Penzance is strongly reminiscent of the Channel Isles to those who know both. There is the same odd mixture of sternness in the bare outlines of the stone houses—as bare as those on the Cumbrian Fells—and the unexpected luxuriance of growth, the flourishing tree-shrubs such as hydrangeas and fuchsias, in backyards and odd corners. When one gets a vista down the Morab Gardens in the midst of the town, with the steep green depths framed by the bushy-topped palms falling away to the brilliant blue sea, one might almost be having a peep in the Riviera, if we accept the lack of orange-trees, with their golden lamps, so beautiful to the sight, so disappointing to the taste! It is surprising to those coming from harsher parts of England to see the deprecating droop of the blue-grey tongues of the eucalyptus, the feathery grace of clumps of bamboo, and the glossy-leaved bushes of camellia. At any rate, whatever one compares the place with, one is conscious of an odd surprise at its un-English characteristics.
ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT
The "front" is not the great attraction at Penzance. No doubt the wonderful bay, with its priceless jewel of St. Michael's Mount, does at all times satisfy the imagination; but the flat esplanade, the singularly ineffective strip for sea-bathing, and the rather dull style in which most of the houses are built, are not in themselves attractive. The bay can be seen better elsewhere, from the heights of the very ample churchyard of St. Mary's for instance, overlooking the grey slate roofs, or from Newlyn Hill, when at sunset time all the colours of the spectrum may be reflected on the Mount, and the only thing one can say with perfect certainty is that it is never twice exactly alike. One of the most lovely visions is when the sun catches it through a rift in sombre clouds, bathing it in a kind of unearthly radiance or dawning light, while Penzance, with its tall-pinnacled church tower, is all mouse-grey. And when a rainbow arches over one side of the steep slope, as I have seen it, it is almost unearthly.
Sometimes the Mount disappears entirely, melting into its background, or only the castle is left visible, apparently unsupported except by a filmy mist. There is no end to the vagaries played by the lights and shadows and sea-colours on this wonderful instrument. Indeed the Mount is chiefly valuable for this reason, because, owing to the fact that it is private property, and that access to it is much restricted, it is not nearly so much an object of intrinsic interest as its grand counterpart in Brittany.
It must be a strange place to live on. When the St. Levan family arrive they have to go over by launch from Penzance, probably after a long journey by rail; and the weather, if tempestuous, must make even such a short crossing unpleasant. Once there, there is the stupendous steep to climb—no trifle, even though the roads are graded. Dining out with county neighbours must be an almost impossible feat, and grand as the surroundings are, they must pall very soon because of their limitations. Tradition says that the men-folk of the family are not supposed to be able to swim properly until they can swim all round the Mount, a fine undertaking in view of the rocks and shoals!
The Mount in Brittany is only 57 feet higher, but looks much larger, which is curious, as it stands considerably farther out to sea, being 1¼ miles away; the Cornish one is only about 1,200 feet from the mainland. Perhaps the reason is the greater variety and grandeur of the buildings on St. Michel.
The old name of Marazion was Market-jew, and the two together certainly make most people imagine there is some Israelitish association; but this is unfounded. Marazion is "the market by the seaside," and Market-jew "the market on the side of the hill." Some have supposed the Mount to have been the Ictis of the ancient tin trade, where the merchants from far met the inhabitants to barter for tin. "When they have cast it [the tin] into the form of cubes, they carry it to a certain island adjoining Britain called Ictis. During the recess of the tide the intervening space is left dry, and they carry over abundance of tin in carts" (Diodorus Siculus). Many other islands have been suggested to fit this account, even the Isle of Wight; but the bed of the sea must have changed very quickly if people could in historic times pass over to it on foot at low tide!
The legend of the fair land of Lyonnesse is supported by the evidence of a submarine forest in Mount's Bay, noted by Borlase in 1757. This seems to have been a wood chiefly of hazel, but with alders, oaks, and other trees, and is by no means the only case of a submerged forest being found around the shores of Cornwall. Great trunks have been disclosed, and even hazel-nuts and twigs; but it is a big step from the subsidence of some parts of the shore and the consequent submergence of forest land, to the story of the overwhelming of such a land as Lyonnesse, reaching out as far as Scilly and containing many villages and churches.
To return to Penzance. The town is very irregular, its meandering streets meet at all angles, and here and there are linked by narrow, passage-like cross-cuts, ofttimes as steep as wynds. There is a very noticeable prevalence of Nonconformist places of worship, and these show, as most of their kind do, a hideous lack of architectural beauty, a sort of defiance of the pride of the eye. The Cornishmen since Wesley's crusade have been strongly Nonconformist, notwithstanding the fact that Wesley himself was a son of the Church. They probably find the rigidity of the Established Church too formal for their fervent souls. Nonconformity appeals to them as it does to their cousins the Welsh, and it is a curious thing that St. Mary's, the most ancient of the churches, should be the opposite of this, with ritualistic services, whence the smell of incense is wafted into the uncompromising streets.