Cornwall And Penzance

( Originally Published Early 1900's )

STRIKING again upon the South Devon road, I went on to Totness. At Totness we crossed the beautiful river Dart, navigable ten miles from Dartmouth. One sees here in England the meaning of the names Dartmouth, Exmouth, Plymouth, &c., which transferred to our American inland, or simply shore towns, have lost all their original significance. From Totness to Plymouth the distance is twenty-four and a half miles, and the road passes through much interesting Devonshire scenery, especially about Ivy Bridge, a favorite neighbor-hood for artists. The Dartmoor highlands lie somewhat to the north, which though not of great elevation are exceedingly romantic, forming a wild, solitary, and tempestuous region.

Plymouth, a name dear to the American, has great beauties and charms of its own. I can never forget the surprise I experienced at the first sight of the harbor of Plymouth from the Hoe promenade ; to say that it is an English Bay of Naples, would have little meaning, for there is no resemblance between the two ; but Plymouth Bay is certainly the most noble, varied, and beautiful, of all the English harbors, and there are few in the world to compare with it. And out of it about this time of the year, perhaps upon such a clear, fresh, and golden autumn morning, with the trees of Edgcumbe Park just turning crimson, and the waves in the bay curling merrily to the breeze, the little Mayflower put out to sea, bearing another England within her !

New Plymouth, so the tradition is, was named from a fancied resemblance to the old Plymouth. The resemblance must be very slight. A Pilgrim College is now established at or near the traditional spot where the embarkation of the Pilgrims for America took place. This event is thus related in the " Journal of the Pilgrims : " Wednesday, the sixt of September, the Wind comming East North East a fine small gale, we loosed from Plimoth, hauing beene kindly intertained and curteously vsed by diuers friends there dweling, and after many difficulties in boysterous stormes, at length by God's prouidence vpon the ninth of Nouember folllowing, by breake of the day we espied land."

And it seems to be England's destiny still to have her population flow away ever from her shores to-ward America. With all the increasing wealth of England, her system of taxation falling so unequally on the lower classes, and the tendency of her legislation to concentrate the landed interests in the hands of a few, so that the small landholders are every year diminishing in number and in ability to support themselves, and with her untold millions of hopeless paupers, great numbers must emigrate or starve ; so that willingly or unwillingly England still continues to nourish America, and America is twice-born of the mother-country.

The Tamar River widens at its mouth and forms Plymouth Sound, and the splendid inner basin of the Hamoaze, some four miles long, and capable of mooring a hundred sail of the line. The estuary of the Plym, called the Cat-water, is a still larger anchorage for merchant vessels to the east of the city. These are both crowded with vast frigates, and with smaller shipping, the view up the Hamoaze ending with the long and lofty lines of Albert Bridge at Saltash.

The massive citadel of Plymouth, and the pyramidal rock of Drake's Island, strongly fortified, give a grave and solid aspect to the scene ; while the lovely banks of the Tamar, and the thickly wooded promontory of Mount Edgcumbe, take it out of the commonplace of harbor views, and lend it a strange picturesqueness.

