old, by a jeering word or an impertinent look. We evidently astonished
the people, but we never tempted them to forget their natural
good-nature, forbearance, and self-restraint. On our side, the attentive
scrutiny to which we were subjected, was at first not a little
perplexing. It was difficult not to doubt occasionally whether some
unpleasantly remarkable change had not suddenly taken place in our
personal appearance--whether we might not have turned green or blue on
our travels, or have got noses as long as the preposterous nose of the
traveller through Strasburgh, in the tale of Slawkenbergius. It was not
until we had been some days in the county that we began to discover, by
some such indications as the following, that we owed the public
attention to our knapsacks, and not to ourselves.
We enter a small public-house by the roadside to get a draught of beer.
In the kitchen, we behold the landlord and a tall man who is a customer.
Both stare as a matter of course; the tall man especially, after taking
one look at our knapsacks, fixes his eyes firmly on us and sits bolt
upright on the bench without saying a word--he is evidently prepared for
the worst we can do. We get into conversation with the landlord, a
jovial, talkative fellow, who desires greatly to know what we are, if we
have no objection. We ask him, what he thinks we are?--"Well," says the
landlord, pointing to my friend's knapsack, which has a square ruler
strapped to it, for architectural drawing--"well, I think you are both
of you _mappers_--mappers who come here to make new roads--you may be
coming to make a railroad, I dare say--we've had mappers in the country
before this--I know a mapper myself--here's both your good healths!" We
drink the landlord's good health in return, and disclaim the honour of
being "mappers;" we walk through the country (we tell him) for pleasure
alone, and take any roads we can get, without wanting to make new ones.
The landlord would like to know, if that is the case, why we carry those
weights at our backs?--Because we want to take our luggage about with
us. Couldn't we pay to ride?--Yes, we could. And yet we like walking
better?--Yes we do. This last answer utterly confounds the tall
customer, who has been hitherto listening intently to the dialogue. It
is evidently too much for his credulity--he pays his reckoning, and
walks out in a hurry without uttering a word. The landlord appears to be
convinced, but it is only in appearance. We leave him standing at his
door, keeping his eye on us as long as we are in sight, still evidently
persuaded that we are "mappers," but "mappers" of a bad order whose
presence is fraught with some unknown peril to the security of the
Queen's highway.
We get on into another district. Here, public opinion is not flattering.
Some of the groups, gathered together in the road to observe us, begin
to speculate on our characters before we are quite out of hearing. Then,
this sort of dialogue, spoken in serious, subdued tones, just reaches
us: Question--What can they be? Answer--"_Trodgers!_"
This is particularly humiliating, because it happens to be true. We
certainly do trudge, and are therefore properly, though rather
unceremoniously, called trudgers, or "trodgers." But we sink to a lower
depth yet, a little further on. We are viewed as objects for pity. It is
a fine evening; we stop and lean against a bank by the roadside to look
at the sunset. An old woman comes tottering by on high pattens, very
comfortably and nicely clad. She sees our knapsacks, and instantly stops
in front of us, and begins to moan lamentably. Not understanding at
first what this means, we ask respectfully if she feels at all ill?
"Ah, poor fellows! poor fellows!" she sighs in answer, "obliged to carry
all your baggage on your own backs!--very hard! poor lads! very hard,
indeed!" And the good old soul goes away groaning over our evil plight,
and mumbling something which sounds very like an assurance that she has
got no money to give us.
In another part of the county we rise again gloriously in worldly
consideration. We pass a cottage; a woman looks out after us, over the
low garden wall, and rather hesitatingly calls us back. I approach her
first, and am thus saluted: "If you please, sir, what have you got to
sell?" Again, an old man meets us on the road, stops, cheerfully taps
our knapsacks with his stick, and says: "Aha! you're tradesmen, eh?
things to sell? I say, have you got any tea" (pronounced _tay_); "I'll
buy some _tay_!" Further on, we approach a group of miners breaking ore.
