From Polpear Cove to Kynance Cove is a tramp to be undertaken only by the leisured. The distance is but four miles along the cliffs, but the hurried persons who oftenest come to the Lizard have not the time or the inclination for it, and go direct across from Lizard Town.
The way to Kynance Cove from Lizard Town is strictly a pedestrian's journey and lies largely upon the tops of hedges. Those who have never yet made the acquaintance of a Cornish hedge cannot fail to be surprised at this, but a hedge in the Home Counties and a hedge in the West Country are apt to be very different things, and a Cornish hedge is generally a substantial bank of stones and earth, not infrequently with a broad, well-defined footpath on top. Such hedges are those that partly conduct to Kynance Cove.
But I shall proceed by the cliffs, first noting the cave that is to be seen at low water down at Polpear, and the Man-o'-War Rocks out at sea. The name was originally "Maen-an-Vawr," the "great stones," but the tradition of the wreck of a transport there has definitely changed it. The cliff-walk passes "Pistol Meadow," in which numerous mounds still show the places where the seven hundred dead on that occasion were buried. Only two persons are said to have been saved. It is strange that neither the date of the wreck nor the name of the ship has been preserved.
Old Lizard Head, the "false Lizard" as it is sometimes called, gives way to Crane Cove and the larger cove of Caerthillian, where a stream comes down a ravine to the shore. This in turn is succeeded by Pentraeth Beach and by the tall cliffs of Yellow Carn, with the rock of Ynys Vean, i.e. "Little Island," about as big as Westminster Abbey, below.
And down there in front is Kynance Cove, a not very remarkable place at high tide, but of a justly famous beauty at low water. You look down upon it from the cliff called the "Tar Box," which has not the slightest suggestion of tar in its composition: it is properly "Tor Balk." A stream comes swirling down the rock-strewn valley that descends to the Cove. It is from this the Ky-nans, i.e. "Dog's Brook" it is said, that Kynance Cove takes its name.
There are but two or three cottages here. Not yet has a hotel been built, but who knows how long before such a thing shall come to pass, and it be possible to sit at a window of its dining-room, overlooking this most typical Cornish scenery, while a German waiter, introducing the soup, asks: "Thig or glear?" May it be long years yet!
Every one knows that the beauties of Kynance are only unveiled at the ebb. Then the sands, the delightful, soft, light-yellow sands appear, where were only heaving waters, and the great islanded rocks are seen embedded in them. There is plenty of colour, and plenty of drawing too, at Kynance: the streaked black, green, purple, red, and pink serpentine rocks, the yellow sands, and the translucent green sea glow brilliantly under a sunny sky; and under any conditions, except fog, the Cove at ebb is full of striking forms. On the west side, between the mainland and the crag called Asparagus Island, rises the Steeple Rock, sometimes called the Soap Rock, from the veins of steatite it contains. It is no fanciful name, for quarries of steatite were worked long ago in the cliffs beyond Rill Head, and the product dispatched to wholesale soap-boilers, and also to Staffordshire, for use in pottery-making. No asparagus now grows on Asparagus Island, which is a rather fearsome, craggy place to climb, especially as not merely a fall on jagged rocks is possible, but a descent afterwards into the horrible green depths of the sea, where the congers live. For this chamoising over the rocks rubber-soled shoes are the best and safest. In them you may dare things not easily to be contemplated in less pliant footgear, and thus may scale the pinnacled rock, and look down from its further side on to Gull Rock and the deep-water channel below.