Mount Edgcumbe, with its feathery slopes and bold banks girdled by the deep blue sea, peculiarly attracted so says his biographer the painter Turner ; as did also this whole region about Plymouth Bay, and the sweet scenery of the Tamar River And indeed there is no one who has so photographed by the sun-flash of genius the varied scenery of al England, as this eccentric but enthusiastic lover of his native land has done. Born in one of the most obscure of the dingy courts of London, the son of a barber, and with the prospect of frizzling hair himself all his life, his genius was first fairly awaked by the daily sight of the river Thames, and by the trees and meadows of Twickenham and Bushy Park, in the neighborhood of which he was sent to school. He afterward saw the ocean at Margate in Kent, where he also went to school ; and there he fell in love with the sister of a school-mate, which led to the great sorrow of his life, but which, perhaps, wedded him the more closely to Art. His blue eyes, red face, and stout, short, shabbily dressed form, might have been seen a quarter of a century ago or more in every part of Devonshire, on its southern and northern coasts — he used to say he was a Devonshire man — also in Cornwall where he sketched St. Michael's Mount, in Wiltshire with Beckford, in Kent, in Derbyshire, and above all in Yorkshire, his favorite county. He was preλminently an English painter, as Milton was an English poet. Ruskin says that he so caught the trick of the Yorkshire hills, rounding as they do at the summit with a break or precipice at the foot instead of one sheer to the top, that he really made the Alps themselves bend in the same way to do homage to his unconquerable English genius. Turner, as far as I have gained any conception of his character, seems to me to be a type of the best and worst, the greatest and meanest traits of the English mind, original, incomprehensible, positive, reticent, acquisitive, tender, rough, despising public opinion but eager for a solid and lasting fame. He did not see why Italy, or an Italian artist, should monopolize all God's beauty in Nature, or that dear misty England should be without her Claude — and with tenfold more of power, as when the storm awakes in its might around the coasts of this green and lovely isle. But I have gotten far away from Plymouth Bay and Mount Edgcumbe. This last striking and beautiful spot, was the place that the commander of the Spanish Armada set his greedy eyes upon as the seat of his power and pleasure after his speedy conquest of England, and from the harbor near by darted out those nimble little English frigates under Howard, Hawkins, and Drake, to spoil his dreams. Drake, it is related, would play out and win his game of bowls, before he stirred a step to go aboard his ship, though all Spain and Philip himself were coming. As to these same little English frigates — we are sometimes apt to regard England as if she had always been the great naval power that she now is ; but before the reign of Elizabeth she had no navy worth speaking of. Fronde says that at the beginning of that reign " the whole naval force in commission amounted to seven coast-guard vessels, the largest of which was but one hundred and twenty tons ; and eight small merchant brigs and schooners, altered for fighting." The love of gold and the plunder of rich Spanish galleons, and the wild hopes which the opening of a New World aroused America, in fact with her mysterious magnetic power drawing west to new fields of wealth and conquest — here was the true originating cause of the maritime greatness of Old England.

At the mouth of the broad harbor stretches that wonder of patient science, the Plymouth Breakwater, a mile long, terminated by a light-house. It receives the full force of the stormy Southern Atlantic as it rolls up into the English Channel. And beyond all, fourteen miles out at sea, I could discern, even with the naked eye, the tall tapering white form of " Eddystone Light-house," and with a glass could see the spray dashing in graceful jets at its base, under the northerly wind. Smeaton, Rennie, Brunel, have crowned Plymouth with works of imperishable honor, works of peace, humanity, and enduring utility.

I stayed two days in Plymouth, boating in the harbor, boarding some of the immense men-of-war that lie there so silent and immovable, and tramping over Edgcumbe Park, from which one has a view of Carson Bay, the favorite anchoring ground of Nelson and Vincent ; and here too I had an opportunity of studying some of the finest trees in England, — oaks, laurels, firs, ilexes, and cedars of Lebanon. I also made an excursion up the Tamar to the Royal Albert Bridge, the only work of Brunel that combines stupendousness with economy. Generally speaking, his designs have been great, and greatly ruinous to all concerned in them. Here he seems to have studied cheapness as well as vastness. It is as plain a structure as could well be conceived, but its simplicity is impressive and al-most sublime. Its span of four hundred and eighty feet and its huge unornamented white iron cylinders make a lofty gradual arch over the abyss, and in spite of the immense piers, and other gigantic supports, appear to hold the whole structure suspended entirely from them. So perfect were the preparations, that the bridge was raised at last without the sound of a hammer. A man-of-war may pass under it with full sail set.

Old Saltash tumbling up the steep bank under the colossal shadows of the bridge, with its irregular clustering houses, and boats lying about in confusion on the gravelly beach, is a piquant bit of picture in itself. Above Saltash the Tamar assumes a strictly rural, quiet, inland beauty.

