KYNANCE COVE--ASPARAGUS ISLAND--THE DEVIL'S POST-OFFICE--SIGNPOSTS--GUE
GRAZE--MULLION COVE--WRECK OF THE "JONKHEER"--MARY MUNDY AND THE "OLD
INN"
From Polpear Cove to Kynance Cove is a tramp to be undertaken only by
the leisured. The distance is but four miles along the cliffs, but the
hurried persons who oftenest come to the Lizard have not the time or
the inclination for it, and go direct across from Lizard Town.
The way to Kynance Cove from Lizard Town is strictly a pedestrian's
journey and lies largely upon the tops of hedges. Those who have
never yet made the acquaintance of a Cornish hedge cannot fail to be
surprised at this, but a hedge in the Home Counties and a hedge in the
West Country are apt to be very different things, and a Cornish hedge
is generally a substantial bank of stones and earth, not infrequently
with a broad, well-defined footpath on top. Such hedges are those that
partly conduct to Kynance Cove.
But I shall proceed by the cliffs, first noting the cave that is to be
seen at low water down at Polpear, and the Man-o'-War Rocks out at
sea. The name was originally "Maen-an-Vawr," the "great stones," but
the tradition of the wreck of a transport there has definitely changed
it. The cliff-walk passes "Pistol Meadow," in which numerous mounds
still show the places where the seven hundred dead on that occasion
were buried. Only two persons are said to have been saved. It is
strange that neither the date of the wreck nor the name of the ship has
been preserved.
Old Lizard Head, the "false Lizard" as it is sometimes called, gives
way to Crane Cove and the larger cove of Caerthillian, where a stream
comes down a ravine to the shore. This in turn is succeeded by
Pentraeth Beach and by the tall cliffs of Yellow Carn, with the rock of
Ynys Vean, _i.e._ "Little Island," about as big as Westminster Abbey,
below.
And down there in front is Kynance Cove, a not very remarkable place
at high tide, but of a justly famous beauty at low water. You look
down upon it from the cliff called the "Tar Box," which has not the
slightest suggestion of tar in its composition: it is properly "Tor
Balk." A stream comes swirling down the rock-strewn valley that
descends to the Cove. It is from this the Ky-nans, _i.e._ "Dog's Brook"
it is said, that Kynance Cove takes its name.
[Illustration: KYNANCE COVE.]
There are but two or three cottages here. Not yet has a hotel been
built, but who knows how long before such a thing shall come to
pass, and it be possible to sit at a window of its dining-room,
overlooking this most typical Cornish scenery, while a German waiter,
introducing the soup, asks: "Thig or glear?" May it be long years yet!
Every one knows that the beauties of Kynance are only unveiled at the
ebb. Then the sands, the delightful, soft, light-yellow sands appear,
where were only heaving waters, and the great islanded rocks are seen
embedded in them. There is plenty of colour, and plenty of drawing too,
at Kynance: the streaked black, green, purple, red, and pink serpentine
rocks, the yellow sands, and the translucent green sea glow brilliantly
under a sunny sky; and under any conditions, except fog, the Cove at
ebb is full of striking forms. On the west side, between the mainland
and the crag called Asparagus Island, rises the Steeple Rock, sometimes
called the Soap Rock, from the veins of steatite it contains. It is
no fanciful name, for quarries of steatite were worked long ago in
the cliffs beyond Rill Head, and the product dispatched to wholesale
soap-boilers, and also to Staffordshire, for use in pottery-making. No
asparagus now grows on Asparagus Island, which is a rather fearsome,
craggy place to climb, especially as not merely a fall on jagged rocks
is possible, but a descent afterwards into the horrible green depths
of the sea, where the congers live. For this chamoising over the rocks
rubber-soled shoes are the best and safest. In them you may dare things
not easily to be contemplated in less pliant footgear, and thus may
scale the pinnacled rock, and look down from its further side on to
Gull Rock and the deep-water channel below.
