ON THE LERRYN RIVER
That such a denudation actually occurred is of course within the bounds of geological possibility, if we take the precaution to date the incident far enough back, to remote and prehistoric days. There is little credence to be attached to the local traditions, which affirm that fishermen on a calm, clear day, have seen the ruins of house and castle, cottage and farm, covered with dulse instead of stonecrop; or the shattered spires of one or two of the reputed "hundred and twenty churches". If such a kingdom ever existed it was long before the mediæval era, and a spired church belongs to the Gothic period.
Sir Richard Carew, the friend and contemporary of Raleigh and of Campden, assures us not only that proofs of the lost kingdom remained in his day, but that the fishermen's nets frequently brought up portions of "doors and windows" from the submerged houses.
At the same time there is probably a certain rough truth in the old legends, the details having been added from time to time. As Mr. Arthur Salmon says: "When we speak of a lost Lyonesse we are not dealing with absurdities. We must only be careful to date it far enough backward, or rather to leave it without date. It is an alluring vision on which we can linger without the sense of being actually unhistoric."
Certain is it that if we examine The Life and Death of Prince Arthur, the History of Merlin, or the Mort d'Arthur, we shall find "Cornewaile" and "The Lyonesse" spoken of with an airy indifference as to their geographical limits. Thus it may possibly be that, by the title of Lyonesse, Leonois, or any other of the various renderings of the name, it was intended to cover such portion of the west country as lay beyond that part of Devonshire, which, down to so late as the year 410 of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, continued to be known as Cornwall.
It is well worth while to stay the night at the little hostel near the Land's End for the purpose of viewing this westernmost piece of England under the magic spell of a stormy sunset or a misty dawn. The sun sinks beyond the vast expanse of open, wide, and illimitable sea, heaving with a deep and mysterious ground swell as the long waves roll shorewards. Between the great pinnacles of rock blue chasms yawn and pass away, and the bases of the nearer rocks are momentarily hidden by the foam of the surging waves.
Far out, far beyond where the Longships lighthouse blinks its warning light over the waste of waters, a solitary ship goes down into the western horizon; and the golden clouds of summer follow her, one by one, into the bosom of the night.
The holiday season, with its bands of health-seeking and somewhat noisy tourists, is not the best time of the year for a visit to Land's End. As a show place it has been compelled to provide certain conveniences for the traveller, and these jarring notes of modernity are rather aggressive. There is much to be said for Mr. W. H. Hudson's plea for a national fund that shall purchase the Land's End; but one fears much water will have flowed around the historic headland before a "Society for the Preservation of Noble Landscape" becomes an accomplished fact.
About a mile from the cliffs stands the rocky little islet of Carn Brâs, whereon is situated the Longships lighthouse. Although such a short distance away this lighthouse, and that on the Wolf Rock seven miles off, are frequently cut off from all communication with the mainland by stress of weather. The submerged crags that fringe this portion of the coast are many, while the larger of those whose jagged points appear above the water, are the Armed Knight, the Irish Lady, and Enys Dodman, the last being pierced by a fine natural arch about forty feet in height. The Cornish name for the Armed Knight was "An Marogeth Arvowed", and it was also called Guela or Guelaz, the "rock easily seen".
To enjoy fully these western cliffs, one should stay in the locality for some days; be on the spot at all hours, see the mists of morning and the mellow tints of evening when all is calm and peaceful. At such times those who love the sea breezes, and the hoary rocks bearded with moss and lichen; those who are fond of the legends and traditions of the past, will find much to interest them at the Land's End. It is a favourite spot with artists, many of whom come year after year to depict its frowning cliffs and heaving belt of sea, for, curiously enough, the grandest effects of the waves are frequently seen in calm weather, when the heavy ground swell causes the waves to break with great force on the rocks.
In his criticism on Turner's picture of the Land's End, Ruskin wrote:
"At the Land's End there is to be seen the entire disorder of the surges, when every one of them, divided and entangled among promontories as it rolls, and beaten back post by post from walls of rock on this side and that side, recoils like the defeated division of a great army, throwing all behind it into disorder, breaking up the succeeding waves into vertical ridges, which, in their turn, yet more totally shattered upon the shore, retire in more hopeless confusion, until the whole surface of the sea becomes one dizzy whirl of rushing, writhing, tortured, undirected rage, bounding and crashing, and coiling in an anarchy of enormous power, subdivided into myriads of waves, of which every one is not, be it remembered, a separate surge, but part and portion of a vast one, actuated by eternal power, and giving in every direction the mighty undulation of impetuous line, which glides over the rocks and writhes in the wind, overwhelming the one and piercing the other with the form, fury, and swiftness of lambent fire."
