the older people; but the younger folk are educated in a different manner now—universal school systems tend to uniformity and usually to a deadening of the imagination. For the legends and traditions of the country-side it is necessary to go to the guide-books, which are themselves often misleading. If a traveller were to go through Cornwall compiling a book that should contain solely what he saw and heard, it would be something quite different from the ordinary handbook, and those who only know the Duchy by reading about it would be chiefly struck by its omissions. The people, here as elsewhere, no longer care much for the traditions of their forefathers; and the delightful literary works that belong to topography are the result and the supply of a culture in which the ordinary men and women of the localities have small share. The visitor should carry the best literary guide he can procure with him, otherwise he is likely to learn little of the country's lore and its antiquities—unless now and then he applies to a clergyman or perhaps an intelligent schoolmaster. The days of oral tradition have passed for ever. We need not complain when we remember that written literature is a result of this decease.

CHAPTER XIII

FROM HAYLE TO PERRAN

A good road runs from Hayle to Gwythian, skirting the Phillack towans, and then passes onward to Portreath. For the most part it keeps near the sea, so that the cyclist need not feel he is losing everything worth seeing; but the pedestrian, if he does not mind a few rough places, will do better still by taking the cliff path. Camborne and Redruth, lying some miles inland, are not likely to tempt the traveller, unless he be a mining expert intent on studying newest methods, or unless he be a lover of Rugby football, of which, in the proper season, he might see some good games. Cornwall, having deserted hurling for the more modern development of the ball game, has won high position, and these two mining towns are the chief centres of the sport. Something other than football, however, attracts most of those who come to Cornwall, and one such attraction ought to be the lovely view of St. Ives Bay to be enjoyed from the Godrevy headland. The reef of rocks lying off this eastward point of the bay has been a deadly trap for navigation, and the lighthouse, on an island close to the mainland, was first erected in 1857. One early wreck on these crags is connected with memories of the beheaded Charles I. On the day of his execution a fierce storm broke on the coast, easily interpreted by loyal Cornishmen as a judgment of God. A vessel containing the royal wardrobe and other furnishings was riding at the time in St. Ives Bay, being bound for France, and this was driven by the tempest on the Godrevy rocks. Of the sixty persons on board all were lost with the exception of a man and boy; these, with a wolfhound, swam to the islet on which the light now stands and were carried to St. Ives as soon as the storm permitted their rescue. With all the assistance that a powerful light can give the Godrevy stones are still perilous. 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. There is a sprinkling of little islets along the shore here, one of which is Samphire Isle. About a mile inland, on the left of the road, is Tehidy House, with its parks and plantations of nearly one thousand acres, said to have once reached to the foot of Carn Brea. This is the seat of the Bassets, one of the most memorable of Cornish families, having played a great part in the Duchy's history. The Bassets were among the earliest Norman settlers in England and can be traced in Cornwall as early as the time of Robert de Mortain, half-brother of the Conqueror. They do not appear to have gained a permanent settlement in Cornwall, however, till the reign of Henry II., when Thomas Baron Basset, of Hedendon, Oxfordshire, married Adeliza de Dunstanville and so took root at Tehidy. The family intermarried with the best local families—Grenvilles, Trelawneys, Godolphins, Rashleighs, Prideaux. Francis Basset, who was associated with Grenville in the glorious victory of Stamford Hill, Stratton, was knighted by Charles I. after the fight of Braddoc Down. Some of his letters to his wife at this time are preserved, and they compare with Bevil Grenville's for touching simplicity and whole-hearted affection. His joy at the victories, which seemed to have established the Royal cause on a firm basis—at least in the West—is expressed in several of these. "Peace," he exclaims, "and I hope perpetual. Sadd houses I have seen many, but a joyfuller pleasanter day never than this. Sende the money, as much and as soone as you can. Sende to all our ffriends at home, especially, this good news. I write this on my saddle. Every friend will pardon the illness of it, and you chiefly, my perfect joy." To this he adds in a postscript: "The Kinge and army march presently for Plymouth. Jesus give the King it and all. The King, in the hearing of thousands, as soon as he saw me in ye morning, cryed to mee, 'Deare Mr. Sheriffe, I leave Cornwall to you safe and sound.'" The letter is addressed "To my Lady Bassett, at her Tehidy, joyfull. After the success near Lostwithiel." It was not long, however, before this joyfulness was turned to mourning. Grenville and many another gallant Cornishman fell in battle; stronghold after stronghold gave way before the irresistible Fairfax; and Basset himself, after a brave defence of St. Michael's Mount, had to yield and withdraw to a kind of exile at