was in distress there once on the Friday, but would not avail herself of the proffered services of the lifeboat. On the next day, Saturday, a coasting steamer offered to tow her, but the captain refused, saying he had no tow-rope. On Sunday, in the evening, she signalled for the lifeboat at Sennen, which put out at once to her, and arrived just in time to see her mast-light disappear under the sea-all lives being lost. The first piece of wreckage which came ashore was a brand-new tow-rope: truly a Nemesis !

Here is another story: A collier was wrecked on the Cape and two men went below to get their watches and money. A sea came over whilst they were down below and jammed down the hatch on them. Those were the only two lives lost in that wreck.

On the deadly Brisons Rock two ladies in their nightdresses for two days and nights clung to the rocks in bitter cold weather before being taken off. One was dead, and is buried in Sennen churchyard, the other lived. I have condensed these narratives, but they are all literally true in every essential detail, and pathetically picture the dangers to shipping off this coast. The beauties of Nature are nearly always closely associated with her greatest perils. The most exquisitely beautiful parts of the world, such as Italy and Sicily, are the most liable to earthquakes of devastating magnitude.

Very few of the cottages at Sennen are now thatched, slate having taken the place of straw. Still, there is just one old thatcher left, and when he joins the majority the industry will, to all intents and purposes, cease to exist in this part of England. I happened to find the old man one day at work at the foot of the hill in Sennen Cove, and was fortunate enough to take a photograph of him at his occupation.

On the way from the cove, up the side of the hill towards Land's End, a remarkable stone, just verging on being a logan stone, attracts notice. So delicately poised does it seem that it looks as if the touch of the little finger would send it toppling down into the sea. I tried, however, to move it, but found it still prefers to remain on land,

CHAPTER VI

THE CORNISH HARVEST OF THE SEA: PILCHARDS AT SENNEN COVE

PILCH

LCHARDS are caught at other places in Cornwall besides Sennen Cove, but I know more about the process of catching them as it takes place there than elsewhere. When pilchards are in the bay, Sennen wakes up. It may be early afternoon on a hot somnolent August day. The siesta is given up; everywhere is bustle and confusion. Windows are thrown open, if they are not open already, and heads are thrust out with eyes inquiringly gazing on the sea. Hurried steps are heard and men and youths fly by with their coats on their arms or tugging at their sleeves to get them on to their backs as they run. No time is there to lose; pilchards, like tide, wait for no fisherman or anyone else.

At the little Cove they gather and rush out the boats, push them down the steep granite incline, making the sparks fly out from beneath their iron keels with a grinding roar as the black monsters take the water.

A very important industry at the Land's End district of Cornwall, extending from St. Ives round to the Lizard, is this pilchard (Clupea pilchardus) fishery. The other species of the genus Clupea known in this country are the herring, sprat, and whitebait, but there is not the money in them as in the pilchard. Pilchards are to Cornwall what herrings are to Yarmouth, cotton to Manchester, pigs to Ireland, and coals to Newcastle.

The pilchard (" gipsy herring," or "Spanish capon," as it used to be called) was known, at any rate, as long ago as Shakspere's day who, in his Twelfth Night, thus aptly describes it: And fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to herrings; the husband's the bigger." It is very remarkable that pilchards are only known around the coast of Cornwall. The sea is such an unobstructed highway that the local occurrence of certain fish at certain spots only is

one of the problems of Nature, and it is at present unsolved. Probably the mixture of the sea-water with certain soils from the coast dissolved in it or held in admixture, coupled with varieties of temperature, may have something to do with the explanation; or again, the food supply at certain points around the coast may only suit certain species of fish. Here the largest shoals of this little handsome nutritious fish apparently congregate, and the western end of Cornwall is therefore the principal centre for taking and exporting it. The pilchard is said to be identical with the French sardine, the latter being the same fish before it arrives at maturity. The two methods adopted for capturing the pilchard for commercial purposes are the seine net and the drift net. By the former a shoal or "school" (the term employed locally) of pilchards are surrounded and captured in bulk, and by the latter they are caught in the meshes in the net, which is one of a much lighter character, and drifts with the tide. Thus the methods are entirely different, the one being all rush and uncertainty, and the other a leisurely occupation, giving more certain opportunities for securing the fish though in far smaller quantities. Sennen Cove and Whitesand Bay make up a stretch of coast admirably adapted for the seine net process, and there the intricacies of the operation may be easily followed.

The schools usually appear in these parts from the middle of August to the middle of September, but a comparatively few days of the period are available for their capture.

An old Cornish rhyme picturesquely gives the time of year when pilchards may be expected :

"When the corn is in the shock,

The fish are on the rock."

Calm weather and a moderate flow of tide are necessary conditions for success.

During spring tides, accompanied as they often are at this part of the coast by a heavy ground-swell and surf, it is impossible to put out the seine nets. The shoals also are very uncertain in their movements, often appearing at the wrong time; and frequently the nets are shot and no school is surrounded, or if surrounded, a sudden squall setting in, or a rising sea, compels the fishermen to take in the seine, and the liberation of the pent-up fish, of course, follows.