The south coast differs from the north. Lord Beaconsfield came to
Falmouth in his dandy days, and wrote: "It is one of the most charming
places I ever saw--I mean the scenery and around." The scenery is still
there, and the town is turning it to account and learning to live on
it. Falmouth is very much like the lady who has seen "better days,"
and is reduced to put up the sign "Lodgings to Let." There was a time
when the ships of the King's Navy and the Mail Packets came here, and
the riches of the world were landed on its quays. Disraeli came here
_en route_ for the East, when Falmouth was queen in her own right, if
wealth and commerce and beauty can make a queen. Then things changed
and changed, and ships and commerce found other ports; but the beauty
is there, and is all its own. Some people say more might be made of it
in a commercial sense. There is a literary and refined air about the
place which delighted the Bookworm, who found out the Libraries and Art
Galleries, Polytechnic and Observatory.
Honest John Burton was the Bookworm's delight; and after picking
up a first edition of Chatterton in the twopenny box, there was no
keeping him away from the premises. It was a rare pick-up, and honest
John wouldn't take more than twopence, not he! We rambled over the
premises, and found heathen gods enough stocked away to fill a temple
in Thibet. The Bookworm said there was nothing so rich and rare in the
whole collection as old Burton himself, a dose of whom would banish
melancholy. We took his word, for more good things were pumped into him
than he could afterwards remember.
Falmouth is linked in Parliamentary matrimony with Penryn, an ancient
borough so ashamed of its age that it sold its parish stocks, and other
antiquities, "for a song." The boroughs are an ill-assorted pair, and
the political marriage was not made in heaven.
[Illustration: BARRACKS HOP, FALMOUTH.]
Falmouth has its scenery and climate, two inalienable possessions,
costing nothing, yet sources of unsuspected wealth if only made the
most of. We came across the track of the American citizen, John B.
Bellamy, whom we met at Penzance. He left his card with honest John
Burton, with an order to send him along any available relics of the
late King Arthur. He may get some, who knows? He left behind him also
the opinion, that if the "durned old place" was only on the other side
of the Atlantic, the harbour might be filled up with the gold that
would flow into it every season. Tired Yanks would find paradise, and
pay accordingly. The garden of acclimatation speaks of the climate in
the bloom and perfume and variety of plants, all of which speak the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
There is no place in the county so well catered for in the matter of
water excursions. The river Fal is marked as one of the beauty spots
of the county, and some compare it favourably even with the Dart and
the Wye. It may lose or gain by comparison, but it is good enough "on
its own." The best way to see the Fal is to sail from the open into
the fjord-like inlet of Falmouth, and then up the valley, sinuous and
well-wooded, narrowing as you go, and increasing its natural beauty
every mile. The Helford river should be seen in a similar way--come in
from the open with the sea and fancy, if you can, the mighty rush of
waters boring its way through rocks, carving out the miniature creeks,
right and left, until its earth-hunger is spent. The scenery from
Helford to Gweek is bolder than that of the Fal, and some prefer it on
that account. There is a lot of fishing done in the creeks, and most of
the yachts we passed had nets and lines hanging over the bows or lying
about the decks. The oysters have a good reputation, but there is no
considerable trade done in pearls.
Rivers are scarce, though the clouds are generous. Some say there are
no real rivers, and that Cornwall has only the predominant partner
interest in the Tamar, and two brooks, Camel and Fowey, which you can
leap over anywhere with a long pole, until you come to salt water. The
Fal and Helford are really estuaries. The upper moorland reaches of the
Camel and Fowey abound in delicious little spots where one can sit and
listen dreamily to the stream fretting amongst boulders, and swirling
in sunshine and shadow amongst ferns and wild flowering shrubs, with
effects incomparably beautiful.
The Lizard end of the peninsula is a sort of receiving house for
the news of the world. The secrets of many lands arrive here first,
breathless and palpitating, after their long runs on the ocean cables.
Marconi has his stations here; and at unlooked-for places we come
across notices reminding all whom it concerns not to foul the cables.
There are secrets of which we know nothing--secrets of peace and war,
ruin and success, love and hate, which we would give our ears to have
an inkling of, vibrating under water and in the air.
