Omaha daily bee., 1896-10-03
The Great Rocky Hcndlnnd at the
Gateway of England.

The Great Rocky Hcndlnnd at the
gateway of England.
And what a noble headland 1t Is, oNclaims
the London Telegraph. The lower lying
Lands End may command from its position
a wider sweep Of sea; and. as the eye
describes that vast arc of $50 degrees of
marine horizon which it can traverse from
| the point opposite the Longships light house,
the seascape presented to its vision is no
doubt more grand. But as a rock fortress
IL does not compare with the tremendous
bastiun which its sister hcadland pushes
southwark to the besieging waves. Here
On this grassy summit you feel in very deed
that YOU stand upon a rampart OF our storm
beaten isle, and you realize, even on TINS
day of calm AMI sunshine, that II is a mighty
frontier stronghold-the scene of perpetually
recurring assault and repulse In the evcrlast-
ing warfare of earth and sea. The voice Of
the wind has died away to a whisper; the
light clouds hang mOtiOnleSs in the upper
blue; there is no sound audible but the com
nlaiut of the wheeling gulls; the waters of
he channel, as far as the eye can reach, are
arbroken by any single Hash of white from
the crest of a rufTled wave. For all that ma
ture shows, the two eteranl enemies might
have sworn an eternal peace, and the faint
booming which now and again ascends to
YOU from the base of this great granite
keep might be merely the guns of the be
siegers firing a feuX-de-joie IN honor of the
suspicious event. Holiday salutes. TO be
sure. they are, these thunders of the incom
ing tide in the caverns thirty fathOms under
your feet; but it is only a truce that they
are celebrating. and not a peace. The vast
and dripping vaults which echo these sub
terranean sounds are themselves the per
petual witnesses to the eternity of the war
they and the riven and Jagged seaboard
and the huge rock bOulders from whose
heads the climbing waves of even this sum
NOR sea send showers Of Sprly on high and
down whose black and smooth-worn sides
they stream in a thousand lace-like rills.
The coast, in every broken stairway and
deep serration, tells of the strife which has
ragged along these shores since shores they
were, of the secular struggle which began
on the morrow of that awful day. in far
back geologic time, when the then CONT
nent of Europe was cloven asunder and over
the gigantic wedge-shaped mass Of sub
merged land, having Ushant and the Lands
End for the two eXtremities of its base.
the waters of the Atlantic poured through
the new-made channel into the North sea.
1t is a far cry to the date of that dec
~laration of war. but the campaign has lasted
with brief intervals of armiStice. For
countless thousands of years the surges roll
ing from the ocean have striven to storm
this giant bastion on which we live; for age
upon age the charging squadrons Of its
waves have rushed in furious onset upon
the rocks below. Deep cut upon their faces
tl' lIlt oNdlo VI lIdl "a dhN Jul lIliA
there alone its traces were 10 be found.
But from the Wolf Light to the Lizard and
the rocky bays that indent the shore for
many a mile beyond 1t, from Church Cove to
Cadgrath, and from Cadgrath to Black
Head, and thence up the northward crel.liLg
coast line to that first and most boneilcert
harbor of refuge, the whole floor of the
sea at the foot of these storm-swept rocks
is strewn with the timbers of 8tuU; slips
and the bones of brave men. Science and
humanity and administrative zeli may do.
and have done. much to pluck the victims
of the wind and waters from their grasp,
and beacons. and lifeboat houses ar rocket
stations exist along leagues upon leagues Of
the dangerous %littoral. a vCri:abla step
mother of ships" How energetic and well
directed have been the efforts made of late
years for the saving of human life. Put
still. there is hardly a cove or headland
which has not its tragic record of disaster
and Of death; there is not a boatman of
the coast who has not his tale of horror and
heroism to relate. Sometimes it is a story
Of the treachcrOus mists which enVelOp sea
and land in their creeping folds, rendering
beacon lights useless and Turing the errant
ship to her destruction in comparatively
calm waters on these iron rocks. At an
other time 1t is the wild arms OF the gale
which suddenly pluck her from her course
and drive her eeward to her ruin. And
yet again 1t is the history OF some ovGr-
laden and not too seaworthy craft running
mysteriously ashore, with just enough fog
ahead of her or dirty weather behind her
to make her loss look plausibly accidental
to the landsman, but not quite enough to
allay the suspicious of the sailOr-her crew
with their lives, but her master
reluctant to avail himself of album
dant assistance offered him for the preserva-