Cornwall

To the mind of the ordinary Briton there is a curious attraction in "getting as far as you can"--a streak in mentality which has accounted in no small degree for the world-wide Empire. In England you cannot in one direction get any farther than the extreme point of Cornwall. Owing to the geographical configuration of Cornwall, the idea is magnified very vigorously into a really gallant effort to "get there," such as might be made by an individual stretching out not only to his full stride, but indulging in a good kick! We feel in very truth we have "got there," on to the edge of something or somewhere. As Wilkie Collins expresses it, the Land's End is "the sort of place where the last man in England would be most likely to be found waiting for death at the end of the world!"

Thus it is that Cornwall holds a special magnet which steadily draws a never-ending succession of strangers. Look only at those who do the feat of cycling or motoring from John o' Groat's to Land's End. Picture them in an indomitable long-drawn-out line, wheel to wheel; shadowy forms flitting over that last--or first--piece of road, full of hope and exultation at the thought of the journey's end, or full of anticipation at the journey's beginning. No road in England has been so wheel-worn as that strip running out to the most westerly point of England.

Some there are who are drawn by a similar magnet to the Lizard, the most southerly point of our land, but the attraction is not so potent. From time immemorial John o' Groat's to Land's End has formed the measure of Britain.

For very many years Cornwall has been known for its fine coast scenery, but wild and desolate scenery was not the fashion in Early Victorian days, and there were comparatively few brave souls who penetrated so far. It is rather remarkable to notice how many books about the charm of Cornwall appeared in the sixties, doubtless due to the opening of the Cornwall Railway in 1859. There is Wilkie Collins's Rambles Beyond Railways, 1861; J. O. Halliwell's Rambles in Western Cornwall and J. T. Blight's Land's End, the same year, followed by Richard Edmonds's Land's End District the next year.

But Cornwall really began to be known by hundreds of persons in place of tens about 1904, and since then the number of visitors has increased to thousands.

This book is not written by a Cornishman, for the very obvious reason that no Cornishman could for one instant think impartially of his Duchy, any more than you could expect a Yorkshireman to believe that the "rest of England" was in any way to be compared with Yorkshire. The more individual and peculiar a person is, the more deeply is he loved by those who really know him, provided that he has lovable qualities. No characterless good soul ever wins the heartfelt devotion that is the meed of those who have unexpected kinks and corners in their personality, and in the same way a flat, featureless country, carefully cultivated and uninteresting, will never win to itself the true land-love felt for one that is varied, rough maybe, rugged a bit, and in a hundred ways surprising. Of all things human nature hates boredom, and the man or the country who can win free of any trace of boredom insures a reward. Cornwall has in a peculiar measure gained the devotion of its own people. Not only on account of its unexpectedness, but because it stands in some measure apart from the rest of England. The Celtic blood of its older inhabitants, while making them akin to the Welsh and Irish, cuts them off from the Saxons, whom so often and so heartily in the old days they fought.

The geographical position of Cornwall, with three sides washed by the sea, and even the "land" boundary mainly marked by a river, has influenced its sons, who, never being far from the sound of the surging waves, have gained something of the robust aloofness of the sailor. They are friendly to all, but guarded nevertheless; and standing thus apart, marked out by their territory, with small chance to mingle with inhabitants of other counties, the clan feeling among them has grown to be analogous to that of the clans in Scotland. All other Britishers are to the true Cornishman "foreigners." How then could a man so imbued with his own and his Duchy's place in regard to the "rest of England" write a book which should convey in any way the real characteristics of his land?

It would be a feat impossible.

The rugged outlines of a well-known face lose meaning with years of familiarity, and are taken for granted; thus it is with landmarks in Cornwall, which would never figure in such a chronicle at all.

Therefore, as this book is intended not so much for those who know Cornwall as for those who will know it sometime in that future which lies beyond the reading of it, the impressions of an outsider are most fitting.

There are people who go to Cornwall once for a holiday and return to it ever and again, when they get the chance, unable to find satisfaction anywhere else; the "atmosphere" of the country has entered into their blood. They think with an ache of the coast in all its cruelty and glory, they picture the bright blue of the rain-washed skies in a burst of sunshine, and they recall the great "hedges" with a foundation or core of stone, generations old, overlaid by an ample covering of turf and grass, a hot-bed for the stonecrop and hart's-tongue, fern, primrose, or foxglove.

But what is a catalogue of words? It conveys nothing, any more than a catalogue of the names of books. Unless one can conjure up feelings, the attempt to explain the grip of the Duchy on recollection is useless. The clammy sea-wind on the face, the sense of great spaces, the grandeur of the coast, with its solemn, immovable rampart of cliff, and the pulsing life of the cold spray, for ever beating and frilling against the hard, glistening surface--these enter into consciousness. Of all things living, the swing of the seagull on motionless wings over a cavernous hollow brings one nearest to the realization of a dream.

Others again go to visit the Duchy and come away disappointed because they have not found exactly what they wanted or expected. They take small children to coast places of which they have only heard by name, and are dismayed to find there is no sand, no beach, no bathing--only hills steep as the blue slate-roofs; and a good deal in the "people's" part of the town, which is narrow, slatternly and disagreeable. But it is one of the traits of Cornwall that she embraces such wide variety and shows such startling contrasts close up against each other. There are certainly a great many places where there are no sands at all, nothing but sheer wild cliffs falling perpendicularly to the sea, pierced by gigantic caves, to be explored at low tide only, and a small strip of shingle on which bathers are warned to enter at their peril, for the huge breakers from the Atlantic roll in continually, and one moment you are over head and shoulders in the smother of their foam, and the next stand naked to the winds, with a villainous undertow sucking away the pebbles from beneath your twitching soles. Carew, Cornwall's best-known historian, speaks of the Duchy's "long, naked sides." The writer on geology in the Victoria County History says: "It has been calculated that a single roller of the Atlantic ground-swell (20 feet high) falls with a pressure of about a ton on every square foot." Places where such forces are felt are the Poles apart from the usual English seaside resort, sarcastically described by "Q" as "A line of sea in front, a row of hotels and lodging-houses behind, all as flat as a painted cloth, with a brass band to help the morality." Yet even in Cornwall if you want sandy beach you can have it. There are sands that stretch for miles, firm and flat, such as the famous beaches at St. Ives; and in most places, even the rocky ones, there is some provision made for bathing of a sort.

I think the reason why a small proportion of people are disappointed in Cornwall is that the advertisements are focussed on one aspect only. In almost every one of them is the mildness of the climate insisted on, and this gives rise to semi-invalidish ideas. It is true that semi-invalids who go there in winter in search of warmth can find suitable places if they know where to go. Cornwall as a whole must have an equable climate, or we should not see the growth of exotic plants out of doors--myrtle, tree-geranium, aloes, palms, and camellias, to name only a few of the most abundant--but the whole county is by no means a hot-bed of warmth, and the winds are frequently very cold indeed. There are everywhere now first-class hotels, with the ample lounges which have superseded the shut-up drawing-room and smoking-room compartments of earlier days, and these hotels mostly have verandahs so placed that the glorious sun can flood them while the winds are kept at bay. There those who come to recuperate can bask in delight, and draw straight from the Atlantic the pure fresh air, which has a wonderfully tonic effect.

"The lungs with the living gas grow tight, And the limbs feel the strength of ten.