But the most engaging thing about Asparagus Island is the Devil's
Post-Office, which (_facilis descensus Averni_, you know!) is quite
easily reached. It is in working order just below half-tide. At the
flood it is entirely submerged. Sometimes it is known as the Devil's
Bellows, or again as the Devil's Throat; but whether it be Throat,
Bellows, or Post Office, the personality of the owner is unchanged.
This natural curiosity is a fissure traversing the entire mass of
Asparagus Island, through which the sea-water is forced in conjunction
with air, emerging violently and with a reverberating rumbling report,
through a narrow slit, not unlike a letterbox. To "post a letter" at
this aperture immediately after one of these spoutings is rather a
startling experience, unless you have been told of it beforehand. You
unsuspectingly lean over and hold a piece of paper at the orifice,
and it is rudely and violently snatched away, to the tune of a harsh
indrawn snarl, a sound just as though a giant had sharply drawn his
breath in between his teeth. And very often it will happen that, in a
sudden outrush again of air and water, your letter will be returned
to you full in the face on the instant, with a most discourteous
drenching. There are gorgeous caverns, dry at low-water, round past the
Steeple Rock, known as the Drawing-Room, the Kitchen, and the Parlour;
but the finest view-point at Kynance is eastward, back towards the
Lizard, with the Lion Rock in the foreground.
The Lion Rock is doubtless so called because it has a certain majesty
of outline, and because it does suggest a crouching attitude, as of an
animal in readiness for an attack. But it does not look like a lion,
and indeed lacks a head, and without a head the noblest lion is a poor
thing. But it is true that the longer you look at the Lion Rock, the
more you are impressed.
Let those who seek to return direct inland to Lizard Town have a care
how they follow the direction indicated by a signpost, which obligingly
indicates "The nearest way to Lizard Town." I am inclined to think that
the old piskies, devils, and malicious sprites that used to inhabit
Cornwall and lure travellers out of their way, now occupy the bodies of
all those people who have anything to do with signposts. They generally
manage in some way to mislead, and very often indeed they are repainted
at the height of the tourist season, when strangers are mostly about;
and who else beside a stranger has any need of a signpost?
That is to say, the first part of the repainting--the obliterating of
the inscription--is done then: the re-lettering may, and does, wait.
This is a joke so entirely after the heart of one of those inimical old
sprites that I am convinced, though they be gone, their wicked souls
go marching on in the persons of road-surveyors and people of that
breed.
But the wickedness of the Kynance Cove signpost lies in the fact that,
although it tells of Lizard Town, its arm points slightly away from it,
along a rough cart-track. Now, as in an otherwise roadless and pathless
moor such as this the inclination is always to follow any sort of a
track, how much more likely then it is that the stranger should take
this cart-track, especially when the signpost points to it! And, you
know, it leads right away inland; and at last, after a long while, you
see Lizard Town, miles away on the right, across the flatness of the
heath. In tracking then across to it, in that hummocky wilderness of
gorse and heather, you soon grow quite familiar with _Erica vagans_,
the Cornish heather, which botanists say is peculiar to the soil of
this district, and get an intimate acquaintance with the prickly
qualities of gorse.
Resuming the way along the cliffs from Kynance, Rill Head projects
boldly, with a pile of rocks on its summit known as the Apron-String.
Here, according to the legend, the Devil dropped an apron full of
stones he was carrying, to build a bridge across Channel for smugglers
to come over. In despair, he then abandoned the task. I do not think
this can be a genuinely old legend, for the Cornish, in company with
all seashore peoples, were too prone toward smuggling, and thought it
too natural a thing, for the suggestion of a devilish coadjutor to
come from them. "The Horse" is the name of the next headland, with
a dangerous saddle-backed ridge, infinitely tempting to adventurous
climbers who do not mind bestriding it, with the knowledge that a
false step will probably send them to Kingdom Come on the moment. In
the dour, black little Cove, "the Horsepond," overlooked by beetling
cliffs, is Pigeon Hugo, only to be seen from a boat.
The scenery has here again attained to a black and savage grandeur, and
the sea is not to be reached at all except at the deep hollow in the
cliffs known as Gue Graze. Here were situated the soapstone quarries,
and streaks of steatite, the "soapstone" in question, are easily
found. They are of a dirty white hue and the substance feels greasy or
soapy to the touch. Chemically, it is "magnesia," and commercially is
generally known as "French chalk," used in softening boots and shoes,
and by tailors.
