Logo
Prev
Bookmark
Rotate
Print
Next
Contents
All Pages
Related Articles
Browse Issues
Help
Search
Home
'
National Geographic : 1961 Aug
Contents
Cowes to Cornwall scarcely a point of land or a reef of rocks that day which hadn't claimed some famous wreck. The whole run was fascinating. Though the day was quiet, we tossed and tumbled in turbulent seas off the Lizard, which is really only a cape and nothing like a lizard at all (page 160). We ran in toward the beach by romantic St. Michael's Mount, as ships had done to beach and load Cornish tin 2,000 years and more before. The beautiful castle on the Mount, at once stronghold and sanctuary, fortress and priory, looked romantic and ad venturous upon its perfect perch, where its guns could protect the bay. St. Michael's Mount seen from seaward is one of the finest sights in all England (page 175). Land's End Gnashes Sharp Fangs So is Land's End, that somber, sea smashed headland of rock and cliff and dread ful breakers roaring in with all the fetch of the wild Atlantic behind them (page 168). We gave those rocks a good wide berth. One slight touch of the gnarled old fang-toothed stones would rip the Tectona to pieces, as they had done all along there to so many, many ships before. The day was clear, the weather good, our sailing a profound delight. But it could well be otherwise; we all knew that. All who sail in ships around there are pleased to see the excellent navigation marks, lighthouses and buoys, and the coastguard and lifeboat sta tions, some of these in remarkably exposed places, but ready. We went to the Lizard from the land side Ruminating Cows Stare Back at the Camera Photographer Goodman spent hours sitting in the field with the cows and moving closer from time to time. "My success in get ting this shot," he says, "probably was due to hav ing a mouthful of gum working all the time. After a while the only difference between the cows and my self was the fact that I had a camera in hand... and no visible horns." later, from Falmouth along the narrowest of lanes, past ivy-clad ruins of the hauling and pumping works of long-abandoned tin and copper mines, past fertile fields of rich brown corn [grain] ready for threshing. The lanes ran incredibly narrow and twist ing, as if they'd developed from farm-cart tracks as old as England. Rains of centuries had washed the track level down and down, until often the fields stood high on either side, and it was impossible to see over even a low hedge (opposite). Those roads had literally worn themselves through the fields, up hill and down dale. In the exceedingly narrow passing places (any spot where the lane widens three or four feet), often the hubs and door handles of the car scraped hard rock, close beneath the un dergrowth, where some farmer a thousand years ago had stacked up the gathered stones from his field. In such a place, when summer visitors ar rive with cars and sometimes trailers as well, driving would be a nightmare if cheerful cooperation weren't the universal habit. We drove hundreds of miles in Cornwall, with countless road courtesies and never a snarl from anyone. Everybody backed up into pass ing places or the entrance to fields to help us along. Bus drivers were most courteous of all, backing for everybody, even up steep hills. We backed up often ourselves. We found the Lizard lifeboat in its shed jammed under a cliff in Polpeor Cove. The only way it could be launched was by rushing down a steep runway straight into the tur bulent rock-strewn sea. With an onshore wind, the place must be impossible. I saw it KODACHROME© NATIONALGEOGRAPHICSOCIETY
Links
Archive
1961 Jul
1961 Sep
Navigation
Previous Page
Next Page