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National Geographic : 1961 Aug
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Wild Seas Beat Jagged Cliffs in a Misty No Man's Land Atlantic waters, surging 3,000 miles, wrench at boulders and hollow out coves at Hell's Mouth on Cornwall's north coast. Legend says that at twi light drowned sailors can be heard calling their names above the rhyth mic ebb and flow of the surf. Purple heather carpets the slope. Gulls ride the wind to a visitor's handout at Hell's Mouth. cient Cornish language, a sort of earlier cousin of Welsh, which has not been in general use since the 15th century. Many words have remained in daily use, how ever, and Cornish bards now discourse in the tongue at the Gorsedd, an annual assembly of scholars interested in the ancient sites and customs of Cornwall (page 172). Secure in their hilly fastnesses, and out at the southwestern extremity of communication, the ancient Cornish people remained cut off from England. They liked it that way. The Roman oc cupation meant little to them, and the waves of later continental invasions less. Even the Norman Conquest in the 11th century took time to penetrate, and then not deeply. The Cornishman has remained a true son of his native land, far more than the people in most other parts of England. This aloofness, this sense of long conti nuity, this difference, is a very real thing. You feel it in the leafy lanes, high-sided with the growth of ages, stones mossy and lichen covered. You feel it in the shadow of the an cient Christian crosses that abound. You feel it in the names of places and people, the lilt of Cornish voices, their folklore, their ceremonies, and their ways. Few Harbors Break Savage North Coast You feel it along the wild and dangerous north coast, and the balmy, more favored south. The north coast I found an extraordi nary place, even for Cornwall. From a sea man's point of view, I had been warned about it long before, for it is notoriously exposed. The few so-called harbors require local knowledge and a good deal of luck, too, for the stranger sailing in under bad conditions. 1 -IA nUM < U.- v " T m-LVIL- -LL o IiKUuV-NUK ANu KODACHROMEBY ALANVILLIERS © NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICSOCIETY From seaward or from landward, the brooding, gaunt cliffs seem savage, almost ferocious-miles of them, the sea edge lit tered and beset with the fang-toothed rocks of ages and shallow reefs extending far out (page 168). Once caught in such places, no ship could live. Here countless good seamen have been bashed to death, bloody and bone-crushed and torn on that merciless coast. The cliffs rise to 700 feet, abrupt, often precipitous. The strong tides race over the few beaches. There is no shelter for a ship between Padstow in Cornwall and Bideford in Devon. I did not sail here in the Tectona. She drew 10 feet of water; so she stayed in south coast ports where she was safe. From the land side we found glorious places all around the north coast, no matter how forbidding the cliffs might be. I took a partic 187
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