VII
FROM CORNWALL TO SOUTH WALES
In following a five-thousand-mile motor journey through Britain, there will be little to say of Penzance, a pleasant resort town, yet without anything of notable importance. A mile farther down the coast is Newlyn, a fishing-village which has become a noted resort for artists and has given its name to a school of modern painting. A handsome building for a gallery and art institute, and which also serves as headquarters for the artists, has recently been erected by a wealthy benefactor. We walked over to the village, hoping to learn that the fisher-fleet would be in the next morning, but were disappointed. A man of whom we inquired informed us that the fishermen would not bring in their catch until two days later. He seemed to recognize at once that we were strangers—Americans, they all know it intuitively—and left his task to show us about the immense quay where the fishermen dispose of their catch at auction. He conducted us out on the granite wall, built by the Government to enclose the harbor and insuring the safety of the fisher-fleet in fiercest storms. He had been a deep-sea fisherman himself and told us much of the life of these sturdy fellows and the hardships they endure for little pay.
The ordinary fishing boat is manned by five or six men and makes two trips each week to the deep-sea fishing "grounds," seventy-five to one hundred miles away. The craft is rude and comfortless in the extreme and so constructed as to be nearly unsinkable if kept off the rocks. The fish are taken by trawling great nets and drawing them aboard with a special tackle. The principal catch of the Newlyn fishermen is herring, which are pickled in the village and exported, mainly to Norway and Sweden. The value of the fish depends on the state of the market, and the price realized is often as low as a shilling per hundred weight. The majority of the population of Cornwall is engaged directly or indirectly in the fisheries, and considering the inferiority of most of the country for agriculture and the extensive coast line with its numerous harbors, it is not strange that so many of the natives should follow this life. In earlier days, smuggling and wrecking constituted the occupation of a large number of the Cornishmen, but under modern conditions these gentle arts can no longer be successfully practiced, and fishing furnishes about the only alternative.
Just across the peninsula is St. Ives, another fishing village, even more picturesque than Newlyn and quite as much in favor with the artists. To reach this town we turned a few miles from the main road on the following day, but missed the fisher-fleet as before. The bay on which St. Ives is situated is the most beautiful on the Cornish coast, and on the day of our visit the bright stretch of water, sleeping placidly under the June skies and dotted with glistening sails, well maintained its reputation for surpassing loveliness. Before we entered the town a man of whom we inquired the way advised us to leave our car and walk down the sharp descent to the coast, where the village mostly lies. The idea of the return trip was not pleasing, and we boldly started down, only to wish we had been more amenable to the friendly advice, for a steeper, narrower, crookeder street we did not find anywhere. In places it was too narrow for vehicles to pass abreast, and sharp turns on a very steep grade, in streets crowded with children, made the descent exceedingly trying. However, we managed to get through safely and came to a stop directly in front of the Fifteenth Century church, an astonishingly imposing structure for a village which showed more evidences of poverty than of anything else. The church was built at a time when the smugglers and wreckers of Cornwall no doubt enjoyed greater prosperity and felt, perhaps, more anxiety for their souls' welfare than do their fisher-folk descendants.
On re-ascending the hill we stopped at the Castle for our noonday luncheon, but the castle in this instance is a fine old mansion built about a hundred years ago as a private residence and since passed into the possession of a railway company, which has converted it into an excellent hotel. Situated as it is, in a fine park on the eminence overlooking the bay, few hostelries at which we paused seemed more inviting for a longer sojourn.
Four miles from Penzance is Marazion, and St. Michael's Mount, lying near at hand, takes its name from the similar but larger and more imposing cathedral-crowned headland off the coast of France. It is a remarkable granite rock, connected with the mainland by a strip of sand, which is clear of the water only four hours of the day. The rock towers to a height of two hundred and fifty feet and is about a mile in circumference. It is not strange that in the days of castle-building such an isolated site should have been seized upon; and on the summit is a many-towered structure built of granite and so carefully adapted to its location as to seem almost a part of the rock itself. When we reached Marazion, the receding tide had left the causeway dry, and as we walked leisurely the mile or so between the town and the mount, the water was already stealthily encroaching on the pathway. We found the castle more of a gentleman's residence than a fortress, and it was evidently never intended for defensive purposes. It has been the residence of the St. Aubyn family since the time of Charles II, and the villagers were all agog over elaborate preparations to celebrate the golden wedding anniversary of the present proprietor. The climb is a wearisome one, and we saw little of the castle, being admitted only to the entrance-hall and the small Gothic chapel, which was undergoing restoration; but the fine view from the battlements alone is worth the effort. The castle never figured in history and is remarkable chiefly for its unique location. By the time of our return the tide had already risen several feet and we were rowed to the mainland in a boat.