The bold promontory of Vellan Head now leads round to Pol Cornick, and
then to the bastioned heights of Pradanack, where Mullion Island comes
into view, a long way ahead. The chance explorer here has the scene
entirely to himself: to himself and the gulls, and the bunnies that
inhabit among the bracken and grey-mottled boulders.
A final stretch of cliff-tops, and you presently are looking down
upon Mullion Cove, properly "Porthmellin," for the village of Mullion
is close upon a mile inland. "Porthmellin" means Mill Cove. Mullion
Island, a great black rock with some real grass on it, stands
_guardant_, as it were, in advance, with other black and monstrous
rocks on either side, those over to Poldhu blacker than their fellows;
and gulls, emphasising the blackness and their own whiteness, poise,
screaming, in air against them.
A smart hotel--I do not know the name of it--stands on the headland and
seems to insolently hint that, even here, mankind has tamed the wilds.
He certainly has made the Cove, down there, look toy-like, and the
road up to Mullion village now resembles that through some ancestral
park. But nature has provided the huge and savage setting that makes
the little enfolding walls of the harbour, the little pool within, and
the two or three little houses, look smaller than they really are.
A general deceptiveness as to scale pervades the Cove: the rock of
Mullion Island is, for instance, a mile in circuit, and does not appear
to be one quarter that size. But the calm of a typical August day is
the deepest deception of all. It requires one of the autumn equinoctial
gales to reveal the innate unconquerable savagery of the place, when a
strong man can scarce stand before the wind, and giant waves leap over
the arms of the harbour and rush, seething and hungry for prey, up the
shore.
[Illustration: MULLION COVE.]
There are many records of wrecks at Mullion Cove and the cliffs between
it and the Lizard. From them I take that of a wreck on the rocks of
Mên-y-Grib = "Rock like a Comb," in 1867.
Undoubtedly the Cornish coasts have their mysteries, but none of them
is quite so mysterious as the wreck of the Dutch barque, _Jonkheer
Meester Van de Wall van Puttershoek_, which happened on the night
of March 25th, 1867. This vessel, of 650 tons, Captain Klaas van
Lammerts, homeward-bound from the East Indies with a cargo of sugar,
coffee, spices, and tin, was worth about £45,000, and had twenty-five
persons on board. She had been observed, the afternoon before, beating
up Channel in a gale, and it was then noted that she was being very
clumsily handled and would perhaps not succeed in rounding the Lizard.
The wreck took place at night, and all on board were drowned, except
one man, a Greek sailor, who was discovered the next morning, climbing
along the rocks between Polurrian and Poldhu.
"My name," he said, "is Georgio Buffani. I was seaman on board the
wrecked ship, which belonged to Dordrecht. I joined at Batavia, but I
do not know either the name of the ship or that of the captain."
He repeated this extraordinary statement at the inquest on the
drowned, and being shown a list of Dutch East Indiamen, picked out the
_Kosmopoliet_, as a likely one. The inquest therefore was concluded
on the assumption that this was the lost vessel. The Greek then left
and was not again heard of. Soon afterwards, however, the Dutch consul
at Falmouth came with the captains of two Dutch Indiamen then lying
in port. One of them declared that the _Kosmopoliet_ would not be due
for nearly another fortnight, and was convinced that the lost ship was
the _Jonkheer_. The vicar of Mullion then appeared with a fragment of
flannel he had found, marked "6 K. L." "Yes," said the captain, "it
must be the _Jonkheer_, for those are the initials of her captain,
Klaas Lammerts."
"On the Friday following," continues the vicar, "when the consul and
this Dutch captain again visited Mullion, the first thing handed to
them was a parchment which had been picked up meanwhile, and this was
none other than the masonic diploma of Klaas van Lammerts."