But the most engaging thing about Asparagus Island is the Devil's Post-Office, which (facilis descensus Averni, you know!) is quite easily reached. It is in working order just below half-tide. At the flood it is entirely submerged. Sometimes it is known as the Devil's Bellows, or again as the Devil's Throat; but whether it be Throat, Bellows, or Post Office, the personality of the owner is unchanged. This natural curiosity is a fissure traversing the entire mass of Asparagus Island, through which the sea-water is forced in conjunction with air, emerging violently and with a reverberating rumbling report, through a narrow slit, not unlike a letterbox. To "post a letter" at this aperture immediately after one of these spoutings is rather a startling experience, unless you have been told of it beforehand. You unsuspectingly lean over and hold a piece of paper at the orifice, and it is rudely and violently snatched away, to the tune of a harsh indrawn snarl, a sound just as though a giant had sharply drawn his breath in between his teeth. And very often it will happen that, in a sudden outrush again of air and water, your letter will be returned to you full in the face on the instant, with a most discourteous drenching. There are gorgeous caverns, dry at low-water, round past the Steeple Rock, known as the Drawing-Room, the Kitchen, and the Parlour; but the finest view-point at Kynance is eastward, back towards the Lizard, with the Lion Rock in the foreground.
The Lion Rock is doubtless so called because it has a certain majesty of outline, and because it does suggest a crouching attitude, as of an animal in readiness for an attack. But it does not look like a lion, and indeed lacks a head, and without a head the noblest lion is a poor thing. But it is true that the longer you look at the Lion Rock, the more you are impressed.
Let those who seek to return direct inland to Lizard Town have a care how they follow the direction indicated by a signpost, which obligingly indicates "The nearest way to Lizard Town." I am inclined to think that the old piskies, devils, and malicious sprites that used to inhabit Cornwall and lure travellers out of their way, now occupy the bodies of all those people who have anything to do with signposts. They generally manage in some way to mislead, and very often indeed they are repainted at the height of the tourist season, when strangers are mostly about; and who else beside a stranger has any need of a signpost?
That is to say, the first part of the repainting—the obliterating of the inscription—is done then: the re-lettering may, and does, wait. This is a joke so entirely after the heart of one of those inimical old sprites that I am convinced, though they be gone, their wicked souls go marching on in the persons of road-surveyors and people of that breed.
But the wickedness of the Kynance Cove signpost lies in the fact that, although it tells of Lizard Town, its arm points slightly away from it, along a rough cart-track. Now, as in an otherwise roadless and pathless moor such as this the inclination is always to follow any sort of a track, how much more likely then it is that the stranger should take this cart-track, especially when the signpost points to it! And, you know, it leads right away inland; and at last, after a long while, you see Lizard Town, miles away on the right, across the flatness of the heath. In tracking then across to it, in that hummocky wilderness of gorse and heather, you soon grow quite familiar with Erica vagans, the Cornish heather, which botanists say is peculiar to the soil of this district, and get an intimate acquaintance with the prickly qualities of gorse.
Resuming the way along the cliffs from Kynance, Rill Head projects boldly, with a pile of rocks on its summit known as the Apron-String. Here, according to the legend, the Devil dropped an apron full of stones he was carrying, to build a bridge across Channel for smugglers to come over. In despair, he then abandoned the task. I do not think this can be a genuinely old legend, for the Cornish, in company with all seashore peoples, were too prone toward smuggling, and thought it too natural a thing, for the suggestion of a devilish coadjutor to come from them. "The Horse" is the name of the next headland, with a dangerous saddle-backed ridge, infinitely tempting to adventurous climbers who do not mind bestriding it, with the knowledge that a false step will probably send them to Kingdom Come on the moment. In the dour, black little Cove, "the Horsepond," overlooked by beetling cliffs, is Pigeon Hugo, only to be seen from a boat.
The scenery has here again attained to a black and savage grandeur, and the sea is not to be reached at all except at the deep hollow in the cliffs known as Gue Graze. Here were situated the soapstone quarries, and streaks of steatite, the "soapstone" in question, are easily found. They are of a dirty white hue and the substance feels greasy or soapy to the touch. Chemically, it is "magnesia," and commercially is generally known as "French chalk," used in softening boots and shoes, and by tailors.
The bold promontory of Vellan Head now leads round to Pol Cornick, and then to the bastioned heights of Pradanack, where Mullion Island comes into view, a long way ahead. The chance explorer here has the scene entirely to himself: to himself and the gulls, and the bunnies that inhabit among the bracken and grey-mottled boulders.
