PEACEFUL STREETS 415 pieces! A well-constructed and metalled road runs along this part of the Woolpack on the inside of the magnificently strong wall to the entrance, where there is a gateway with a bell over it. The town is seen here below on the low-lying isthmus. The main street of St. Mary's, Hugh Street, is practically without wheeled traffic. I did see a baker's cart delivering bread, and a donkey-cart carrying an old woman into the centre of the island, but they so woke up the echoes of the place that they were noticeable, even annoying. At night the streets are in darkness, there being no lamps. A commodious town-hall, in conjunction with the meat-market, has a large room where dances are held. While I was in St. Mary's a dance was given, the room lighted with oil lamps suspended from the lofty beams, and a brass band of ten local musicians provided the music. The entrance fee was one shilling, and the dance got up by the townspeople themselves. The local dances were accompanied by a concertina, notably the Elbow Dance-a romp somewhat like Sir Roger, where two long lines are formed, the ladies facing the gentlemen, the men hooking the ladies alternately by the elbows. The refreshments were of the light description, no intoxicants provided, and everything paid for, at most moderate prices, as taken. These dances are got up at short notice, quite impromptu, and there is no programme, the master of the ceremonies simply giving out the name of each dance. Peninnis Down has on its fringe facing the sea a collection of natural outcrop rocks which is the most remarkable I have seen in Cornwall. Here can be seen incipient logan stones of far larger size than those on the mainland. The rocks around the tip of the tongue of land jutting out into the sea are simply colossal units piled one on top of another; several of the masses, square in shape, must weigh two hundred tons apiece. Some take on representations of animal life. A pair of gaping masses look just like the jaws of an alligator many times larger than any ever seen in life. Delicately poised blocks of granite (for all are of that fine stone) seem inviting the touch of a Hercules to push them over into the foaming sea beneath. Short fiords with ragged, rocky sides run up into the short-turfed down, lined by deeply seamed granite walls, up which the sea roars and fumes, sending up sheets of white foam which float in flocculent wreaths over the grass as if they were quite innocent of the awful, everlasting grind of sea on shore which produced them. These rocky pinnacles, towers, buttresses, castles, are weirdly inhuman, and yet at the same time strangely suggestive of some satanic agency which purposely placed them in their queer positions and wild surroundings. No wonder a primitive race thought them due to the handiwork of a past people of giants to whom a ton's weight was as an ounce is to us, and who could throw these blocks about as a child does pebbles into the sea. They have received names more or less truly descriptive of their appearance. Thus Tooth Rock and Monk's Cowl are seen close together rising about one hundred feet above the sea. The Pulpit Rock is another suggestive title of a pile showing clearly the horizontal decomposition going on, which also resembles a hundred-ton gun pointed out to sea. From the upper rock-or top of the sounding-board, to keep up the pulpit fiction-easy to climb up upon, a fine view is obtained of Old Town Bay and a part of St. Mary's. A short walk across the isthmus brings the visitor to Old Town, where some of the ancient cottages are to be seen, and on the left of the bay is a curiosity placed on one side of the roadway. This is a large trough hewn out of one stone which in former days was used in common by all the fishermen of this part to salt their fish in. I found it measured in length 7 feet 3 inches, in width 2 feet 2 inches, in depth 2 feet 4 inches, the thickness of the sides being 5 inches. Walking on a little farther, Porth Hellick Bay is reached, the Giant's Castle-a natural group of wild rocks-forming its western boundary. The path runs all round this low-lying bay close to the shore, and the spot is of interest as having been the scene of the wreck of the Association in 1707, when Sir Cloudesley Shovell's body was washed ashore, and picked up on the beach and buried in the sand. The wreck occurred on October 22nd, the Association, the Eagle, the Royal Ann, the Romney, the Firebrand, the St. George, and the Phoenix being on their return voyage from Toulon after the capture |