There were some curious incidents in connection with this wreck, and
the Greek sailor himself was something of a mystery: a kind of Jonah
to ships. It was the third time, he said, he had been wrecked, and
on every occasion was the sole survivor. It was noticed as singular
that he was wearing a lady's gold watch and chain; and piecing one
suspicious circumstance and another together, very grave thoughts were
entertained that there had been a terrible mutiny on board. But the
secret of it was shared alone by the Greek sailor and the sea. The
coast was thickly strewn with coffee-berries and sugar-baskets from the
cargo of the wrecked ship. Penzance speculators who carted many tons of
coffee away, lost heavily when it was discovered that the berries had
all been spoiled by sea-water.
The smuggling and the wrecking that once distinguished Porthmellin and
Mullion village may be traced in old records: the wrecking, I hasten to
say, not of that criminal, murderous type which produced wrecks, but
the fierce hunger for wreck of the sea which animated all coastwise
dwellers, and is still only dormant.
The chief smuggling incident is that of the _Happy-go-Lucky_, an armed
lugger of fourteen guns, commanded by one Welland, of Dover. She was
located off the Cove on April 4th, 1786, by the revenue-cutters _Hawk_
and _Lark_, and captured after a running fight in which Welland was
killed.
As to the "wrecking," an account, written in 1817, tells us vividly
about it.
"The neighbourhood is sadly infested with wreckers. When the news
of a wreck flies round the coast, thousands of people are instantly
collected near the fatal spot; pick-axes, hatchets, crow-bars, and
ropes are their usual implements for breaking up and carrying off
whatever they can. The moment the vessel touches the shore she is
considered fair plunder, and men, women, and children are working on
her to break her up, night and day. The precipices they descend, the
rocks they climb, and the billows they buffet to seize the floating
fragments are the most frightful and alarming I ever beheld; the
hardships they endure, especially the women, in winter, to save all
they can, are almost incredible. Should a vessel, laden with wine or
spirits, approach the shore, she brings certain death and ruin to
many with her. The rage and fighting, to stave in the casks and bear
away the spoils, in kettles and all manner of vessels, is brutal and
shocking. To drunkenness and fighting succeed fatigue, sleep, cold,
wet, suffocation, death. Last winter we had some dreadful scenes of
this description. A few in this neighbourhood, it seems, having a
little more light than others, had scruples against visiting a wreck
that came ashore on a Lord's day, lest it should be breaking the
Sabbath; but they gathered all their implements into a public-house
and waited until the clock struck twelve at midnight. Then they rushed
forth; all checks of conscience removed."
There is scenery here, to be explored at low water, as fine as that of
Kynance itself, if not finer. At any rate, it is of a more stern and
rugged order. Mullion Cave is a cavern indeed, with a generous opening
and deep black depths which it is the proper thing here to illuminate
with torches, or by the more ready, if also more evanescent, method of
lighting a newspaper.
Mullion village, away up inland, has a church dedicated to St. Melyan,
and some fine old bench-ends; but Mullion is perhaps more celebrated
through Miss Mary Mundy, the "Old Inn," and Professor Blackie.
Many years ago, in those days when railways were uncommon in Cornwall,
and when the comparatively few tourists generally walked, the "Old
Inn" at Mullion was made famous. Those were remarkable tourists in
that era. You can see exactly what they were like by referring to old
pages of _Punch_, where they will be discovered, generally pictured
by John Leech, in peg-top trousers, and wearing hats like inverted
pudding-basins, and long side-whiskers, which they were for always
pulling out, superciliously, between finger and thumb. Things have
greatly altered since then, perhaps for the better, perhaps not. I will
not presume to say. But I do hope pudding-basins and Dundreary whiskers
(otherwise "let-us-prays") and peg-top trousers will not come in again.
Those were the times when poets and literary men of repute, walking
round the coasts, did not disdain to write tributes in the visitors'
books of rustic inns. There were few inns and no hotels, and
visitors'-books were rarities. To-day, they all abound, but you will
seek in vain for any literature left behind by visitors, whose tributes
are generally of the kind I observed at Land's End, among which one
person had described himself as "King of the Cannibal Islands," and
incautiously expressed a desire to eat the donkey outside, he felt so
hungry. To this a later visitor had added, "Cannibal indeed!"
