Cornwall

by G. E. Mitton

But what is a catalogue of words? It conveys nothing, any more than a catalogue of the names of books. Unless one can conjure up feelings, the attempt to explain the grip of the Duchy on recollection is useless. The clammy sea-wind on the face, the sense of great spaces, the grandeur of the coast, with its solemn, immovable rampart of cliff, and the pulsing life of the cold spray, for ever beating and frilling against the hard, glistening surface—these enter into consciousness. Of all things living, the swing of the seagull on motionless wings over a cavernous hollow brings one nearest to the realization of a dream.

Others again go to visit the Duchy and come away disappointed because they have not found exactly what they wanted or expected. They take small children to coast places of which they have only heard by name, and are dismayed to find there is no sand, no beach, no bathing—only hills steep as the blue slate-roofs; and a good deal in the "people's" part of the town, which is narrow, slatternly and disagreeable. But it is one of the traits of Cornwall that she embraces such wide variety and shows such startling contrasts close up against each other. There are certainly a great many places where there are no sands at all, nothing but sheer wild cliffs falling perpendicularly to the sea, pierced by gigantic caves, to be explored at low tide only, and a small strip of shingle on which bathers are warned to enter at their peril, for the huge breakers from the Atlantic roll in continually, and one moment you are over head and shoulders in the smother of their foam, and the next stand naked to the winds, with a villainous undertow sucking away the pebbles from beneath your twitching soles. Carew, Cornwall's best-known historian, speaks of the Duchy's "long, naked sides." The writer on geology in the Victoria County History says: "It has been calculated that a single roller of the Atlantic ground-swell (20 feet high) falls with a pressure of about a ton on every square foot." Places where such forces are felt are the Poles apart from the usual English seaside resort, sarcastically described by "Q" as "A line of sea in front, a row of hotels and lodging-houses behind, all as flat as a painted cloth, with a brass band to help the morality." Yet even in Cornwall if you want sandy beach you can have it. There are sands that stretch for miles, firm and flat, such as the famous beaches at St. Ives; and in most places, even the rocky ones, there is some provision made for bathing of a sort.

CARBIS BAY

I think the reason why a small proportion of people are disappointed in Cornwall is that the advertisements are focussed on one aspect only. In almost every one of them is the mildness of the climate insisted on, and this gives rise to semi-invalidish ideas. It is true that semi-invalids who go there in winter in search of warmth can find suitable places if they know where to go. Cornwall as a whole must have an equable climate, or we should not see the growth of exotic plants out of doors—myrtle, tree-geranium, aloes, palms, and camellias, to name only a few of the most abundant—but the whole county is by no means a hot-bed of warmth, and the winds are frequently very cold indeed. There are everywhere now first-class hotels, with the ample lounges which have superseded the shut-up drawing-room and smoking-room compartments of earlier days, and these hotels mostly have verandahs so placed that the glorious sun can flood them while the winds are kept at bay. There those who come to recuperate can bask in delight, and draw straight from the Atlantic the pure fresh air, which has a wonderfully tonic effect.

"The lungs with the living gas grow tight,
And the limbs feel the strength of ten.

God's glorious oxygen."

Two such verandahs come up before me as I write—that at Fowey, raised high, and overlooking the most lovely harbour along the whole coast, shut in by rising banks almost like a Norwegian fiord; the other, the verandah at Housel Bay Hotel, where, facing due south, you may sit in an atmosphere of summer which is indeed like a climate usually only to be looked for many degrees further south.

But though this aspect is the keynote of almost every advertisement, or at any rate every winter advertisement, it is by no means the most prominent or characteristic one of Cornwall, which appeals far more to the hardy than the weak. When I think of Cornwall the vision that comes before me is not that of sheltered sun-bathed balconies, but rather of a high wind making the breakers frill around the jagged bases of the cliffs, while above, amid the towans or sandhills covered with bent grass, the golf-balls fly. The tang of the air seems once again in my nostrils, carrying with it an exhilaration that makes the blood race in the veins and entirely prevents tiredness. Only in one place elsewhere have I felt that exact stimulus, and that was far west in the neighbouring land of Brittany, near the Point du Raz, which stretches razor-like into the ocean, and in many respects strikingly resembles a bit of the Cornish coast. Many people will object that this is exactly what they understand Cornwall does not offer; on the contrary they have heard apologies for its stuffiness and the relaxing qualities of the air. Why yes, if one visits it in the height of summer, and goes to one of the many places situated in a hole or funnel and facing south, it might be very relaxing indeed; but the "advertisements for invalids," if one may so call them, usually refer to early spring and it is in early spring that the invigorating breezes may be found almost anywhere the whole way round, while the northern coasts are never stuffy even in summer.

Besides unusual golf facilities another feature appealing to the hardy and sound are the cliff paths, mere coastguard tracks, unfenced and unspoilt, which circle the whole coast. Those who keep to roads will never see the real Cornwall and that is why so many motor-bound souls miss it. One may wander for days on these cliff paths, lured on from point to point and bay to bay, always rejoicing in something new or glorious, something which beckons onward. At the foot of the vertical walls of rock are tiny sandy bays for ever cut off from the foot of man even at low tide, and inaccessible to all save the sea-birds, who well know it! My mind brings back visions of great pieces of rock, torn and ripped from their hold, and apparently flung pell-mell on the beach. Except that they are usually three-cornered and not columnar, they are somewhat like the drongs of Shetland in their piercing sharpness. Remarkably fine specimens of these isolated rocks are seen at Kynance Cove, near the Lizard, and at Bedruthan Steps, in Watergate Bay; but almost everywhere some stand up aloof from the neighbouring cliff.