Scilly. This dauntless loyalist was closely connected with the town of St. Ives, which he represented in Parliament, and to which he gave the silver goblet mentioned in the previous chapter. Tehidy House, which was enlarged and nearly rebuilt in 1865, is beautifully situated and contains an excellent collection of pictures, including specimens by Reynolds, Vandyck, Lely, and Gainsborough. A later notability was Francis, Baron de Dunstanville and Basset, of Tehidy, born at Walcot in 1757, whose virtues were so greatly appreciated by the Duchy that his monument was erected on the summit of Carn Brea, where it stands as a striking landmark, rising 90 feet from its pedestal; this was placed in 1836. The top can be reached by an inner stairway, and commands a magnificent view of land and water. With the death of Lord Francis the title de Dunstanville became extinct. Carn Brea cannot actually be said to belong to the coast, being several miles inland, but it is a dominant feature in any view from a far distance, and it claims a visit partly on account of this monument and partly for its prehistoric remains. This mass of granite, rising to a height of about 740 feet, bears traces of immemorial occupation that have been both a delight and a puzzle to antiquaries. Those familiar with the works of the artist Cruikshank will remember that the giant Bolster used to take this hill with one stride from St. Agnes Beacon, and in addition to this tale of giants there was the usual chatter about Druids and Druidic monuments in connection with Carn Brea. It is safest to leave the Druids alone—they are at a discount now; the place is interesting enough without them, and the view from the summit is magnificent, reaching as it does from sea to sea. Clusters of hut circles and signs of neolithic military entrenchment are very obvious, and a number of pure gold coins have been discovered here. There is also a mediÆval castle, restored, and, of course, the inevitable logan-stone. Nearer to Redruth is one of the Cornish "places of play" (plÂn-an-guare), known as Planguary. These rounded hollows, such as the famous Gwennap Pit, were formerly used for sports and dramatic performances; they played an important part in the social life of the past, and Cornwall had its own speciality in miracle-plays or interludes. Carew tells us that "the Guary Miracle is a kind of interlude compiled in Cornish out of some Scripture history. For representing it they raise an earthen amphitheatre in some open field, leaving the diameter of the enclosed plain some forty or fifty feet. The country people flock from all sides to see and hear it, for they have therein devils and devices to delight the eye as well as the ear. The players speak not their parts without book, but are prompted by one called the ordinary, who followeth at their back with the book in his hand and telleth them softly what they must pronounce aloud. The dramas were acted at one time for several days together and were similar in character to the English mysteries of the same period."

The parish of Illogan was the birthplace of the engineer Trevithick, who was born here in 1771. His father, a prominent manager of local mines, was a Methodist, often visited by Wesley. The boy, educated at Camborne, was bright and precocious; he is said on one occasion to have irritated his master by offering to do six sums to his one—a proposition which no pedagogue is likely to appreciate. He was powerfully developed physically, and at eighteen could lift ten hundredweight. In 1794 he became engineer at the Ding Dong Mine, where he introduced many improvements; and a few years later he was busily engaged in designing a genuine steam-carriage, which was finished and made its first short trip on Christmas Eve, 1801, carrying the first passengers ever known to have been conveyed by steam. Locally this contrivance was known as the "puffing devil," or as "Cap'n Dick's Puffer." The next step was to produce an engine running on rails. This was done in 1804, when Trevithick completed a machine which carried ten tons of iron, five wagons, and seventy men for a distance of nine and a half miles, the speed being about five miles an hour. Clumsy and slow as it was, this was a very marked advance on anything that had previously been accomplished. But the engineer's genius for invention was not balanced by adequate business capacity, and he lacked the means of perfecting and forwarding his devices; they had to wait. He went to Peru in 1817, and suffered heavy losses through the war of independence. At this time he was nearly drowned in the Magdalena River, but was rescued by a Venezuelan officer, who drew him ashore with a lasso. It is pleasant to learn that he made the acquaintance of George Stephenson at Carthagena, and received generous help from one who might have been considered his rival. He died poor and in debt at Dartford in 1833, when the workmen with whom he had been labouring clubbed together to give him a suitable funeral. There is now a memorial window to his memory in Westminster Abbey. His character seems to have been warm and sanguine, tender-hearted, and easily depressed. He was notably one of those men into whose labours "other men enter"—successful to a point, but lacking in the finishing touches that bring fame and triumph; with all his courage he wanted persistence. But when we think of Watt and Stephenson in connection with steam transit we must never forget that the Cornishman Trevithick deserves at least an equal share of honour.