The peninsula has always been a sort of receiving office for the
nation. At first, when foes came sailing along, the Cornishmen spied
them and sent up a flare, and then the beacon fires flashed out the
news in the dark night, so that all men might read in letters of flame.
A fire lit high on St. Michael's Mount travelled with speed around the
coasts of Britain. Hensbarrow, called the "Archbeacon" of the county,
could tell its story in fire from the Lizard to the Tamar, and set
men's blood tingling, and hearts throbbing, as no "wire" or "cable" or
printed word can do.
It was "wireless," and the British admiral keeping watch upon the
French fleet at Brest informed my lords of the Admiralty of their
movements by means of signals from frigate to frigate stationed across
the Channel, and received at the Dodman by the sleepless watcher. Then
the news travelled by semaphore from headland to headland--from Dodman
to the Blackhead, to the Gribben, to Polruan, to Polperro, to Maker
Heights, to the Commander-in-Chief. Very little time was lost, even in
the old days, when there was anything to tell, and Cornwall was the
eye, and ear, and tongue.
The Dodman, the highest headland in the county, is one of those places
of solitude where depression will not stay. Hour after hour one may
pass upon the bluff headland without seeing a human soul or hearing a
human voice, and yet feel one's spirits elated in the silence. With a
mere half-turn of the head one can see the whole Cornish coast, from
the Lizard to the Rame, and beyond, and all the ocean traffic passing
up and down. Then below, a sheer fall of four hundred feet, are the
little crabbing boats, mere specks upon the blue, shoaling into green
and breaking into foam upon the dark, weathered rocks. And then the
wind, blow which way it will, must sweep this headland, bringing with
it the scents of heather and wild flower untainted, as though in all
the world there were no such things as smoke, and factories, and areas
of pollution. For miles the cliffs are covered with tall bracken, green
in summer, but quickly touched with brown and gold. These cliffs teem
with life which we cannot see but know to be there; but feathered life
is abundant and everywhere in evidence, flying in air, clustering on
the rocks, or diving and swimming when fish abound. And then there come
up from the shore the rhythmic sounds of spent energy--
"Hush me to sleep with the soft wave song,
Wash all the cares away, wash all the strife away,
All the old pains that to living belong."
Every sense is filled with thrills, and depression is impossible.
People say the country is one vast sanatorium; and I think that
open-air treatment on the Dodman would be delightful. The "faculty"
are welcome to the hint.
The headland is occupied only by a small shelter for the
coastguardsmen, and a modern granite cross, which can be seen, soon
after passing the Lizard, by persons on board ship. To those who think
it, this fine monument is the symbol of the new life rampant over a
buried past, for it stands on the legendary playground of the giants,
who laid waste the whole district, and heaped the bones of their
victims, pile upon pile, until the headland rose majestic.
A giant once dwelt here who willed his "quoits" to his relatives,
who, however, never claimed them, so they became part and parcel of
the lord's inheritance and may be seen to this day. Then footsteps
of the Vikings are plainly visible in stone encampments, telling of
another age, still violent, but of "derring-do;" and to the west we
touch Arthurian romance once more, for Geraint of the Round Table lies
there, interred with Christian rites in a boat of gold, which was rowed
across the sea with silver oars. All this, and more, within sight and
sound of the Dodman cross, bearing the following inscription: "In the
firm hope of the Second Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the
encouragement of those who strive to serve Him, this Cross is erected.
A.D. 1896." The old order and the new rest peacefully on this headland
solitude.
The finest beaches on the south are here, right and left of the Dodman,
and are seldom visited save by stragglers, like ourselves, or picnic
parties from a distance. The Bookworm chanced upon the fact that
Cornwall had some little share in the production of Lord Byron, his
grandmother being a Trevanion of Caerhays, only a short distance from
here.[I] Admiral Byron, the grandfather, was known to contemporaries as
"Foul-weather Jack," so storm-pursued was he, and the poet's passionate
love of the sea was not a mere "sport," after all.
[I] Caerhays Castle passed from the Trevanion family by purchase to
that of the present owner--Mr. J. C. Williams, formerly M.P. for the
Truro division. The castle was built in 1805 from the designs of Mr.
Nash, architect of Buckingham Palace and Regent Street.
[Illustration: THE PENRYN STOCKS.]