Like floating gossamer!
We saw her proud flag struck that morn,
A star once o'er the seas,
Her helm beat down, her deck uptorn,
And sadder things than these!
MRS. HEMANS
Sweet romantic Cove of Torwich—repository of my youth's recollections!—A mingled gust of feeling crosses over me, rainbow-like,—fraught with the checkered remembrances of "life's eventful history," when I turn to the past, and glance over the scenes of my early life.
The Bay of Torwich, on the southern coast, unites in its fullest extent the singularly wild and picturesque, with the softer features of the landscape. The bay consists of two headlands, about four miles apart. On the eastern side a lofty range of rocky heights extends for a considerable way, almost equalling those of Dovor in sublimity, and juts out into the sea, on the assaults of which they seem to frown defiance, terminating in a bold headland. The violence of the sea has caused extensive and picturesque excavations and caverns; and at the end of the cliff, two sharp rocks called the Needles, raised their heads at low water, connected by a low, sunken reef. In a westerly gale these rocks were very dangerous to homeward-bound ships, and I have often sat with admiration in the heights above, watching the grotesque forms and silvery spray of the gigantic breakers, which after being broken in their progress, heaved their expiring rage with a shock like thunder, against the base of the cliffs, causing a prolonged echo in the huge caverns above. About midway between these cliffs and the western side there was another lofty headland, which terminated the Cove of Torwich; as the sea, except at low-water in high spring tides, washed the foot of this promontory, it was only fordable at ebb-tide. In the middle of the intermediate space, three rocks which might truly be called "forked promontories" from their sharp pyramidical shape, jutted abruptly out of the beach, and were connected by a sort of natural causeway to the main land. Beyond, a wild and rocky valley ran inland, and the time-worn ruins of —— Castle, beetling over the heights, terminated the view in this direction. This valley formed the bed of a small stream, which ran by the end of the rocks, composing a channel by which coasting vessels could run up and discharge their cargoes for the village of Torwich, only part of which was visible at this spot. A natural cleft in the vein opened through the centre of these singular rocks, resembling a lofty gothic arch, and it was my favourite pastime to sit here in the most perfect seclusion, reading "sermons in stones" and watching the progress of the tide till it kissed my feet, and often surrounded me, for the flood came in with great velocity. Between these rocks and the heights on the eastern side, there was another little retired creek, renowned in the village annals, for the adventures of Jack Covering, a noted smuggler on this coast, some forty years ago, with the locality of which the reader will erewhile become better acquainted. The magnificence of the convulsed scenery, and yawning chasms around, the deep intonation and ceaseless roar of the ocean, all combined to awaken in the mind of the spectator, mingled sensations of admiration and awe.
The coast receded between the eastern point of the cove to that which terminated the Bay of Torwich, embracing what may be almost termed a champaign country, compared with the barren scenery I have described; and displaying the uneven surface of the richly wooded Park of Dovedale, with the ruins of two castles.