Morning journal and courier., 1889-10-05

. Of Cornish Fishing Fame.
ST. IVES, Cornwall, Sept. 20.
To the Editor Of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
Jutting far out from England into the fu.
rious Atlantic is bit of rock-buttressed
land Of most singular shape. which sustains
a distinct and interesting people. Its geo.
graphic contour suggests the curious silheu-
cite of some couchant gigantic mastiR or
huge wild beast. It is easy to see In Its
southernmost outreaohing Its two powerful
fore feet; in its northern coast line its braced
and bristling back; in its most northern pro-
lection an erect an pugnacious tail; in Its
eastern Devonshire boundary its massive
launches and hind feet, wedged against the
eternal granite of Devon; and in its farther
mostssea split, ocean battling promontery,
the open mouth of the lsviathan, set savage
ly towards the seething Seilly Isles, and for
ever lashed with spume and foam of inter-
minabls and indesoribabls battles with the
elements.
Standing upon Hensbarrow, one of Its
drear and highest peaks, one can see smiling
Devon to the east; almost to Lands End, its
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remote southern headland; across Its entire
reach of hills and moorlands far out upon
st. Georges Channel to the northwest, and
over the white sails of fisher and coaster to
the southeast, where the savage sea lashes
and fumes In vain about that most furious of
all mariuer's beacons, the wondrous Eddy
stone Light.
But standing there, with all this majestic
oyolorsma before you, desolation only is ap-
parent to the eye. The moorlands stretch
dolorously as IL in boundless loneliness.
The tors or hills are bleak and bare. The
whole face of nature seems torn and SCARED
as by tremendous elemental struggles. A
myriad kissing fragments of exploded planets
hurled in awful upper rain upon this land
could have left no more unsightly hurts upon
it. Yet all these caverns and chasms which
disfigure it were made by the hand of man.
It's granite, shale and slate hide copper, tin
and iron. For more than three thousand
years Its surface has been cleft, and its
depths gored and bored, until its face is
pitted as If with extinct volcanoes, whose
bases were honey combed to miles depth,
and, laterly, so far outward beneath the
ocean, that its very she'll was cracked and
broken, until, to prevent the sea dropping
through, the bottom was stuffed and plugged
and soldered like leaky basinl
Almost until to-day, as time Is measured,
this land to the rest of England was a yeri-
table terra incognita. "West Barbary" it
was called to ftly describe Its uncanniness,
its supposed ignorance and its popularly ac-
credited semi barbarism. What weird and
desolate Connamara in Ireland's wild west is,
and has always been to the Green Isle, this
SCARED and ragged peninsula has been to
England. Of its four hundred thousand
souls, one-eighth, from youth to death, In
darkness pick and blast in shift and drift
beneath Its wind swept moors. Until q
century since distinct language was spoken,
preached and taught. To-day in the larger
towns "the purest English spoken" is said to
prevail; but again to-day not a league from
these towns among fisher folk. miners and
peasants, an ordinary Englishman or Ameri-
can can scarcely understand word uttered.
Yet hero are life and scene of the greatest
fascination; both life aud scene of simplici-
ty, beauty and grandeur; while romance and
and stream; romance and legend the Oldest
and most winsome in all England. For here
lived, or were born to deathlesa legend, Ar
thur, Launcslot and Guinsvers, and the
brave old Round Table Knights. This wild
and sturdy land ID King Arthur's Land. 1t
is Cornwall.
No matter what queer, quaint places I
passed through to get there, but following
the old canal trom Launceston, began my
journey around the Cornwall coast. FROM the
little seaport bathing place Of Bude, on
Bude Bay, not moro than two leagues from
tho northern boundary of King Arthur's
Land. Beyond this for dreary distance
are Jagged cliffs, aud beyond these nothing
bat myriads Of sea fowl and the neasureless
sea. At High Cliff one stands over seven
hundred feet above the ocean where every
Iandward sound IL annihilated by the thun-
ders Of the sea, but one of the finest coast
views In all England is provided. The sol-
emn, silent, tremendous ocean wall Is In full
sight for Twenty-Five miles to the north, and
to the southwest It stretches for nearly that
distance past Tintagel Head, and its count
less wraiths of Arthurian romance to Ire
vese Head, an ugly speck Of black lifting ter
rife granite heights above the waves. But
what . nest of q place is anoisnt Boseastle,
where in the time Of Henry II. stood the
lordly castle Of Botteraux. hugo Gssure
in the rock opens to the blue sea. Behind, q
deep basin, marked by vast stone walls,
where the fishing craft lazily sway and rock,
and still behind this the village with ita
moss grown quay and pretty white washed
houses, looking for all the world like white
liage covered slopes-the crooked streets re-.
sounding this day with all the high keyed,
hilarious sounds Of noisy Cornish fair.
Not four miles further down the coast you