As we pass by, we hear one asking amazedly, "What have they got to sell
in those things on their backs?" and another answering, in the prompt
tones of a guesser who is convinced that he guesses right,
"Guinea-pigs!"
It is unfortunately impossible to convey to the reader an adequate idea,
by mere description, of the extraordinary gravity of manner, the looks
of surprise and the tones of conviction which accompanied these various
popular conjectures as to our calling and station in life, and which
added immeasurably at the time to their comic effect. Curiously enough,
whenever they took the form of questions, any jesting in returning an
answer never seemed either to be appreciated or understood by the
country people. Serious replies shared much the same fate as jokes.
Everybody asked whether we could pay for riding, and nobody believed
that we preferred walking, if we could. So we soon gave up the idea of
affording any information at all; and walked through the country
comfortably as mappers, trodgers, tradesmen, guinea-pig-mongers, and
poor back-burdened vagabond lads, altogether, or one at a time, just as
the peasantry pleased.
I have not communicated to the reader all the conjectures formed about
us, for the simple reason that many of them, when they ran to any
length, were by no means so intelligible as could be desired. It will
readily be imagined, that in a county which had a language of its own
(something similar to the Welsh) down to the time of Edward VI., if not
later--in a county where this language continued to be spoken among the
humbler classes until nearly the end of the seventeenth century, and
where it still gives their names to men, places, and implements--some
remnants of it must attach themselves to the dialect of English now
spoken by the lower orders. This is enough of itself to render Cornish
talk not very easy to be understood by ordinary strangers; but the
difficulty of comprehending it is still further increased by the manner
in which the people speak. They pronounce rapidly and indistinctly,
often running separate syllables into one another through a sentence,
until the whole sounds like one long fragmentary word. To the student in
philology a series of conversations with the Cornish poor would, I
imagine, afford ample matter for observation of the most interesting
kind. Some of their expressions have a character that is quite
patriarchal. Young men, for instance, are addressed by their elders as,
"my son"--everything eatable, either for man or beast, is commonly
denominated, "meat."
It may be expected, before I close this hasty sketch of the Cornish
people, that I should touch on the dark side of the picture--unfinished
though it is--which I have endeavoured to draw. But I have nothing to
communicate on the subject of offences in Cornwall, beyond a few words
about "wrecking" and smuggling.
Opinions have been divided among well-informed persons, as to the truth
or falsehood of those statements of travellers and historians, which
impute the habitual commission of outrages and robberies on sufferers by
shipwreck to the Cornish of former generations. Without entering into
this question of the past, which can only be treated as a matter for
discussion, I am happy, in proceeding at once to the present, to be able
to state, as a matter of fact, that "wrecking" is a crime unknown in the
Cornwall of our day. So far from maltreating shipwrecked persons, the
inhabitants of the sea-shore risk their lives to save them. I make this
assertion, on the authority of a gentleman whose life has been passed in
the West of Cornwall; whose avocations take him much among the poor of
all ranks and characters; and who has himself seen wrecked sailors
rescued from death by the courage and humanity of the population of the
coast.
In reference to smuggling, many years have passed without one of those
fatal encounters between smugglers and revenue officers which, in other
days, gave a dark and fearful character to the contraband trade in
Cornwall. So well is the coast watched, that no smuggling of any
consequence can now take place. It is only the oldest Cornish men who
can give you any account, from personal experience, of adventures in
"running a cargo;" and those that I heard described were by no means of
the romantic or interesting order.