Illogan is a mining centre, and thickly populated, though when we speak of population in Cornwall we must remember that the inhabitants of the whole Duchy number far less than those of such towns as Birmingham, Liverpool, or Manchester. The church here was rebuilt in 1848, when all the old monuments were carefully replaced. Portreath is the thriving little port of the district, and is also popular with Camborne and Redruth folk as a watering-place. But the presence of active and prosperous mining does not make for beauty; a mine only becomes picturesque when it has been deserted and taken back into the bosom of Nature. Otherwise, Portreath has many attractions, and the coast is grand. The port has four docks and a pier of about 260 yards long. Lord de Dunstanville built the first dock here. Copper ore is exported, and there is an import of coal and iron. What with commercialism and pleasure, Portreath (formerly named Basset's Cove) should do well; but the industries certainly bring some disfigurement, and the stream that flows to the sea discolours the ocean waves with its ruddy stain. From here to St. Agnes the coast is broken into coves, one of which, Porth Towan, is popular with excursionists; but the tripper cannot be here at all times, and when he is absent the shores are left to majestic loneliness, their caves haunted by seals and their crags by crying sea-fowl. We do not escape from the mining when we come to St. Agnes, but we come to a district of notable memories, and those who climb the Beacon can look towards St. Ives on the one side and Newquay on the other. We must not suppose that the Beacon is associated with any memories of the saintly maiden whom Keats and Tennyson have poetically glorified; St. Agnes here is pronounced St. Anne's, and it is supposed that this Ann is the so-named goddess of the Irish Celts, but the identification is rather difficult. More vivid is the legend that speaks of the love of the giant Bolster for this saint, and the manner in which she contrived to get rid of him. As a married man, the giant believed in the virtues of quick change; he found that a new wife each year was a fairly satisfactory allowance, and it is reported that he killed the old ones by throwing stones at them. St. Agnes was much perturbed by his attentions; she did not approve of his matrimonial methods, and she had some sympathy with the existing Mrs. Bolster. "At last she conceived a device, not very saint-like but perhaps necessary. Would he fill a little hole in the cliff with his blood as a proof of his affection? Of course he would. He cut his arm and let the blood run; but the life-stream flowed and flowed, and his strength ebbed away, and the hole did not fill. At last, when the sea had become red with his blood, he died. The saint had deceived him; the small hole in the rock led down into a cavern, and the cavern led to the sea; not even the ocean could have filled it." Chapel Porth is named as the scene of this incident. The village of St. Agnes lies at the eastward foot of the Beacon, and Trevaunance, on the coast, is its port. It is a neighbourhood where natural beauties contend with the ugliness of industrialism, and usually emerge triumphant. There is a story told of St. Agnes in connection with Wesley, which proves how rapidly folk-lore may spring up; it is even more remarkable, because more modern, than the manner in which Devonians have associated mythology with the name of Francis Drake. It is said that "when Wesley visited this part of Cornwall preaching, he was refused shelter elsewhere than in an ancient mansion that was unoccupied because haunted by ghosts. Wesley went to the house, and sat up reading by candle-light. At midnight he heard a noise in the hall, and on issuing from his room, saw that a banquet was spread, and that richly apparelled ladies and gentlemen were about the board. Then one cavalier, with dark, piercing eyes and a pointed black beard, wearing a red feather in his cap, said, 'We invite you to eat and to drink with us,' and pointed to an empty chair. Wesley at once took the place indicated, but before he put in his mouth a bite of food or drank a drop, said, 'It is my custom to ask a blessing; stand all.' Then the spectres rose. Wesley began his accustomed grace, 'The Name of God, high over all'—when suddenly the room darkened, and all the apparitions vanished." There is yet another memory at St. Agnes. The painter Opie (said to have been born Hoppie) was born at Harmony Cottage in the year 1761, his father being a carpenter. At ten years of age he began to teach others in the village school; and at twelve he opened an evening school for poor children. Having already developed an extraordinary taste for drawing, it is related that he once purposely irritated his father in order to catch the expression of anger for a picture. He soon began to practise in a humble way as a portrait-painter, and was advised by Dr. Wolcot ("Peter Pindar") to raise his price to half a guinea a head; from which we may guess that his previous terms had been excessively modest. Wolcot was a good friend to Opie, though their intercourse did not remain very cordial; but for a time they even entered into some sort of partnership together, in