Popularly the dark hair and dusky complexions of some of the Cornish is attributed to Spaniards wrecked from the Armada. But no Spanish wreck came on shore in Cornwall. The first loss the Armada sustained was east of Plymouth. On its way back to Spain none of the vessels came near Cornwall. Several were wrecked on the coast of Ireland and their crews massacred to a man by the natives.
Posidonius travelled after b.c. 123 and visited Spain, where he collected a variety of information on points of geography and natural history, and after spending thirty days at Gades returned to Italy. He learned among other things something about the collection of tin in Bolerium, a name afterwards appropriated by Ptolemy to the Land's End. He says: "The inhabitants of that promontory of Britain which is called Bolerium are very fond of strangers, and from their intercourse with foreign merchants are civilised in their manner of life. They prepare the tin, working very skilfully the earth in which it is produced. The ground is rocky, but it contains earthy veins, the produce of which is ground down, smelted, and purified. They make the metal up into slabs shaped like knuckle-bones, and carry it to a certain island lying in front of Britain called Ictis. During the ebb of the tide the intervening space is left dry, and to this place they carry over abundance of tin in their waggons.... Here then, the merchants buy the tin from the natives, and carry it over to Gaul; and after travelling overland for about thirty days, they finally bring their loads on pack-horses to the outlet of the Rhone." It is very doubtful whether Posidonius ever visited Britain. What he relates is doubtless due to information received by him, either at Gades or at Massilia.
According to Timaeus, the contemporary of Pytheas, the isle of Vectis was six days sail from Britain, "in an inward direction." Vectis, there can be little doubt, is the Isle of Wight, formerly connected with the mainland by a ridge of chalk since broken through by the waves. Ancient mariners coasted, and those who came to Britain for tin followed the Gallic shore till they could see the white cliffs of Dover, when they crossed, and coasted down channel to the Isle of Wight.
There is no evidence that the Phoenicians ever visited Cornwall. Nor has a single relic of Phoenician art or coin been found in Cornwall. The traders with Britain were the Veneti of the Morbihan, in Brittany. Moreover, as General Pitt Rivers has pointed out, bronze celts (axe heads), which have been unearthed in Cornwall, are never found in any parts where the Phoenicians have been.
It has been assumed with much confidence that Cornwall or the Scilly Isles must have been the Cassiterides of the ancients. But even this is doubtful. The Cassiterides were described as lying west of Spain, and the description applies to the Azores; it may have been due to ignorance or design that they were represented as islands prolific in tin.
The Nine Maidens, St Columb Major
That tin was worked in Cornwall from a very early period can hardly be questioned, in 1823 at Carnon a deer-horn pick was discovered 40 ft. below the surface, but as a crucifix was also found there 30 ft. below the surface, this only shows how the creeks have had their floors turned over and silted up.
Though tin was exported from Cornwall, bronze was not manufactured there till a comparatively late period. Bronze came from the East, and the great centre whence radiated the trade in bronze weapons was the basin of the Po.