A final stretch of cliff-tops, and you presently are looking down upon Mullion Cove, properly "Porthmellin," for the village of Mullion is close upon a mile inland. "Porthmellin" means Mill Cove. Mullion Island, a great black rock with some real grass on it, stands guardant, as it were, in advance, with other black and monstrous rocks on either side, those over to Poldhu blacker than their fellows; and gulls, emphasising the blackness and their own whiteness, poise, screaming, in air against them.
A smart hotel—I do not know the name of it—stands on the headland and seems to insolently hint that, even here, mankind has tamed the wilds. He certainly has made the Cove, down there, look toy-like, and the road up to Mullion village now resembles that through some ancestral park. But nature has provided the huge and savage setting that makes the little enfolding walls of the harbour, the little pool within, and the two or three little houses, look smaller than they really are. A general deceptiveness as to scale pervades the Cove: the rock of Mullion Island is, for instance, a mile in circuit, and does not appear to be one quarter that size. But the calm of a typical August day is the deepest deception of all. It requires one of the autumn equinoctial gales to reveal the innate unconquerable savagery of the place, when a strong man can scarce stand before the wind, and giant waves leap over the arms of the harbour and rush, seething and hungry for prey, up the shore.
There are many records of wrecks at Mullion Cove and the cliffs between it and the Lizard. From them I take that of a wreck on the rocks of Mên-y-Grib = "Rock like a Comb," in 1867.
Undoubtedly the Cornish coasts have their mysteries, but none of them is quite so mysterious as the wreck of the Dutch barque, Jonkheer Meester Van de Wall van Puttershoek, which happened on the night of March 25th, 1867. This vessel, of 650 tons, Captain Klaas van Lammerts, homeward-bound from the East Indies with a cargo of sugar, coffee, spices, and tin, was worth about £45,000, and had twenty-five persons on board. She had been observed, the afternoon before, beating up Channel in a gale, and it was then noted that she was being very clumsily handled and would perhaps not succeed in rounding the Lizard. The wreck took place at night, and all on board were drowned, except one man, a Greek sailor, who was discovered the next morning, climbing along the rocks between Polurrian and Poldhu.
"My name," he said, "is Georgio Buffani. I was seaman on board the wrecked ship, which belonged to Dordrecht. I joined at Batavia, but I do not know either the name of the ship or that of the captain."
He repeated this extraordinary statement at the inquest on the drowned, and being shown a list of Dutch East Indiamen, picked out the Kosmopoliet, as a likely one. The inquest therefore was concluded on the assumption that this was the lost vessel. The Greek then left and was not again heard of. Soon afterwards, however, the Dutch consul at Falmouth came with the captains of two Dutch Indiamen then lying in port. One of them declared that the Kosmopoliet would not be due for nearly another fortnight, and was convinced that the lost ship was the Jonkheer. The vicar of Mullion then appeared with a fragment of flannel he had found, marked "6 K. L." "Yes," said the captain, "it must be the Jonkheer, for those are the initials of her captain, Klaas Lammerts."
"On the Friday following," continues the vicar, "when the consul and this Dutch captain again visited Mullion, the first thing handed to them was a parchment which had been picked up meanwhile, and this was none other than the masonic diploma of Klaas van Lammerts."
There were some curious incidents in connection with this wreck, and the Greek sailor himself was something of a mystery: a kind of Jonah to ships. It was the third time, he said, he had been wrecked, and on every occasion was the sole survivor. It was noticed as singular that he was wearing a lady's gold watch and chain; and piecing one suspicious circumstance and another together, very grave thoughts were entertained that there had been a terrible mutiny on board. But the secret of it was shared alone by the Greek sailor and the sea. The coast was thickly strewn with coffee-berries and sugar-baskets from the cargo of the wrecked ship. Penzance speculators who carted many tons of coffee away, lost heavily when it was discovered that the berries had all been spoiled by sea-water.
The smuggling and the wrecking that once distinguished Porthmellin and Mullion village may be traced in old records: the wrecking, I hasten to say, not of that criminal, murderous type which produced wrecks, but the fierce hunger for wreck of the sea which animated all coastwise dwellers, and is still only dormant.
