The Cornwall Coast

CHAPTER I. The Plymouth District

THE PLYMOUTH DISTRICT

Britain is an emergent mass of land rising from a submarine platform that attaches it to the Continent of Europe. The shallowness of its waters--shallow relatively to the profundity of ocean deeps--is most pronounced off the eastern and south-eastern coasts; but it extends westward as far as the isles of Scilly, which are isolated mountain-peaks of the submerged plateau. The seas that wash the long Cornish peninsula, therefore, though they are thoroughly oceanic in character, especially on the north, are not oceanic in depth; we have to pass far beyond Scilly to cross the hundred-fathom line. From the Dover strait westward there is a gradual lowering of the incline, though of course with such variations and undulations as we find on the emerged plains; but the existence of this vast submarine basis must cause us to think of our island, naturally and geologically, as a true part of the great European continent, rendered insular by the comparatively recent intrusion of shallow and narrow waters. With some developments and some limits, our flora and fauna are absolutely Continental, the limits being even more noticeable as regards Ireland. The extensive coast-line has played a most important part in influencing national history and characteristics. The greater or less resistance of different rocks and soils has affected not only coast-configurations, but therewith also the very existence and well-being of the inhabitants.

The very appearance of Cornwall is eloquent of its granitic structure; nothing less enduring could have survived the stress to which it is daily exposed. All softer measures have been eroded by the fierce wash of Atlantic seas; what we may consider a gaunt, bare backbone has stood the test, and the Cornish coast to-day confronts forces that would play havoc with the more yielding and gentle curves of east and south-east England. We know what the narrow seas can do on East-Anglian and Kentish shores; and the same work of coast-erosion that we there see proceeding before our very eyes must have taken place in Cornwall before the days when historians could note it. The denudations that left our stark Cornish coasts as we know them now for the most part occurred in times that are dim and legendary. We hear of the havoc by an uncertain voice of tradition; we dream of a lost land of Lyonesse, of which only the Scillies remain; but the underlying truth of such romantic rumour must be carried back to Neolithic or earlier times. Though inaccurate in detail, such legends are rarely baseless. In places, such as Mount's Bay, there is still evidence of what the sea has taken; in other parts the evidence has been washed far from sight. The fact that the shallow seas extend far westward cannot be ignored; when we speak of a lost Lyonesse we are not dealing with absurdities. We must only be careful to date it far enough backward, or rather to leave it without date, which is a matter for the geologist rather than the historian to settle. It is an alluring vision on which we can linger without the sense of being actually unhistoric. We may even carry our thought further still, if we choose, and dream of some old Atlantis, now lying submerged in far greater depths beneath the waters of the ocean that perpetuates its name.

It will be seen that the peculiar shape of Cornwall has not been attained by chance, but has been the result of natural forces. In its appearance on a map there is a certain resemblance to Italy; while some etymologists, taking this appearance as a guide, have imagined that the origin of its name may be found in its horn-like figure. No other British division--using the word "division" advisedly, for Cornwall is not strictly a county--has such an extent of coast-line. Its greatest direct length is 80 miles, but the broken nature of the shore increases this very considerably; even at its juncture with Devon the Duchy is not more than 46 miles in breadth, and at its narrowest it is only six miles. Both the most western and the most southern points in England are to be found in Cornwall, at Land's End and the Lizard. The climate is delightfully equable, without extremes of heat or cold, but it is naturally humid, as Cornwall has to bear the first brunt of rain-storms that drive in from the Atlantic. To find a fitting point of departure for a pilgrimage round these coasts we have to step into Devonshire. In some sense Plymouth is the gateway of Cornwall, and a very appropriate gateway it is. Of the three rivers that give Plymouth its noble estuary the Lynher is purely Cornish, and the Tamar is as much Cornish as it is Devonian, except that it rises just over the Devon border. The population of Plymouth, Stonehouse, and Devonport is so largely Cornish that the three towns, which we conveniently but incorrectly group under the name of Plymouth, have been styled the "capital of Cornwall"; and certainly no single Cornish town contains so many Cornish folk as have gathered together to assist and share in the prosperity of this Devonshire locality. The majority of visitors to the Duchy approach it by this avenue, and the old stage-coaches followed very much the same route as the present railway, but conveyed their passengers to Saltash by ferry instead of by bridge. The rail is the successor of an immemorial trackway that linked Devon and Cornwall in days when they had not been subdivided. Even in times long before shires had been dreamed of, it is certain that the river must have been an important tribal boundary. There was a British track by which Cornish tin was carried eastward to a point of nearer contact with the Continent; that point may have been the Isle of Wight, but was more probably Thanet. This track passed the Tamar at Saltash and ran to Liskeard, where it joined a tributary path from the Fosseway; after which junction it crossed the Bodmin Moors and pushed on to Truro and Mount's Bay. This has been spoken of as a Roman road, but it was certainly not of Roman construction, being far earlier in date. There is no proof that the Legions ever entered Cornwall at all, and such Roman remains as Cornwall has yielded may be attributed to British residents of Roman culture and taste. Cornwall was never conquered, in the sense of occupation, either by Roman or Teuton; and the conquest of the Ivernians, or Iberians, by the Celts must have been very partial and chiefly in the nature of a military predominance, if we may judge by the comparatively short stature, dark skin and hair, that are still largely characteristic of Cornish folk.