The Royal Hotel at Plymouth was intended to be a comprehensive institution, or to embrace hotel, coffee-house, theatre, and church, all under one roof. It is a rambling old house enough. The sombre coffee-room and its low ceiling, middle arch, red car-pet, oak-pattern paper, game-piece medallions, and polished ponderous mahogany furniture, with the respectable old waiters in white cravats and aprons, and naval officers eating coppery oysters, and talking thick over their port wine, are fresh in my memory. Here I partook, not for the first time, however, of the famous Devonshire " clouted cream," — a rich and palatable dessert, something like improved " bonny-clabber." The method of making it is fully described in a book on " English cattle " which I picked up ; but the real Devonshire milk is to be first obtained. " The milk is suffered to stand in a vessel for twenty-four hours ; it is then paced over a stove or slow fire, and very gradually heated to an almost simmering state, below the boiling point. When this is accomplished, (the first bubble having appeared,) the milk is removed from the fire, and allowed to stand for twenty-four hours more. And at the end of the time the cream will have arisen to the surface in a thick or clouted state, and is re-moved ; in this state it is eaten as a luxury, but it is often converted into butter, which is done by stir-ring it briskly by the hand or stick." By this it is seen that it is almost as rich as butter. This clouted cream is said to have first come from Corn-wall, where it is still a common luxury ; and, strangely enough it is an Oriental or Syrian dish to this day ; so that some, (by rather a broad leap,) have argued from this fact the authenticity of the Phoenician visitation to Cornwall.

There are no specially handsome streets in Plymouth, though it is much more of a city than Ports-mouth, and with Devonport and its immense dock-yard of seventy-one acres, its vast military works, and its fine houses and churches, it is a stately and imposing place. In the public library I saw three pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

We have now to make a rapid tour through the vast county in England, Cornwall There is truth in these remarks of an English writer " Cornwall has been, perhaps, less known and visited by tourists than any other of our counties ; and I might say less than the capitals of the Continent of Europe. You will find in any miscellaneous company, many more Englishmen who have visited Paris than Truro ; many more who have sailed up and down the Rhine than up and down the rivers Tamar and Fowey ; many more who know the outside and inside of St. Peter's at Rome, than the outside or inside, especially the latter, of a Cornish copper mine." How many Englishmen, in England and on the Continent, have told me that they had never been to Cornwall, and, what is more, never wished to go. They have lost the sight of a wild and singular region, totally unlike the rest of England, and of an interesting people.

Whirling over the " Royal Albert Bridge " to Saltash, one is in Cornwall. The scenery continues to be beautiful, and like that in Devonshire, until the mining region is reached. The railway crosses a number of narrow valleys or gorges sloping to the sea, and richly wooded and green. The vales of Liskeard and Lostwithiel are charming, containing a dark ferny luxuriant vegetation, with beautiful river scenery, and noble artificial works, broad canals, and stupendous railway via-ducts spanning from hill to hill ; for Brunel put out all his strength on this South Devon and Corn. wall road. At Lostwithiel, on the lovely Fowey River, one first begins to see mining carriages, and traces of that immense system of underground operations, that convert this end of England into a solemn, candle-lit, subterranean hive or prison. Before coming to Truro, we passed the famous Carclaze tin-mine, with its white clay cliffs. It is an open excavation of a mile in circuit, and from twenty to thirty fathoms deep. It presents the unique spectacle of an out-of-door mine. It is worked in an earth called " soft growan " (or decomposed granite), and the metal is obtained simply by washing. The mine has been worked four hundred years, and an incredible amount of metal has been taken from it. Now begins to appear the true Cornwall scenery, — low hills without wood, barren moors covered with a short furze, and more commonly still, simple mounds of sand and gravel, and holes and pits everywhere. Now and then there is a small stone hut with a walled-in miniature kitchen-garden. A wooden shed, some spindling poles and tottering scaffolding with clusters of huts and larger piles of sand and detritus, are the unobtrusive and almost unnoticeable evidences of what is perhaps a large and rich mine. Truro, the capital of Cornwall, is finely situated on the confluence of two streams, but beauty is sacrificed to business, and sand-heaps, mounds of " deads," and all the withering concomitants of a mining district, make the environs of this ancient town any thing but attractive. Redruth, somewhat further on, is the very centre of the Cornwall topper mines, and of savage scenery. The region is indescribably bleak and barren. The black heights of " Carn Brea," strewed with tempest-worn blocks or " tors " of granite, frown over the scene. All around the landscape is like that of the " Cities of the Plain," after the tempest of fire and brimstone had rained on them. There is nothing but a continued series of poisonous-looking heaps of the exuviae of mines, and a dismal and herbless expanse for the eye to rest upon. Out of the town few people or signs of life are seen. The life is under ground. This is the heart of what is called " The Gwennap Mining District." It is chiefly cupriferous, and is the richest in Cornwall. The little that I have room to say about the Cornwall mines, might as well be said here. For a fuller treatment of this theme I refer the reader to a small book called " Cornwall : its Mines and Miners."