Beyond this, I have nothing further to relate regarding criminal
matters. It may not unreasonably be doubted whether a subject so serious
and so extensive as the Statistics of Crime, is not out of the scope of
a book like the present, whose only object is to tell a simple fireside
story which may amuse an idle, or solace a mournful hour. Moreover,
remembering the assistance and the kindness that my companion and I met
with throughout Cornwall--and those only who have travelled on foot can
appreciate how much the enjoyment of exploring a country may be
heightened or decreased, according to the welcome given to the stranger
by the inhabitants--remembering, too, that we walked late at night,
through districts inhabited only by the roughest and poorest classes,
entirely unmolested; and that we trusted much on many occasions to the
honesty of the people, and never found cause to repent our trust--I
cannot but feel that it would be an ungracious act to ransack newspapers
and Reports to furnish materials for recording in detail, the vices of a
population whom I have only personally known by their virtues. Let you
and I, reader, leave off with the same pleasant impressions of the
Cornish people--you, whose only object is to hear, and I whose only
object is to tell, the story of a holiday walk. There is enough to be
found in them that is good, amply to justify a little inattention to
whatever we may discover that is bad.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] It may be necessary to remind the reader that this statement
respecting the population of Cornwall was written in the year 1850. I
have no means at my disposal of ascertaining what the increase in
numbers may have been during the last ten years.--(March, 1861.)
[3] The gentleman here referred to--whose kind assistance while I was
writing these pages I can never forget--was Mr. Richard Moyle, long
resident as a medical man at Penzance. Since my first visit to Cornwall,
death has removed Mr. Moyle from the scene of his labours, to the
lasting and sincere regret of all who knew him.--(March, 1861.)
V.
LOO-POOL
"Now, I think it very much amiss," remarks Sterne, in 'Tristram Shandy,'
"that a man cannot go quietly through a town and let it alone, when it
does not meddle with him, but that he must be turning about, and drawing
his pen at every kennel he crosses over, merely, o' my conscience, for
the sake of drawing it." I quote this wise and witty observation on a
bad practice of some travel-writers, as containing the best reason that
I can give the reader for transporting him at once over some sixty miles
of Cornish high-roads and footpaths, without stopping to drop one word
of description by the way. Having left off the record of our travels at
Liskeard, and taking it up again--as I mean to do here--at Helston, I
skip over five intermediate market-towns and two large villages, with a
mere dash of the pen. Lostwithiel, Fowey, St. Austell, Grampound,
Probus, Truro, Falmouth, are all places of mark and note, and have all
certain curiosities and sights of their own to interest the inquisitive
tourist; but, nevertheless, not one of them "meddled" with me in the
course of my rambles, and acting on Sterne's excellent principle, I
purpose "letting them alone" now. In other words, the several towns and
villages that I have enumerated, though presenting much that was
generally picturesque and attractive in the way of old buildings and
pretty scenery, exhibited little that was distinctive or original in
character; produced therefore rather pleasant than vivid impressions;
and would by no means suggest any very original series of descriptions
to fill the pages of a book which is confined to such subjects only as
are most exclusively and strikingly Cornish.
The town of Helston, where we now halt for the first time since we left
the Cheese-Wring and St. Cleer's Well, might, if tested by its own
merits alone, be passed over as unceremoniously as the towns already
passed over before it. Its principal recommendation, in the opinion of
the inhabitants, appeared to be that it was the residence of several
very "genteel families," who have certainly not communicated much of
their gentility to the lower orders of the population--a riotous and
drunken set, the only bad specimens of Cornish people that I met with in
Cornwall. The streets of Helston are a trifle larger and a trifle duller
than the streets of Liskeard; the church is comparatively modern in
date, and superlatively ugly in design. A miserable altar-piece, daubed
in gaudy colours on the window above the communion-table, is the only
approach to any attempt at embellishment in the interior. In short, the
town has nothing to offer to attract the stranger, but a public
festival--a sort of barbarous carnival--held there annually on the 8th
of May. This festival is said to be of very ancient origin, and is
called "The Furry"--an old Cornish word, signifying a gathering; and, at
Helston particularly, a gathering in celebration of the return of
spring. The Furry begins early in the morning with singing, to an
accompaniment of drums and kettles. All the people in the town
immediately leave off work and scamper into the country; having reached
which, they scamper back again, garlanded with leaves and flowers, and
caper about hand-in-hand through the streets, and in and out of all the
houses, without let or hindrance. Even the "genteel" resident families
allow themselves to be infected with the general madness, and wind up
the day's capering consistently enough by a night's capering at a grand
ball. A full account of these extraordinary absurdities may be found in
Polwhele's "History of Cornwall."
