KYNANCE COVE
Whoever loves the wild desolation of the northernmost Scottish coasts will feel at home in Cornwall. Of course the cliffs are not nearly so high—most of the Cornish cliffs could go four times into the finest specimens of Mull or Shetland—but there is not much lost by this. The human mind can only grasp up to a certain amount of size conveyed by the eye in vertical measure, and after the first awed glance down a 1,000-foot cliff, when the mind is almost stunned, the impression rapidly wears off, and all the grandeur needed is equally well conveyed by 300 feet of sheer precipice, while the details of the natural carving and the play of the wild birds on its crevices are far better observed.
The popular idea of Cornwall in the minds of those who have not been there is that there runs a long raised ridge down the middle like a spine, and that from this on each side the ground slopes away to the sea; but this is a very misleading idea. Cornwall is all hills, and yet has none to boast of. Brown Willy, not far from Launceston, reaching to 1,375 feet, is the highest, but yet there is very little flat land anywhere. If you took a silk handkerchief, crumpled it up in your hand, and threw it on the table, it might fall somewhat as Cornwall is constituted. The people who live there are used to hills and not afraid of them. Why should they be? In most of the towns—and almost every small village is a "church-town," while every stream is a river—the streets are often at about the angle of an ordinary house-roof, and as a rule there are miles of hill to be negotiated in rising out of the towns for they lie in hollows or crevices, corresponding to the folds of the handkerchief. This is not wonderful considering the fact that the wind blows freely from the sea on both sides, and that it is in the hollows and sheltered nooks that vegetation flourishes. There are of course exceptions. Take such a town as Launceston. One main street has been engineered to go round in curves, so as to enable horses—horses bred to the work—to get up it, and at the top there is a bit of level, but most of the other streets fall sheer down. When babes who can scarce toddle scramble forth from their living-room on to a road slanting at an angle of forty-five degrees or more, which forms their only playground, naturally their leg muscles get strengthened, and as they grow up and have to start off to school, or return from it, up a hill that taxes the sinews of a "foreigner" till he groans, they make nothing of it. Roads seem to wander at their own sweet will with no inclination to the Roman ideal, but they never wander to avoid inclines; they tilt up and down again with the most gracious equanimity, and a man on a cycle who has struggled up a steep ascent and feels at last he will be able to reap the reward, as often as not finds the descent too perilous to ride without the utmost caution. Cornwall is not a county for cyclists except they be strong in the leg; but it is good country for those pedestrians who measure the day's journey by what they have seen and not by ground got over as the crow flies, for they can follow the enchanting little paths winding in and out by the great headlands of the coast.
Cornwall is no place for being in a hurry.
Many of the most famous sights, such as the great outlying cliffs at Gurnard's Head, and the Logan Rock, are not anywhere near a road. The roads keep inland, and for very good reason. These places have to be reached over long, sloping fields, and entail a good deal of scrambling—ideal places to resort to for a whole day with picnic provision, so long as one has a clear head and steady foot, but not to be sought as a "side-show."
Very many of the little coast places too are down at the end of what may be called long shafts, and to the ardent cyclist, intent on mileage, to go down, down, down, for miles till he can see the cows grazing in the fields high overhead, and to arrive at last at a little port where a few old salts sit and smoke and idle, and there is no way of getting out again but by the funnel, is a matter for as strong comment as conscience permits. Yet again for those who love what is beautiful and unhackneyed, there is charm beyond measure in the spirit of these places. In Polperro, which might be a bit of Brittany planted wholesale in our land; or Fowey, with its unforgettable harbour, where the blue tide creeps up like a stain of spreading dye; or in Mullion, with its huge rounded masses of rock lying off the coast.
Another popular idea of Cornwall, also mistaken, is that the interior of the Duchy is hideous and only the coast beautiful. There is much that is ugly no doubt; raw places where the half-grown mounds of rubbish and crumbling chimneys mark disused tin-mines; where the sharp and hard outlines of slate shriek at you everywhere; where ragged, scrubby fences break up an endless series of barren-looking fields, and the whole landscape gives the impression that it is flying at a terrific speed westward, heading into the prevailing wind, because all the trees and shrubs that have managed to survive it at all are bent nearly double. But what of the glorious wooded slopes in Bodmin neighbourhood where smooth roads wind between the rich growth of woods? What of the famous valleys such as Luxulyan and others? There is plenty inland attractive enough if one knows where to look for it.
AT POLPERRO