Copper is found in granite and clay-slate, or more definitely in what is technically called killas, or greenish clay-slate, and especially in the line of the junction of this with granite. The vein varies in size from the thickness of a sheet of paper to that of several yards. Sometimes the miner strikes upon a rich " bunch " of metal with smaller veins or strings hanging to it, like the root of a vegetable. This hope of continually coming upon a prize fires him in his hard and solitary toil. According to the richness of his gains so is his pay. In the common method of working mines, the miner receives a certain percentage on the actual value of what he digs. It is thus for the interest of the workmen, or " tributers," to make as much for their employers as possible . and there are no strikes among the Cornish miners.

The vast expense and skill requisite in mining can hardly be estimated by the uninitiated. It is said that the annual cost of mining operations in Cornwall is about equal to the annual gains, though these are immense. Therefore some must lose heavily, while a few only make money. Mining is a gigantic lottery. It takes the place in England of our Western land speculations. To hold a share in a mine is perilous business, because it is a leasehold which may expire any year, and because one's liability is unlimited. Yet almost all Cornish men and women, who have any property, hold shares in mines. A common-looking, chatty woman pointed out to me a mine, called, if I re-member rightly, " Cook's Kitchen," and said she owned a share there. She got off the car, and looked about her with the air of a proprietor.

The extent and elaborateness of some of the older Cornwall mines will account for their ex-pensiveness. The " Consolidated Mines," which are perhaps the largest, are calculated to extend 5500 fathoms, or sixty-three miles under ground. Some twelve miles of perpendicular depth have been sunk in shafts. The old " Dalcoath Mine '' Is 1920 feet deep. These vast depths and ramifications have to be drained and ventilated. For training, steam-engines of extraordinary power must be employed. They are of peculiar construction, economizing power to a wonderful degree, and are made in Cornwall. One of them at " Austen's Fowey Consols Mine " is thus described : " It has an eighty-inch cylinder 10.97 load per square inch on the piston, and a length of stroke in the cylinder of 10.31, and in the pump of 9.25, lifting 87,065,000 pounds a foot high, by the consumption of only one bushel of coals. It consumes eighty-four pounds of coal in an hour." It is estimated that at " Huel Abraham Mine 43,500 hogsheads of water have been pumped up in twenty-four hours from a depth of 1441 feet." Ventilation is also effected, or at least aided, by the employment of steam, discharging foul air and creating circulation. The air of some mines is oppressively hot. Men have been known to lose five or six pounds of weight at a single spell of labor, from profuse perspiration at the bottom of a deep mine, where the temperature is often nearer 90° than 80°.

The hardest work of the poor miner is descending and ascending such enormous depths by ladders. After a wearing, toiling day in dungeon air, then to climb up endless ladders, carrying his tools, full an hour's journey, " to grass," — or what would be like climbing a mountain without having the pure mountain air to breathe, — is almost too much for human strength. Heart disease and consumption are the inevitable results of such unnatura. toil The " man-machine," now introduced to some extent in the Cornwall mines, has been a great blessing to miners. It is a long rod connected with a working beam, with a stroke of twelve feet. Upon this rod are attached shelves, each large enough for two men to stand upon. Up goes the rod, lifting the men with it. They then step from this shelf upon a shelf fixed on the side of the shaft. There they wait until the rod again ascends, when they step upon its rising shelf and are carried up twelve feet. So they gradually come " to grass." An American friend, who explored several Cornwall mines, told me, that not-withstanding the apparent ease of this process, it required nevertheless a quick eye and steady nerves. His coat-skirt once became entangled upon a descending shelf, and had it not been for the quickness of his guide he would have gone down with it.

The life of the miner is not to be envied. He works in awful silence by dim candle-light at the bottom of a well, and often in the foul air of a sewer. His life is in continual peril. And when he comes to the upper air, it is to expose himself to keen blasts that cut through his frame. He rarely lasts more than sixty years. Yet the Cornish miner is a contented and, generally speaking, religious man. The labors of Whitefield and Wesley sowed seeds among the rocks here that still bear rich fruit. Near Redruth there is a large hollow, or pit, where John Wesley preached to vast assemblies of miners ; it is now sometimes used for great religious gatherings and out-door preaching.