But, though thus uninteresting in itself, Helston must be visited by
every tourist in Cornwall for the sake of the grand, the almost
unrivalled scenery to be met with near it. The town is not only the best
starting-point from which to explore the noble line of coast rocks which
ends at the Lizard Head; but possesses the further recommendation of
lying in the immediate vicinity of the largest lake in Cornwall--Loo
Pool.
The banks of Loo Pool stretch on either side to the length of two miles;
the lake, which in summer occupies little more than half the space that
it covers in winter, is formed by the flow of two or three small
streams. You first reach it from Helston, after a walk of half a mile;
and then see before you, on either hand, long ranges of hills rising
gently from the water's edge, covered with clustering trees, or occupied
by wide cornfields and sloping tracts of common land. So far, the
scenery around Loo Pool resembles the scenery around other lakes; but as
you proceed, the view changes in the most striking and extraordinary
manner. Walking on along the winding banks of the pool, you taste the
water and find it soft and fresh, you see ducks swimming about in it
from the neighbouring farm-houses, you watch the rising of the fine
trout for which it is celebrated--every object tends to convince you
that you are wandering by the shores of an inland lake--when suddenly at
a turn in the hill slope, you are startled by the shrill cry of the
gull, and the fierce roar of breakers thunders on your ear--you look
over the light grey waters of the lake, and behold, stretching
immediately above and beyond them, the expanse of the deep blue ocean,
from which they are only separated by a strip of smooth white sand!
You hurry on, and reach this bar of sand which parts the great English
Channel and the little Loo Pool--a child might run across it in a
minute! You stand in the centre. On one side, close at hand, water is
dancing beneath the breeze in glassy, tiny ripples; on the other,
equally close, water rolls in mighty waves, precipitated on the ground
in dashing, hissing, writhing floods of the whitest foam--here,
children are floating mimic boats on a mimic sea; there, the stateliest
ships of England are sailing over the great deep--both scenes visible in
one view. Rocky cliffs and arid sands appear in close combination with
rounded fertile hills, and long grassy slopes; salt spray leaping over
the first, spring-water lying calm beneath the last! No fairy vision of
Nature that ever was imagined is more fantastic, or more lovely than
this glorious reality, which brings all the most widely contrasted
characteristics of a sea view and an inland view into the closest
contact, and presents them in one harmonious picture to the eye.
The ridge of sand between Loo Pool and the sea, which, by impeding the
flow of the inland streams spreads them in the form of a lake over the
valley-ground between two hills, is formed by the action of storms from
the south-west. Such, at least, is the modern explanation of the manner
in which Loo Bar has been heaped up. But there is an ancient legend in
connexion with it, which, tells a widely different story.
It is said that the terrible Cornish giant, or ogre, Tregeagle, was
trudging homewards one day, carrying a huge sack of sand on his back,
which--being a giant of neat and cleanly habits--he designed should
serve him for sprinkling his parlour floor. As he was passing along the
top of the hills which now overlook Loo Pool, he heard a sound of
scampering footsteps behind him; and, turning round, saw that he was
hotly pursued by no less a person than the devil himself. Big as he was,
Tregeagle lost heart and ignominiously took to his heels: but the devil
ran nimbly, ran steadily, ran without losing breath--ran, in short,
_like_ the devil. Tregeagle was fat, short-winded, had a load on his
back, and lost ground at every step. At last, just as he reached the
seaward extremity of the hills, he determined in despair to lighten
himself of his burden, and thus to seize the only chance of escaping his
enemy by superior fleetness of foot. Accordingly, he opened his huge
sack in a great hurry, shook out all his sand over the precipice,
between the sea and the river which then ran into it, and so formed in a
moment the Bar of Loo Pool.