Professor Blackie in 1872 made the "Old Inn" and Mary Mundy who, with
her brother, kept it, famous. He wrote fourteen verses in her book--no
fewer than that!
Mary Mundy was, I believe, very proud of them, but they just serve to
show that when a literary man, or a professional man, writes undress
verses, so to speak, he is capable of many lines that not only will
not scan, but are also in horribly bad taste. The patronising air, the
liberty taken with the landlady's name, are they not insufferable? and
the fleshly delight over roast duck and cream, is it not revolting?
The verses are entitled: "_Laudes Hospitii Veteris, et Dominae Mariae
Mundae_."
Full many bright things on this earth there be,
Which a pious man may enjoy with glee
On Saturday or Sunday;
But the brightest thing that chanced to me,
In Cornish land, was when I did see
The 'Old Inn,' by Mary Mundy.
'Twas on Saturday afternoon
That I was trudging, a weary loon,
To spend at the "Lizard" my Sunday,
When thro' the corner of my right eye,
The happy sign I did espy--
"OLD INN, by MARY MUNDY."
So I went in, and out came she
With a face from which blue devils would flee,
On Saturday or on Monday;
And I said, as soon as I saw her face,
"I could not be housed in a better place,
So I'll just stay here till Monday."
Quoth I, "Could you give me a dinner well spread--
An old arm-chair, and a well-aired bed,
And a good short sermon on Sunday?"
Quoth she, "Indeed, sir, that we can,
For I guess, no doubt, you're a gentleman,
As sure as my name is Mundy."
I went upstairs with a bound and a hop,
And I looked around the tight little shop,
And I said, "Miss Mary Mundy,
There's not in London a grand hotel
Where, with such comfort, I could dwell
As with you, my dear Miss Mundy."
"You've got the tongue of a gentleman,"
Quoth she; "I'll do the best I can,
On Saturday or Sunday."
"That's just the thing we all should do;
But they who do it are few, and you
Are one of the few, Miss Mundy!"
But now to tell the feast she spread,
And with what delicate zest we fed,
On the day before the Sunday,
Would stagger the muse of a Tennyson,
And bring from the Devil a benison
On the head of Mary Mundy.
A London Alderman, sleek and fat,
Would sigh for the sight of a duck like that
Was served to us by Mundy.
A roasted duck, with fresh green peas,
A gooseberry pie, and a Cheddar cheese,--
A feast for a god on Sunday.
But the top of her skill I well may deem
Was the dear delight of the Cornish cream
Both Saturday and Sunday.
That down my throat did gently glide,
Like sweet Bellini's tuneful tide,
By the liberal grace of Mundy!
And then to crown the banquet rare,
A brandy bottle she did bear--
(God bless thee! Mary Mundy!)
And said, "Full sure, a gentleman
Abhors the lean teetotal plan
On Saturday or Sunday."
And when my weary frame did glow
With genial warmth from top to toe
(Good night, my dear Miss Mundy),
I slept on bed as clean and sweet
As lass that goes so trim and neat
With her lover to church on Sunday.
But why should I go on to sin,
Spinning bad rhymes to the good Old Inn
While the bell is tolling on Sunday?
I'll go and hear short sermon there,
Tho' the best of sermons, I declare,
Is the face of Miss Mary Mundy!
And I advise you all to hold
By the well-tried things that are good and old,
Like this snug house of Mundy;
The good Old Church, and the good Old Inn,
And the good old way to depart from sin,
By going to church on Sunday.
And if there be on Cornish cliffs,
To swell his lungs with breezy whiffs,
Who can spare but only _one_ day,
Let him spend it here; and understand
That the brightest thing in Cornish land
Is the face of Miss Mary Mundy.
Long ago Mary Mundy and her brother left the "Old Inn," and at this
time of writing they are old and poor. How it came that they were
jockeyed out of their house I shall not tell here; they will tell it
at Mullion; but those who did it, I like to think, did not reap the
reward they expected, for the increased business looked for has gone
to the great new hotels built overlooking the sea itself, from which
Mullion is one mile distant.