London, and there can be no doubt that the painter was thus introduced to a wider circle than he would otherwise have reached. He became the "Cornish Wonder," and felt able to tell Wolcot that he could get on by himself. This may sound like ingratitude, but we do not know enough of the story to form a judgment. When Northcote returned to London from abroad Joshua Reynolds said to him, "My dear sir, you may go back; there is a wondrous Cornishman who is carrying all before him." "What is he like?" asked Northcote. "Like? Why, like Caravaggio and Velasquez in one." Opie began to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1782, and in the same year he married a lady who eloped from him. Divorcing her, he married, many years later, the novelist Mrs. Opie. The flood of his popularity waned considerably, as such sudden fashions do, but still he had plenty of work, and a solid reputation grew on a sounder basis. In 1787 his "Assassination of David Rizzio" procured his election as A.R.A., and a year afterwards he became full member. The lectures that he delivered at the Academy were admirable both in matter and in manner, and are worthy of ranking even with those of Reynolds, whose life Opie wrote. Dying in 1807, after a second married period of great happiness, the painter was buried at St. Paul's. Among those whose portraits he painted were Dr. Johnson, Fox, Burke, Dr. Parr, Northcote, and many other celebrities of his day. Apart from his own special art, he was passionately devoted to poetry, and is said to have had a wonderful memory for recitation. The house at which he was born is situated about half-way between St. Agnes and Perranporth. Trevaunance Porth, which now has some insignificant accommodation for shipping, is notable for the difficulties that opposed even such small harbourage. The manor belonged to the Tonkin family, who spent much money in the attempt to build a pier, but the force of the sea always frustrated them. About the year 1700 Winstanley, the famous builder of Eddystone, constructed an excellent quay and basin, but a gale destroyed this after a very few years. Tonkin, the parochial historian of Cornwall, whose work is valuable in spite of its errors, laid out a considerable sum in an effort to repair the quay, and to raise the money he had to part with a small piece of land, which speedily repaid its purchaser by the richness of its mineral wealth. A jetty built later withstood the sea better than its more ambitious predecessors had done.

Beyond St. Agnes Beacon the coast is largely composed of clay-slates, or killas, presenting much desolate grandeur; the slate showing the jagged scars of its unending resistance to oceanic forces. At Cligga Head this slate is blended with decomposed hard granite. Off the shore, about two miles out, rise the two isolated rocks known as the Man and his Men—sometimes also called the Cow and her Calf. "Man" and "Men" are simply corruptions of the Celtic maen, a stone. Between St. Agnes and Perranporth the passage along the cliffs is interrupted by the extensive enclosures of a modern dynamite factory, and the pedestrian who has known this walk of yore is not likely to bless this manufacture of a deadly explosive. But there is a great industrial demand for dynamite in the district, and it is well that its production should be relegated to a neighbourhood where accidents would do the least possible damage. At Perranporth we approach a grim sand-driven tract of country sacred to the name of one of Cornwall's most typical saints, the Irishman St. Piran. 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. The church is a chapel-of-ease to Perranzabuloe (Piran-in-sabulo); there are barrows and sand-dunes, and a vague floating rumour of an immemorial past. In fog or grey weather the spot can be dreary, weird, desolate; but in times of fair sunrise or sundown it is glorified with a marvellous beauty, with restful nooks where a dreamer may enter upon a heritage of beatific vision. St. Piran, the dominant personality of the district, is the patron of the tin-miners, but neither they nor others know much about him; he is a ghost of the far past, but a ghost with a dim halo around his head. He belongs to the sixth century, and was therefore a little later than the saints of the Land's End country. In Ireland he is reputed as St. Kieran of Saigir, but the British Celts, according to their usual custom, changed the Gaelic K into P. His Irish record is much more full than his Cornish, but it must not delay us, except to remember that he rescued an Irish girl, Bruinsech, from a chief who had kidnapped her, and that she travelled to Cornwall, probably in his company, to become the Buriena of St. Buryan. Piran is said to have journeyed across the seas on a millstone, which is a mythical way of saying that he brought his altar-stone with him. He is supposed to have landed on these drifting sands that perpetuate his name, and to have founded his first cell here, the oratory that still remains in much mutilated ruin among the towans of Perran. So far as site is concerned, this may be true enough; but the oratory, whose bare foundations are now surrounded by a sheltering rail, is probably at least two centuries later than the day of