ATMOSPHERIC EFFECTS 31 Cove, and see an immense variety of strange-looking rocks and wild coast scenery. A footpath starts over a stone stile, nearly opposite the little Sennen post office (where the G.W.R. motor will put you down), and leads to the brow of the hill below where lie, on the right, Whitesand Bay, on the left, the little attenuated clump of cottages making up Sennen Cove. If the horizon be clear, away to the south-west can be seen the Scilly Isles, faintly represented as irregular, low-lying darker masses against the sky-line. A place to rest in on a hot afternoon and let our imagination have full play and at night to gaze seaward, "To where the dreaming Scillies sleep in moon-enchanted air."1 The scene immediately below is unquestionably beautiful, and here let me at once say that the charm of this part of England does not consist in awful precipices, in savage grandeur, in depressing loneliness, or in Sahara-like barrenness. All of these extreme scenic features are better witnessed at other places, and those writers who launch out into superlatives in any of these directions have, I expect, not travelled far from home. No, to me the delights of this small bit of coast-line lie chiefly in the instability of the colouring of sky, sea, and rocks, in the swiftly changing lights and shades which kaleidoscopically never present the same picture twice of land and ocean; in the keen artistic potency of the sunshine, which at times gives place to a very nonactinic pall of sobriety and pensive thoughtfulness. A nearer acquaintance with the coves and little coast villages of this part of Cornwall heightens the charm, for they and their inhabitants are in keeping with the scene. Quaint, old-time, odd, sometimes humorous, always interesting. And then, to crown all other attraction, are the Land's End sunsets. These are only to be seen, not described. They are the distraction of artists : "Who can paint Like Nature? can imagination boast, Far away to the right, as I have said, stretches Whitesand Bay gleaming with bright white sand and bounded at the 1 Right Rev. Charles Stubbs, Lord Bishop of Truro. north extremity by Cape Cornwall with the dangerous rocks, the Brisons, keeping watch and ward over its extremity To the left, the little cove off which are seen the dark-looking, low rocks, Little Bo, Bo Cowloe, and Cowloe. The rock on which the sea is breaking between them and the Longships Lighthouse is the Shark's Fin. And then there is the lighthouse itself, acting as a warning sentinel to ships to keep clear of this dangerous part of the coast. It was in Whitesand Bay that King Stephen landed on his first arrival in England after Dover had refused to admit him, also King John on his return from the Conquest of Ireland. The daring and impudent pretender, Perkin Warbeck, the undoubtedly clever son of a Christianised Jew, is said to have landed in Whitesand Bay when he attempted to seize the crown in the reign of Henry VII. Cyrus Redding, in his Illustrated Itinerary of the County of Cornwall (1842), baldly mentions the landing as a fact, but I think it is very doubtful. The youth, who had a remarkable likeness to Edward IV, which no doubt was a leading reason why the Duchess of Burgundy espoused his cause, more probably landed nearer Bodmin, where he was joined by upwards of three thousand men, and first assumed the title of King of England by the name of Richard IV. At any rate, Sennen lays claim to the incident--not one to be proud of or crow over in any case. Sennen has, therefore, had an historic past. Entering the Cove by the road, the first cottage near the bottom of the valley on the right-hand side is an old and pretty thatched abode, behind which is all that remains of Chapel Idne, or the "narrow chapel." The Lord of Goonhilly, a proprietor of Lyonnesse, the fabled land fair and fertile stretching from Land's End to Scilly and now submerged, concerning which I have more to say later on, is said to have escaped the catastrophe of the great overflowing of the sea in 1029, and built as a thank-offering for his escape this Chapel Idne on the little plateau overlooking Whitesand Bay. Before his time there was no doubt an oratory or hermitage on the spot where the saint dwelt, and therefore the spot was considered holy ground. Now the sole remnants of the chapel consist of a rounded arch with some tracery upon it and some shaped granite stones behind it. A FAMOUS PICTURE 33 This road down to the Cove from the school-house on the downs above is the worst of roads. It is private property, and the owner does not think proper to keep it in order for the good of the public, with the