Dodman being the extreme point of Mevagissy Bay; and, as Ray tells us: "These are two forelands, well known to sailors, nigh twenty miles asunder, and the proverb passeth for the periphrasis of an impossibility." The Head, which is nearly insular, has a chapel dedicated to St. Michael on its summit. St. Michael was widely claimed as a patron of lofty and exposed places (such as the two St. Michael's Mounts); it was considered his especial function to disperse and set at naught all evil forces of tempest and thunderstorm. Rame Church, dating from the thirteenth century, is about a mile inland; it occupies the site of a still earlier building. Whitesand Bay (generally called Whitsand), which stretches westward towards Looe, has many memories of the past to offer those who, in summer, come hither in large numbers. It was here that Drake and Howard first confronted the Armada, after the memorable but possibly fabulous game of bowls. Whether the Spaniards intended making for Plymouth or no is not quite certain; but it is certain that the Englishmen intended to prevent them. It was in the early Sunday morning that the Spaniards first caught sight of the English fleet—the royal or official squadron under Lord Howard, the volunteers under Francis Drake. Displaying his consecrated standard, the Duke Medina endeavoured to interpose between the two sections of the opposing flotilla, thinking to destroy them separately at his ease; but he was readily circumvented in his design, finding to his cost that the English vessels could sail closer to the wind than his own, and could be manipulated more quickly, while their guns carried further. His cumbrous ships also were too much crowded with men, being fitter for transport than for action; the fighters were impeded by the press, and every effective shot from the enemy's guns found many victims. The English managed to keep at a distance while they delivered their raking broadsides, which, according to the Spanish notions, was against all principles of chivalrous sea warfare. But, as Froude says, "it was effective, it was perplexing, it was deadly." Drake and Howard did not wish to come to closer quarters with their formidable foes; a near embrace of those heavy galleons, fully manned with brave men, might soon have brought disaster; the struggle would have been too unequal. It is the art of the weaker to be elusive. The engagement lasted till late on Sunday afternoon, by which time the squadrons had drifted past Plymouth Sound. Not many hours later the Capitana, England's first prize, was being towed into Dartmouth harbour, giving a welcome booty in bullion and powder. The Armada had received a first blow, from which it never recovered; though recovery might yet have been possible if the winds had not fought for the English. The Spaniards' first taste of the West Country had probably satisfied them, but other death-traps lay to the eastward. The later story of the Armada belongs to distant Scottish and Irish coasts, whereon many of its finest vessels drifted; it is a story of calamity, blunder, and stubborn bravery; all the courage was not on one side of the conflict—perhaps the Spanish were as great in their failure as the English in their success.
The shores of Whitesand Bay, though so beautiful, are treacherous both to the seaman and the bather; their beaches have often been strewn with wreckage. The Bay is fully exposed to south-westerly winds, which often hurl tremendous seas upon its coast, and many a good vessel has been driven to its destruction. There are shifting sands here also, which are the source of peril to unwary bathers; and it was at this spot that Mr. E. Spender, the founder of the Western Morning News, was drowned, with his two sons; a memorial marks the spot. But many parts of the extensive bay are perfectly safe, and there are several nooks that are becoming increasingly popular with visitors from Plymouth, such as Port Wrinkle, with its coastguard station, and the pretty village of Downderry. A portion of the coast is in the parish of St. John's, and here there is a grotto excavated by a lieutenant, who is said to have cured himself of gout by this labour; the walls and entrance are inscribed with verse. Another of the Whitesand parishes is Antony East, so named to distinguish it from other Antonies further westward, which extends from the Lynher to the coast. In this is the seat of the Pole-Carew family, a branch of the old Devonshire Carews. The house dates from 1721, and has some good pictures by Holbein, Vandyke, and Reynolds. Carew, the Cornish historian, who died in 1620, lived and wrote his works here.
CHAPTER II
LOOE AND POLPERRO
As we pass along the coast from Whitesand Bay towards Looe we are approaching a spot that is now prized for its exceeding loveliness, but that formerly took high rank among the seaports of the West Country. In appearance and in ancient position it must be classed with Dartmouth and Fowey, which both were likewise notable ports in days when the English navy was in its sturdy infancy—days when the national pulse beat most keenly in the south and east instead of in the north and midlands. Commerce and industrialism have largely changed all that; Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham have assumed metropolitan importance in their densely populated districts. Only Plymouth in the south-west is now of first-class consequence to the nation; and Plymouth is a parvenu compared with Looe and Fowey. The actual decline of these two little towns may not be great, but relatively it is enormous. Yet it deserves a milder term than decay, for the present-day life here is still wholesome and in a certain sense prosperous. It is a gentle and placid prosperity, very largely the happiness of places that have no history. There is the compensation of a glorious past, and there is the further compensation that such places preserve for us the best picture of what Old England truly was in days before she became "a nation of shopkeepers." It is no use to go to the flourishing commercial cities to find traces of earlier England; these cities have usually swept away the traces of antiquity they once possessed—tortuous streets are straightened and widened, quaint old houses are thrown down, the picturesque makes way for the useful; even the old churches are looked at askance, as occupying ground that might be devoted to warehouses and offices. In these quiet corners of the West such temptations have not presented themselves; population is thin, and there is little call for the destructiveness of expansion; mediævalism may still be found here, in the streets and byways, in the houses, and sometimes in the people. The chief peril is in the intrusion of the summer holiday and the "week-end." Irreparable damage is sometimes prompted by the desire to attract visitors. But those who come to the West Country are not usually such as seek for the noise and glare of the conventional watering-place. They come for natural beauty, pure air, and quietude. The recreative pleasure that they crave must be of a different kind from that with which they can daily become familiar if they please. There are theatres and music-halls in town; it does not add to the wittiness of the Pierrot or the humour of the comic singer to find them exercising their functions on a hot dusty beach, densely packed with humanity, strewn with torn newspapers, burnt matches, orange skins, and banana peelings. Yet those who feel in this manner are a minority, otherwise certain popular resorts would be less flourishing.
The crowds that flock to the average watering-place may leave their toils behind them, but they apparently wish to carry their amusements. Even the jaded mill-hand asks for the congested variety entertainments of Blackpool or of Douglas, rather than for the solitudes of shore and woodland. In moments of pessimism one may fear that the very capacity of peaceful enjoyment is being killed, and that ceaseless grinding work destroys the power of resting. When the ordinary tourist visits places of peaceful solitariness he usually does so in crowds that rifle and ravish the sacredness of this solitude; he ruthlessly desecrates that which he does not understand; he never learns its secrets; the most commonplace of public parks would have responded fully to his needs and their gratification. But the West has long been a resort of that wiser, certainly better endowed, minority that seeks for direct personal contact with Nature, face to face, and not merely as seen through the glass windows of huge pavilions or from the seats of fashion-haunted promenades. Therefore the majority of Western watering-places are not yet spoiled; their physical features have often assisted to preserve them. They have not lost the quaint simplicity of their parochialism, to become national if not cosmopolitan. Constant intercourse with even the most sober of visitors must take something from the provincialism, the cherished traditions and local customs, the personal peculiarities and dialect. But there is still a good deal left; there is still the possibility of reaching Nature in her inmost sanctuaries, and at the same time winning some of those elusive and shy confidences that are the charm of locality.
Photo by][Gibson & Sons.