St. Piran, though it is just possible that the huge skeleton found here might be his. There is no reason why a saint may not also be a giant. But who shall establish the identity of a mouldering skeleton? Only a fragment of gable, a half-buried inscribed slab, and some loose rugged stones, have been left to speak of what may be the earliest religious foundation in England; but even in this matter of antiquity there are competitors. We may suppose that the present oratory was raised over Piran's original cell somewhere about the eighth century; and about two centuries later it was found that the encroaching sands rendered its further use impossible. It was deserted, and a second church raised a little further inland, of which the site is now marked by a cross. Visitors may be warned that both sites are very difficult to discover without a guide. This second church became collegiate in the time of the Confessor, with a dean and canons, being enriched by the offerings of pilgrims who came from all parts of Cornwall to the shrine of St. Piran. The establishment was presented by Henry I. to the canons of Exeter. We may judge that at this time the first chapel was entirely buried in the sands. In 1420 the second church was rebuilt; the older church, even its site, was forgotten. At the close of the eighteenth century the second church itself was threatened by the same peril; the planting of reed-grass was not then understood as a means of binding the sand. This time the parishioners moved their church to a greater distance, establishing their church town at the present Perranzabuloe, where the materials of the second church were largely used in the erection of a new one; they also carried thither an old hexagonal font, which is thought to have come from the original oratory. In[Pg 267]
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[Pg 269] the year 1835 a shifting of sand revealed this earliest church, whose memory only survived in vague tradition; the secret came to light after a burial of eight or nine centuries. The discovery made a considerable stir, and was announced to the public in books written by two clergymen, W. Haslam and Trelawney-Collins, neither of whom, however, is a quite reliable guide. Mr. Collins used the occasion as an opportunity for proving that the Church in England was a Protestant Church more than nine hundred years before the Reformation; while the zeal of Mr. Haslam led him to an unfortunate attempt at restoring the oratory. Then followed neglect, and the tourists who came hither were left to pilfer and carry away the sacred stones piecemeal; now, when it is almost too late, such depredation is stopped. The church was a ruin when it was found; it is something almost less than a ruin now. As revealed by the shifting sand, it presented an almost exact resemblance to the oldest oratories in Ireland; its length was about 29 feet, its breadth 16 feet, with an arched doorway, and one little window, walled up, above the altar. The masonry was of the roughest description, the stones appearing to have been put together with little selection; and the floor was a rude kind of concrete, china clay being used instead of lime. Some skeletons were found within the church, and many more without; in fact, human remains are still cast up by the sands. Perhaps this was once a spot of thick population; or, more probably, the fame of St. Piran may have rendered it a popular burying-ground. A notice has been placed here, warning against any disturbance of the soil or of the remains of the dead. The feast-day of St. Piran falls on the 5th of March, and is not yet quite forgotten; it was once an occasion of such merry-making as to furnish a local saying—"As drunk as a Perraner." There is an unhappy tradition that St. Piran himself died in drink, which we may connect with the other rumour that he discovered Cornish tin in an effort to distil Irish whisky. We have reason to believe that Celtic saints were very human, but we need not credit every idle legend. The saint seems to have been something of a farmer, possessing many horses and cattle. We may question the statement that he lived to the age of two hundred, and then dug his own grave in the sand; but the possibility that the large skeleton found here was really his has some support from the fact that it was headless when discovered, and this tallies with an entry in the will of Sir John Arundell of Trerice: "To provide honourable protection for St. Pieran's head, the sum of 40s." Those who wish to find the ancient oratory had better first reach the site of the second church, marked by a high granite cross; from this the older remains lie about a quarter of a mile westward, towards the sea. Another plÂn-an-guare, resembling that of Redruth, lies near the hamlet of Rose (rÔs, a moorland); it is about 130 feet in diameter, and has faint traces of seven tiers of seats, which afforded accommodation for two thousand spectators. Originally it was probably a natural subsidence, strengthened by artificial earthworks; and whatever its first use may have been, it became a popular amphitheatre for public performance of miracle-plays. There are many water-mills in this district, and they provide a feature not common in Cornwall.