Nooks and Corners of Cornwall

by C. A. Dawson Scott

Serpentine

After the more exposed northern and western shores of Cornwall, the airs of the south are balmy. There is no fear, as the farmer put it, that "the bullocks will be blown off the cliff pasture into the sea, the wheat off the land, and the turnips out of their sockets." In the Morrab Gardens at Penzance palms grow in the open, while in Falmouth strange spiky, spiney plants, whose home is in desert sands far south of Britain, are to be seen. But the Meneage (stone), as the Lizard district is called, though mild, is exhilarating, and on Goonhilly Downs the wind can be sufficiently keen. This district is of a peculiar geological structure, consisting of a moderately elevated tableland, deeply carved at the edges by valleys and richly wooded except at the southern extremity. The rocks are generally dark-coloured and of fine grain, and everywhere they are worn by the action of the water into fantastic and beautiful forms. They are well known all the world over as serpentine, and it gives the traveller a strange feeling to see the valuable rock being used as building material and even for the repair of roads. A considerable trade is done in polishing this stone, especially at the Lizard, and the very sands are dark with the detritus. It causes a sensation of vast wealth to go on to the beaches and from the scattered millions select your own pebbles for the polisher. The more red in your chosen fragments, the more iron, and the harder they will be to polish; while a handsome piece of entirely red ore may be altogether beyond their powers, for serpentine is a rock not a pebble, and the local appliances are crude. The Lizard is also the paradise of the botanist, for the Cornish heath (erica vagans), the sea asparagus, the henbane, and many other plants grow abundantly in this district. From Helston to the Lizard is a pleasant scrambling walk along the fine black cliffs. At Gunwalloe the church rises from the edge of the cliff, its belfry being built into the solid rock about 14 ft. away. In Mullion Church is some admirable wood-carving, and on the west face of the tower a well-cut crucifixion, and at Kynance are some curious rocks known as "The Bellows" and "The Post Office," which are as interesting to the geologist as they are wonderful to the ordinary visitor.

GUNWALLOE AND MULLION

A curious story is told of a wreck at Gunwalloe, where the St. Andrew, a treasure-ship belonging to the King of Portugal, was driven ashore. The Portuguese had entered into an agreement with the local notabilities for the disposal of their goods, when down rode three Cornish gentlemen at the head of their retainers and carried off the spoil. Unfortunately for them the Portuguese had an Englishman on board, and he promptly brought the matter before the courts and caused an inquiry to be made. But the treasure, as then enumerated, must have been enough to make the mouths water not only of the local authorities, but of any starveling gentleman to whom news of its arrival had come; for it consisted of 8000 cakes of copper, eighteen blocks of silver, and a chest containing £6000, besides pearls, precious stones, chains, brooches, jewels, tapestry, rich hangings, satins, velvets, and four sets of armour.

Just below Gunwalloe are the fine Halzaphron Cliffs. A ship was wrecked here about a hundred years ago, and the bodies from it were said to have been the last which were refused sepulchre in consecrated ground. It makes one's blood boil to think of the barbarities that from the beginning have been perpetrated in the name of religion. There was actually a law on the Statute Book which refused such burial to strangers, on the score that they might not have been Christians. Christians forsooth—pretty Christians they who framed that law!

Another lingering superstition is connected with the Rev. Thomas Flavel, who was buried at Mullion 1682. The man was a noted ghost-layer, and was said to charge five guineas every time he officiated in this way. He was also an enthusiastic Royalist, and Walker thus describes him: "A venerable old gentleman; and lookt the more so in those Times for that he had vowed never to cut off his Beard till the Return of his Majesty to his Kingdom, by which time he had gotten a very long one." His epitaph is curious:

"Earth, take mine earth, my sin let Satan havet,
The World my goods; my Soul, my God who gavet;
For from these four—Earth, Satan, World, and God,
My flesh, my sin, my goods, my soul I had."

On the cliffs by Mullion and above Poldhu (black pool) is the earliest of the permanent wireless stations in England. It forms a prominent, strange but not altogether ugly feature of the landscape—the people think it brings bad weather—and is at any rate in strong contrast to the deep and glorious coves by which in switchback fashion, now cliff, now coombe, the barren dusty headland of the Lizard (chief's high dwelling) is reached.

The Lizard

This is the southernmost point of England, a blunt rounded headland, lying crouched over the deep water, eternally—by day and by night—on the look-out. When the first lighthouse was built here, at the charges of Sir John Killigrew in 1619—note that Godolphin land has given place to the country of the Killigrews—it was disapproved of by the Trinity House. They thought it would serve to light pirates and foreign enemies to a safe landing-place!