The chief smuggling incident is that of the Happy-go-Lucky, an armed lugger of fourteen guns, commanded by one Welland, of Dover. She was located off the Cove on April 4th, 1786, by the revenue-cutters Hawk and Lark, and captured after a running fight in which Welland was killed.
As to the "wrecking," an account, written in 1817, tells us vividly about it.
"The neighbourhood is sadly infested with wreckers. When the news of a wreck flies round the coast, thousands of people are instantly collected near the fatal spot; pick-axes, hatchets, crow-bars, and ropes are their usual implements for breaking up and carrying off whatever they can. The moment the vessel touches the shore she is considered fair plunder, and men, women, and children are working on her to break her up, night and day. The precipices they descend, the rocks they climb, and the billows they buffet to seize the floating fragments are the most frightful and alarming I ever beheld; the hardships they endure, especially the women, in winter, to save all they can, are almost incredible. Should a vessel, laden with wine or spirits, approach the shore, she brings certain death and ruin to many with her. The rage and fighting, to stave in the casks and bear away the spoils, in kettles and all manner of vessels, is brutal and shocking. To drunkenness and fighting succeed fatigue, sleep, cold, wet, suffocation, death. Last winter we had some dreadful scenes of this description. A few in this neighbourhood, it seems, having a little more light than others, had scruples against visiting a wreck that came ashore on a Lord's day, lest it should be breaking the Sabbath; but they gathered all their implements into a public-house and waited until the clock struck twelve at midnight. Then they rushed forth; all checks of conscience removed."
There is scenery here, to be explored at low water, as fine as that of Kynance itself, if not finer. At any rate, it is of a more stern and rugged order. Mullion Cave is a cavern indeed, with a generous opening and deep black depths which it is the proper thing here to illuminate with torches, or by the more ready, if also more evanescent, method of lighting a newspaper.
Mullion village, away up inland, has a church dedicated to St. Melyan, and some fine old bench-ends; but Mullion is perhaps more celebrated through Miss Mary Mundy, the "Old Inn," and Professor Blackie.
Many years ago, in those days when railways were uncommon in Cornwall, and when the comparatively few tourists generally walked, the "Old Inn" at Mullion was made famous. Those were remarkable tourists in that era. You can see exactly what they were like by referring to old pages of Punch, where they will be discovered, generally pictured by John Leech, in peg-top trousers, and wearing hats like inverted pudding-basins, and long side-whiskers, which they were for always pulling out, superciliously, between finger and thumb. Things have greatly altered since then, perhaps for the better, perhaps not. I will not presume to say. But I do hope pudding-basins and Dundreary whiskers (otherwise "let-us-prays") and peg-top trousers will not come in again.
Those were the times when poets and literary men of repute, walking round the coasts, did not disdain to write tributes in the visitors' books of rustic inns. There were few inns and no hotels, and visitors'-books were rarities. To-day, they all abound, but you will seek in vain for any literature left behind by visitors, whose tributes are generally of the kind I observed at Land's End, among which one person had described himself as "King of the Cannibal Islands," and incautiously expressed a desire to eat the donkey outside, he felt so hungry. To this a later visitor had added, "Cannibal indeed!"
Professor Blackie in 1872 made the "Old Inn" and Mary Mundy who, with her brother, kept it, famous. He wrote fourteen verses in her book—no fewer than that!
Mary Mundy was, I believe, very proud of them, but they just serve to show that when a literary man, or a professional man, writes undress verses, so to speak, he is capable of many lines that not only will not scan, but are also in horribly bad taste. The patronising air, the liberty taken with the landlady's name, are they not insufferable? and the fleshly delight over roast duck and cream, is it not revolting? The verses are entitled: "Laudes Hospitii Veteris, et Dominae Mariae Mundae."
Long ago Mary Mundy and her brother left the "Old Inn," and at this time of writing they are old and poor. How it came that they were jockeyed out of their house I shall not tell here; they will tell it at Mullion; but those who did it, I like to think, did not reap the reward they expected, for the increased business looked for has gone to the great new hotels built overlooking the sea itself, from which Mullion is one mile distant.