Tin is usually associated in the same localities with copper, and is found likewise in the granite and metamorphic rock. It is also procured in small quantities from alluvial deposites, like gold. This " stream-tin " was what the ancient Britons of Cornwall probably sold to the Phoenicians, though they may have mined to some little extent. Since visiting Cornwall, I have thought that the parable of the man finding "treasure hid in a field," was not that he found money or jewels, but a vein of silver or copper, for which he sells all to buy; and to seek truth as hid treasures, was it not, in fact, to mine for it with resolution, skill, and success ? The 28th chapter of Job, especially the 3d and 4th verses, literally translated, are a wonder-fully correct description of mining operations even at this day. This chapter certainly goes to provo the exceedingly great antiquity of mining.

Tin is found in other parts of the world, but the grand source of tin is Cornwall. Our New Eng land bright tin pans, and flashing Connecticut tin-peddler's ware, were all once hundreds of fathoms deep and dark under the Cornish hills. Tin in the ore is any thing but bright and promising. It has to undergo a vast deal of crushing, stamping, rolling, puddling, dressing, and smelting, before it comes out a shining metal. Tin ore must be, by _am, smelted in Cornwall, where there is no coal. The greatest smelting works are in the neighbor hood of Truro. A beefsteak cooked on a red-hot bar of tin, is the common treat of a visitor after inspecting a mine.

The same vessels that bring coal from the North, bear back copper to the North. Copper ore is smelted mostly out of Cornwall, at Swansea and Neath, in South Wales. But I am not writing a book on mining, and my reader can find a thoroughly scientific treatment of the subject in the little volume I have recommended. Few subjects are more curiously interesting from the force of mind, the will and courage, the ingenuity of invention, the singular geologic phenomena, and the fresh and novel facts developed by the everyday working of the whole stupendous system.

From Redruth, the railway passes by and over a portion of sandy-shored St. Ives' Bay, at Hayle. St. Ives is a great point for the " pilchard fishery." This fishery is almost altogether confined to the shores of Cornwall. Once a year these little fish swarm up from the Southern seas to the English coasts. When they approach land in vast shoals, they are eagerly watched and taken in great seines. The net is one hundred and ninety fathoms long, and costs some £170. The author of " Cornwall Mines and Miners " says that at the town of St. Ives, no less than 1000 hogsheads of pilchards were once secured in three casts of the seine. And in the little town of Trereen, 600 hogsheads were taken in a week. As 2400 fish make a hogshead, no less than 1,400,000 pilchards were caught.

These are salted and sent to the southern countries of Europe, to supply good Catholics with fish in their Lenten season ! The pilchard is somewhat smaller than a herring, and does not compare with it for eating.

Pilchard fishing is said to be a very picturesque and stirring sight, especially if it take place at night by torchlight. The nets then look like masses of molten silver.

St. Ives in Huntingdonshire, and not St. Ives in Cornwall, is probably the famous one of the nursery rhyme. It is strange to think how slender the neck of England is here ; one can almost see across it. We are fast coming to the end of all things.

The people one meets here in the little one-track junction railway, are of a very plain, frank, sociable cast. London superciliousness and reserve have altogether vanished, and you talk freely with your neighbor. Everybody is acquainted with every-body, and a stranger is looked upon as one to whom all are bound to be polite and entertaining. I gathered a great number of facts about mining and pilchards, which, I ani sorry to say, I do not reain. The general impression I received was, that the zeal for mining is on the decline ; that it is too unhealthy, dangerous, and above all pecuniarily uncertain business. It is heart-breaking in its crosses and disappointments. One fact I recall An enterprising " adventurer " so all are termed who speculate in mines — had spent £ 94,000 upon a mine and died of disappointment; while his suc cessor a few weeks after began to realize I hold to this excellent Americanism an immense fortune from the same mine.

A young Episcopal clergyman sat opposite to me, with the most approved pre-raphaelite cut to his coat and visage, with whom I fell into conversation and found him an intelligent and genial man. At parting he gave me a line of introduction to his father-in-law, a distinguished clergyman living at Pendeen, with whom he made me promise that I would pass the next Sabbath.