In the winter time, the lake is the cause and the scene of an
extraordinary ceremony. The heavy incessant rains which then fall (ice
is almost unknown in the moist climate of Cornwall), increase day by day
the waters of the Pool, until they encroach over the whole of the low
flat valley between Helston and the sea. Then, the smooth paths of
turf, the little streams that run by their side--so pleasant to look on
in the summer time--are hidden by the great overflow. Mill-wheels are
stopped; cottages built on the declivities of the hill are threatened
with inundation. Out on the bar, at high tide, but two or three feet of
sand appear between the stormy sea on the one hand, and the stagnant
swollen lake on the other. If Loo Pool were measured now, it would be
found to extend to a circumference of seven miles.
When the flooding of the lake has reached its climax, the millers, who
are the principal sufferers by the overflow, prepare to cut a passage
through the Bar for the superabundant waters of the Pool. Before they
can do this, however, they must conform to a curious old custom which
has been practised for centuries, and is retained down to the present
day. Procuring two stout leathern purses, they tie up three halfpence in
each, and then set off with them in a body to the Lord of the Manor.
Presenting him with their purses, they state their case with all due
formality, and request permission to cut their trench through the sand.
In consideration of the threepenny recognition of his rights, the Lord
of the Manor graciously accedes to the petition; and the millers, armed
with their spades and shovels, start for the Bar.
Their projected labour is of the slightest kind. A mere ditch suffices
to establish the desired communication: and the water does the rest for
itself. On one occasion, so high was the tide on one side, and so full
the lake on the other, that a man actually scraped away sand enough with
his stick, to give vent to the waters of the Pool. Thus, after no very
hard work, the millers achieve their object; and the spectators watching
on the hill, behold a startling and magnificent scene.
Tearing away the sand on either side, floods of fresh water rush out
furiously against floods of salt water leaping in, upheaved into mighty
waves by the winter gale. A foaming roaring battle between two opposing
forces of the same element takes place. The noise is terrific--it is
heard like thunder, at great distances off. At last, the heavy, smooth,
continuous flow of the fresh water prevails even over the power of the
ocean. Farther and farther out, rushing through a wider and wider
channel every minute, pour the great floods from the land, until the
salt water is stained with an ochre colour, over a surface of twenty
miles. But their force is soon spent: soon, the lake sinks lower and
lower away from the slope of the hills. Then, with the high tide, the
sea reappears triumphantly, dashing and leaping, in clouds of spray,
through the channel in the sand--making the waters of the Pool
brackish--now, threatening to swell them anew to overflowing--and now,
at the ebb, leaving them to empty themselves again, in the manner of a
great tidal river. No new change takes place, until a storm from the
south-west comes on; and then, fresh masses of sand and shingle are
forced up--the channel is refilled--the bar is reconstructed as if by a
miracle. Again, the scene resumes its old features--again, there is a
sea on one side, and a lake on the other. But now, the Pool occupies
only its ordinary limits--now, the mill-wheels turn busily once more,
and the smooth paths and gliding streams reappear in their former
beauty, until the next winter rains shall come round, and the next
winter floods shall submerge them again.
At the time when I visited the lake, its waters were unusually low.
Here, they ran calm and shallow, into little, glassy, flowery creeks,
that looked like fairies' bathing places. There, out in the middle, they
hardly afforded depth enough for a duck to swim in. Near to the Bar,
however, they spread forth wider and deeper; finely contrasted, in
their dun colour and perfect repose, with the flashing foaming breakers
on the other side. The surf forbade all hope of swimming; but, standing
where the spent waves ran up deepest, and where the spray flew highest
before the wind, I could take a natural shower-bath from the sea, in one
direction; and the next moment, turning round in the other, could wash
the sand off my feet luxuriously in the soft, fresh waters of Loo Pool.
VI.
THE LIZARD.