result that it is nearly impassable for wheeled vehicles. Just before the Cove is entered a declivity running across the valley affords space for a useful plantation of withies in the dampness caused by a little stream. These are employed for making the crab or lobster pots which are used in the most important industry of taking those crustaceans, and crayfish as well, for the market-now chiefly the French. The quaint upright stands upon which the pots are made are to be seen in the main thoroughfares. One I photographed at the foot of Sennen Cove road was erected by angle-irons on a hatchway which had drifted ashore from some wreck. Bending round sharply to the left, the road runs to the Cove itself, where lie the pilchard boats, the windlasses for drawing the boats up the steep incline from the sea, and the lifeboat house, and there it ends. The first feature of note on turning the corner at the bottom on the level is the old inn of the place, which the swinging sign in front of the door informs you is "The Success Inn, by W. H. Pender "-rather suggestive of the title of a novel. Its parlours are small and low, and delightfully cool and restful on a hot day. Nearest the inn, facing the sea-the inn is set at right angles to it is the very long or tall, wide window, fronting on the road and sea, of the studio of the late Mr. David Farquharson, A.R.A., who died on July 12th, 1907, at Birnam, in Perthshire. One of the best pictures he ever painted, and that is saying a great deal for this particular picture, for he was an artist of no mean merit, was of Sennen -a large canvas 65 by 95 inches, and dated 1904. It is entitled Full Moon and Spring Tide. The scene is taken from the Whitesand Bay end of the Cove close down to the shore-the artist must have sat on one of the loosely grassed, sandy hillocks when he painted it. To the left the short slip of road leading down to the actual beach is seen, and just beyond the ruddy lights in the "Success Inn, by W. H. Pender are faintly discernible. In the centre is depicted D the full rush of the sea at high tide-spring tide-and therefore flowing higher than usual, with bright silvery patches where the moonbeams are reflected with gorgeous, even metallic brilliancy. The outlines of the cliffs above, and even some of the houses along the shore-line-including the artist's own studio-are dimly silhouetted against the pale moonlight. David Farquharson loved the sea, the everchangeful sea, whose moods are as manifold as a woman's. He loved to see it under the moonlight when the reflection of our wayward satellite looks like a silver path for angels to tread. Always the sea is beautiful, always alive. A mountain is beautiful, but with a dumb, inarticulate beauty. The sea speaks-and it spoke to David Farquharson in eloquent language which he understood and interpreted with realistic but lovingly poetical exactitude. One or two other cottages in the Cove have studios attached to them, showing how loved is the place by the artistic temperament. Some of the first painters to discover the beauties of Sennen and Land's End were the late J. C. Hook, R.A., C. Napier Hemy, R.A., and R. H. Carter. Passing a long low room where mission services are held, the keeper of which makes excellent Cornish pies and pasties, as I happen to know (of which more anon), the lifeboat house is reached on the right. An inclined plane of granite and cement is constructed from the large folding door, at the back, so that the boat can be run down to the sea in the Cove. But as there is a ledge of rocks directly opposite to the spot where the boat would take the water, it is obvious that the utility of this slide is greatly lessened.1 1 I am glad to say that since I wrote this, through the praiseworthy and generous instrumentality of Colonel H. W. Williams, of St. Ives, and arising out of the Board of Trade Inquiry (over which he presided) into the wreck of the Liverpool ship Khyber near the Land's End in February, 1905, when twenty-three out of the crew of twenty-six were drowned, he applied for and obtained a Provisional Order for the construction of a breakwater at Sennen Cove opposite the lifeboat house and slip, the memorial stone of which was laid in July, 1908. The breakwater is not yet completed, but the completed part has more than justified its necessity. Subscriptions are still needed to complete the undertaking. On December 21st, 1908, in the face of a frightful gale, accompanied by blinding torrents of rain, at 11 p.m. the lifeboat was enabled to be launched, and went to the relief of another Liverpool fullrigged ship, the Fairport, which was in trouble near Porthcurnow; but |