The first sight of " St. Michael's Mount" gilded with the fires of a lurid sunset, and of the foam-fringed expanse of " Mount's Bay," had to me a touch of the romantic ; for I had ever associated the " Mount " with a certain dreamy undefined antiquity, and with Milton's poetry.

It was storm and shine during my stay at Penzance, though the former predominated. There is a saying that there is a shower every day in Corn-wall, and two on Sunday. But the temperature in this autumn season was much milder and softer than I had experienced further north. The changes are sudden from dark to bright, from rainy to clear. This part of England has a Mediterranean climate. Around Penzance, on its sloping hill-sides. there was a pleasing girdle of green gardens and fields, though almost everywhere else sand and rock, and a scantling of grass, were the monotonous features of the scenery. The myrtle and hydrangea, and other Southern European plants, grow freely in the open air. The winter temperature of Penzance is 42°, while that in the neighborhood of London is 35°. The summer is cooler and the winter warmer. Penzance is also well protected from the tremendous westerly gales which are the most severe of any in England; though in the spring of the year its easterly exposure makes it somewhat uncomfortable. It is becoming quite a health-resort. It were worth a visit to make the evening promenade along the sounding beach, and to see the Atlantic billows roll into " Mount's Bay," and the sun sink behind the stern rocks and barren hills toward Land's End.

" Mount's Bay " is a singular example of the geological theory, of the comparatively recent sinking of the land to form an ocean floor. Evidences of the submerged forests frequently make their appearance. " St. Michael's Mount " was once, by tradition, a rock in the midst of a great internal forest.

One should not forget while in Penzance to visit the Serpentine Stone Works. This beautiful igneous stone which takes such an exquisite polish, is procured mostly from the Lizard near by ; it has for its basis the silicate of magnesia, with oxide of iron, chromium, and manganese. The silicate of aluminum gives it a golden gleam. Few antique marbles, such as one picks up amid the ruins of Rome or Baiae, may compare with the richness of this dark red and green variegated stone, as if it still held the fires that hardened it. The end of England is ever pointed. The ocean vainly washes its everlasting hills.

In the summer time the contrasts of these richly colored rocks of the Lizard, with the pearly white sands of the little coves and bays, and the blue waters of ocean, are said to be exquisitely beautiful and fairy-like.

There is a good geological museum at Penzance. The town, of about seven thousand inhabitants, is a primitive place enough. My chamber window at the old-fashioned inn looked out on the quiet yards, ancient chimney-pots, and lonely blue sea beyond. I ate my solitary meal in dignified silence. Walking the streets one feels somewhat like a " pilchard " on skore, or a bird that has wandered from its place. Yet every one is polite and good-natured. Only you are a break, an exception, in the well-soldered community. You belong to another than the Cornwall world of things. When you nave seen Penzance and Land's End, go back to London, to Paris, to the world.

At the evening hour some horrid noises and yells rang through the sober little Methodist town. A squad of beery fishermen, or flush young miners, were making a demonstration in their congenial darkness, — dangerous business one would think so near the jumping-off' place.

I paid a visit to Marazion, or Market Jew, a walk of about three miles on the northern shore ; it is an ancient town, where tin was worked by the Jews in he reign of King John, and even earlier. It is, in fact, the oldest town in Cornwall. It stands upon a hill-side which slopes to the north, and contains some very old houses, furnaces, and relics of the primitive Jewish town. The "Marazion circle " of tin mines, some twenty-seven in number, have the reputation of being losing and unfortunate concerns.

