Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

light-keepers, all nicely whitened. The buildings stand within a few yards of the verge of the cliff, the wall serving as parapet, from which you look down on the craggy slope outside and the jutting rocks beyond— the outermost point. You may descend by the narrow path, protected also by a low white wall, and stride and scramble from rock to rock, with but little risk of slipping, so rough are the surfaces with minute shells. It is not a place to hurry from. Sit, and look round. What chasms and fissures! yawning, as if to show the crystalline veins in their interior; and here and there the wild sea has licked the stubborn stone into the form of towers and bastions, and gnawed out deep caverns in which, even on calm days, the waters are heard to struggle and heave with mighty sighs and solemn reverberations. There is an endless variety of watery motion in the many channels among the rocks, and a restless ripple a little way to seawards, where the sunken masses irritate the surface.

A rude, steep stair, chopped in the rock, leads down still lower to a little cove and a narrow strip of beach at the foot of the cliffs. It is the landing-place for the lighthouse-keepers when they go fishing; but can only be used in calm weather. Iron rings, fixed here and there in the stone, serve as moorings for the boat. You feel imprisoned, standing on that morsel of beach, frowned upon by the high, dark, inclosing crags. It must be an awful place in a south-westerly gale!

The assistant-keeper seeing a stranger on the rocks, was leaning over the parapet-wall ready for a talk,

when I went up again. The arrival of a visitor was a pleasure in the monotonous life of the establishment. Winter, he said, was a dreary time with them, not so much on account of cold as of storms, fogs, and wild weather generally. In easterly gales the fury of the wind would be often such, that to walk across the yard was impossible; they had to crawl under shelter of the wall, and the spray flew from one side of the Point to the other. But in-doors there was no lack of comfort, for the house was solidly built and conveniently fitted, and the Trinity Board kept a small collection of books circulating from lighthouse to lighthouse. The people who lived thereabouts were not so much cut off from the world as one who had come along the land might suppose; they could get easily to Plymouth or Southampton by steamer-the vessel was then passing-and go off to her in a boat from the landing-place, except when there was a rough sea on. For his part, he was well content, but he could not say the same for his wife: she found the place terribly lonesome.

The tower shows a revolving light to the Channel, and a fixed light to guide vessels clear of the Skerries; a shoal about a mile to the eastward. If a pilot going down Channel find that light on his left, let him look to his ship, for she is running into the bay. There are streams and eddies, too, about here, which tease the mariner. The keeper had once seen a man-of-war's boat putting in, rowed by a stout crew; but no sooner had they come near the Point, making for the bay, than

the current-too strong to be trifled with-caught them, and the more they pulled the more were they drifted away to the east. While we were speaking, one of the Halsands boats, that had been fishing off the Point, came by, the man rowing with quick strokes, scarce an oar's length from the extremity of the rocks, and in a minute the little craft was round and inside the bay. "That's where the man-of-war's boat should have gone," said the keeper; "unless you take that narrow bit of current setting close round, you never get in." The tide makes the tour of Start Bay: here, at the Point, the stream sets in for three hours and out for nine hours, at the rate of ten miles an hour. Our talk led to an offer of breakfast, for I found, on inquiry, there was neither village nor public-house along the next ten miles of coast, and to wait till I got to Salcombe would be too long a fast. I ought to have eaten before leaving Halsands, or brought supplies with me. Coffee and mutton-chops were soon set before me, and, while I ate, the wife talked of the contrast between the Start and London. Her husband had brought her down, newly-married, some four or five years ago; it was dark when they arrived at the lighthouse, where all seemed pleasant and snug; but when she looked out the next morning and saw the loneliness of her future home, her spirit sank, and had not yet fully recovered. But it was a fine, healthy place for the children, of whom two or three were running about; and that was something. On taking my departure I was charged with a message to "our uncle,"

the head-keeper at the Lizard, should I reach so far south as that remote Cornish promontory. I did visit it, and with results that are a pleasure to remember.

From the next point, known by the singular name of the Pear-tree, you get a good view of the headland, on which the lighthouse stands, with its jagged summit sloping from rear to front, and on either side steep as a house-roof, and so narrow at the peak that you may sit astride between the protruded rocks, which are deeply notched and fretted into pinnacles by the winds and storms of centuries. The cliff, indeed, is low; but is worn into such strange shapes, and presents so many curiously formed spurs and buttresses to the sea, crowned by the slope of turf dotted with sheep, that the scene is felt to be more striking than some other headlands of greater elevation.

From hence to Prawle Point, some five miles distant, the scenery presents a new appearance. The hills, sweeping inwards from the shore, leave a low, irregular plain, diversified by fields of grain and potatoes, and with so diminished a cliff that you fancy the sea will pour over it in the next gale. But coming nearer, you see that the slaty strata dipping down beneath the water interpose a sufficient barrier, on the slopes of which the waves expend their force ere the main shore is reached, and fall back again harmless from the smooth surface. Some of the outlying slabs are enormous, and form a complete natural breakwater. Though the walking be rough, the eye is gratified by the aspect of the hills, a small mountain range, strewn

and capped with stone, and showing against the sun a broad expanse of green and bronze. The distant prospect, too, is such as awakes curiosity, and invites the wayfarer onward, promising new delights. A coast-guard, whom I met, marvelled much at seeing a stranger in so unfrequented a region: the sight of a new face was something to be remembered. ""Tis as rough a bit of country," he said, "as any part of the coast of Devonshire; but 'tis well worth looking at. An Englishman don't know what England is till he has been along here." And he handed me his telescope that I might spy out whatever of noteworthy fell within its range. Those who have been disappointed with foreign travel would do well to bend their steps to this little-known part of our own country. One may journey far before he finds so much to satisfy the eye and charm the imagination as came before me in this day's wandering.

Lannacombe Mill, with one solitary house, stands in a break of the cliff, where a noisy brook rushes to the shore, looked down upon by an advancing hill, bristled with crags. Then another inward sweep, where the low, broken, irregular cliff is backed by a higher range, and you walk as on a terrace, discovering some new beauty in the rocky wall at every hundred yards. The beach, too, is easily accessible, with its varieties of seaweed, its sandy patches among the masses of slate, and shallows and basins in the rocks, where you may contemplate at leisure the wonders of the deep. In one little pool I saw half a dozen of those animated

« VorigeDoorgaan »