[Illustration: KYNANCE COVE.]
[Illustration: THE POST-OFFICE, LIZARD POINT.]
Kynance Cove is the opening of one of the many shallow valleys indenting
the inland plateau, with crags and skerries thrown over the sea, showing
that the cliffs on the shore have not, as usual, maintained an unbroken
front to the waves, but have been knocked about in wild confusion.
Groups of islands dot the cove; Steeple Rock rears its solitary pinnacle
aloft; the Lion Rock crouches near the southern verge. It is as wild a
place as can well be imagined, and at low water strips of sand connect
these rocks with the mainland, though the quickly-rising waters often
compel the visitor to run for it. At the water's edge, when the tide is
low, little wave-worn caverns are disclosed in the cliffs which are
known as the "Drawing-Room," the "Parlor," etc. On the smooth face of
the landward slope of one of the larger islands there are two orifices
looking like the slit of a letter-box. The upper is called the
"Post-Office," and the lower one the "Bellows." If you hold a sheet of
paper in the former a gust of air will suddenly suck it into the
aperture. Then if you look into the "Post-Office" to investigate its
secrets, a column of spray will as suddenly deluge you with a
first-class shower-bath. This is on Asparagus Island, and by climbing to
the top of the rock the mystery is solved. The rock is almost severed by
a fissure opening towards the sea: a wave surges in and spurts from the
orifices on the landward side, then recedes and sucks the air back
through them. From the cove at Kynance down to the extremity of the
Lizard the scenery is everywhere fine. Here is the southernmost
extremity of England, there being three headlands jutting into the sea
near one another, the westernmost being the Old Lizard Head. Upon the
middle one are the lighthouses that warn the mariner. Black cliffs
above, and a sea studded with reefs below, give this place a forbidding
aspect. One of the reefs is known as "Man-of-War Rock," from the wreck
of a vessel there, and the weapons cast upon the neighboring shore gave
it the name of the "Pistol Meadow." The other headland supports a
telegraph-station, and a submarine cable goes down into the sea, to
reappear again upon the distant shores of Portugal. From here the
signals are sent that give notice of arriving ships. Beneath the cliffs
rises out of the sea that strange black crag, looking like a projecting
pulpit, which is known as the Bumble Rock. In the green sward above the
cliffs a yawning gulf opens its rocky mouth, and is called the Lion's
Den. It terminates in a rocky tunnel which communicates with the sea
through a natural archway. This was a cavern, the rocky roof of which
fell in about thirty-five years ago. Nestling under the middle headland
is the tiny port of Polpeor, the little harbor of the Lizard, a
fishermen's paradise in a small way. Around on the eastern coast of the
peninsula the rocks are also fine, and here are the fishing-villages of
Lizard Town and Landewednack, the latter having a strange old church,
reputed to be the last in which a sermon was preached in the Cornish
tongue. The grave of one of the rectors tells that he lived to be one
hundred and twenty years old, for people live long in this delicious
climate. These villages are devoted to the pilchard-fishery, and during
the season the lookout-men can be seen perched on the cliffs watching
for the approach of a shoal, to warn the fishing-boats that are ready to
put to sea from the sheltered coves below. Great crags are tumbled into
the ocean, and the coast abounds in caves, with occasionally a quarry
for the serpentine. Beyond can be traced the dim outline of the
headlands guarding Falmouth entrance. This is a unique district, whose
rock-bound coast is a terror to the mariner, but a delight to the
geologist and artist, and whose recesses, where the Cornish dialect
still flourishes among the old folk, are about the only places in
England not yet penetrated by the railway, which has gridironed the
British kingdom everywhere else.
[Illustration: POLPEOR.]
[Illustration: ROCKS NEAR THE LIZARD.]