Just opposite Marazion is " St. Michael's Mount." It stands either entirely out of the sea as an island, or as forming the end of a very doubtful and moist peninsula, according to the time of day you visit it. That it was the ancient " Ictis," and that the Isle of Wight was not, in spite of its Latin name, all at least who visit Cornwall are prepared to defend. The famous passage from Deodorus, a writer in the the time of Augustus Caesar, reads thus : " The inhabitants of that extremity of Briton which is called Bolerion " (supposed to be Land's End) " both excel in hospitality, and also, by reason of their intercourse with foreign merchants, they are civilized in their mode of life. These prepare the tin, working very skillfully the earth which produces it. The ground is rocky but it has in it earthy veins, the produce of which is brought down and melted and purified. Then, when they have cast it into the form of cubes, they carry it to a certain island adjoining to Britain and called Iktis. During the recess of the tide the intervening space is left dry, and they carry over abundance of tin to this place in their carts ; and it is something peculiar that happens to these islands in those parts lying between Europe and Britain ; for at full tide, the in tervening passages being overflowed, they appear like islands ; but when the sea returns a large space is left dry, and they are seen as peninsulas. From hence, then, the traders purchase the tin of the natives, and transport it into Gaul, and finally, travel-ling through Gaul on foot in about thirty days, they bring their burdens on horseback to the mouth of the Rhone."

Thus the " Mount " is probably the earliest historic point in England. It is the link that connected Britain with the civilization of Rome and the East. It afterward assumed an ecclesiastical character, and was the place of pilgrimages to the shrine of the angel " Michael," who alighted on the rock in his flight from heaven. Lady Catherine Gordon, (" Rose of Scotland,") wife of Perkin Warbeck, took refuge here. Charles I. visited it during the wars with the Parliament. The Cornish men were strong royalists.

When I saw the " Mount," it rose majestically from the bosom of the sea, and the waves dashed around its base. One could hardly believe that it was not always an island, for it is some distance from the shore. Two strong fellows pulled me out to it, and seemed quite anxious that my visit should be a short one, for the storm was brewing fast. Landing on the old slimy stone pier, I found quite p, marine colony there. Fishermen hung about on the sea-wall, smoking their pipes, and watching the veering and menacing clouds. I ran up the broken grassy steep at the foot of the castle, and to my surprise was admitted ,to a beautiful castellated residence, the property of the St. Aubyn family. The room called " Chevy-Chace Hall," and the other apartments, though small, are handsomely furnished, and are lived in during some months of the year. The chapel is the chapel of the old Benedictine Monastery. I went up on the battlements, and had a noble view of the whole extent of " Mount's Bay " to the Lizard on the north, and Penzance with its background of green hills and villas, and the bold black headlands toward Land's End on the south. The last storm had shaken the castle to its foundations, and even now the wind was so strong that it was difficult standing. Here is the famous stone chair jutting out from the top-most battlement over the abyss, which secures to one who first sits in it the authority in the domestic circle.

On our return we did not have quite so successful a time. The sea had risen considerably, and in approaching the shore we made two ineffectual attempts to ride in on a big wave, and were well drenched ; but by skillful management we at length shot in on top of a long roller.

The " Mount " is an impressive object from the shore. It rises pyramidically in bold steps or platforms, crowned by the compact though irregular mass of the castle, which seems to grow out of the rock. I tried to discover the " lion " that guards the Mount. A rude mass of granite looking south-ward, by a lively imagination, might be shaped into a monstrous lion. While we are (in fancy) looking at the " Mount," lifting itself like a vision of majestic power through the scud of the whistling storm. let us hear Milton's lines like a strain of music above the storm : —

Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet.
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies
For, so to interpose a little ease,
Let our frail thoughts daily with false surmise.
Aye me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled,
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou perhaps, under the whelming tide,
Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded Mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold ;
Look homeward, angel, now, and melt with ruth;
And O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more."

Since I have quoted so much, I will not omit giving also an extract from the fine poem of Bowles, (the inspirer of Coleridge's poetic genius,) upon St. Michael's Mount : "Mountain! no pomp of waving woods hast thou,
That deck with varied shade thy hoary brow;
No sunny meadows at thy feet are spread,
No streamlets sparkle o'er their pebbly bed:
But thou canst boast thy beauties, ample views
That catch the rapt eye of the pausing Muse:
Headlands around new-lighted; sails, and seas
Now glassy smooth, now wrinkling to the breeze
And when the drizzly winter, wrapt in sleet,
Goes by, and winds and rain thy ramparts beat, —
Fancy may see thee standing thus aloof,
And frowning, bleak and bare, and tempest-proof,
Look, as with awful confidence, and brave
The howling hurricane; — the dashing wave;
More graceful when the storm's dark vapors frowr
Than when the summer suns in pomp go down."