Plymouth has another link with Cornwall, though it must be considered a fabulous one. One of the suggested derivations for the name of Cornwall is Corineus. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Corineus was one of the companions of the Trojan Brutus, who landed at Totnes and proceeded to bestow his name and his rule upon Britain. In support of this we may quote Milton, with a suggestion that he was a greater poet than historian: "The Iland, not yet Britain but Albion, was in a manner desert and inhospitable, kept only by a remnant of giants, whose excessive force and tyranny had consumed the rest. Them Brutus destroies, and to his people divides the land, which, with some reference to his own name, he thenceforth calls Britain. To Corineus Cornwall, as now we call it, fell by lot; the rather by him liked, for that the hugest giants in rocks and caves were said to lurk still there; which kind of monsters to deal with was his old exercise." He was indeed the father of Cornish wrestling, which has ever since been so popular and so excellent. The poet proceeds to tell us how Corineus wrestled with the giant Goemagog (or Gogmagog) and threw him into the sea. Drayton, in relating the same legend, hints at the true cause that enabled the smaller Neolithic Ivernians to subdue the taller Paleolithic inhabitants; it being a fact that there was a difference in height great enough to be magnified by fancy and exaggeration into the myth of the giants. He tells how Gogmagog was brought forward as a champion to daunt the Trojan invaders:--

"Great Gogmagog, an oak that by the rootes could tear; So mighty were (that time) the men who livèd there: But, for the use of arms he did not understand (Except some rock or tree that coming next to hand, He raised out of earth to execute his rage), He challenge makes for strength, and offereth there his gage."

If there is any basis to this Brutus legend at all, it may be taken as denoting an invasion of higher culture, of the later Stone or early Metal Age, opposed to the greater physical strength but inferior weapons of a lower scale in civilisation. Methods and materials of war were the standard of advance then, as they seem to be still the measure of dominance now. All tradition states that the struggle between Corineus and the giant took place on Plymouth Hoe, on a spot now partly covered by the Citadel. Plymouthians so devoutly cherished the legend that they preserved the figures of the two wrestlers, cut in the turf after the manner of the famous White Horses; but either a greater scepticism or another need for the site has caused the figures to vanish long since. As Corineus, by the same tradition, became first Duke of Cornwall, it was supposed that he bestowed his name on the Duchy; but the "Corn" is not so easily identified as this, and to get at the true origin we should have to understand more definitely the derivation of the tribal name Cornavii. But it does seem that the Plymouth Hamoaze can claim to be the Hamo's Port which Geoffrey of Monmouth wrongly identified with Southampton; and this proves that the fine estuary, where the pulse of national life now beats so strongly, was a haunt of navigators, defenders and invaders, in days before Britain's story had begun to be written. Britain also can never forget the part that Plymouth played in repulsing the Great Armada. It may or may not have been true that Drake was playing bowls on the Hoe when the Spanish ships were sighted; it may not be true that he said, "There's time to play the game out and to thrash the Spaniards afterwards." We can cherish this doubtful tradition or not, as we happen to be credulous or sceptical; but in any case that was the genuine spirit of the West Country in those days of stress, and that was the spirit by which the British Empire was moulded. It was a spirit born of rough seas and unruly winds, the confidence that sprang from successful struggle with peril and difficulty, the pluck that confesses nothing to be impossible. It was a spirit that loved sport, yet never shrank from war.

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