At 7 feet from the entrance a lateral gallery branches off to the right, extending at present but 17 feet, and of that a portion of the roof has fallen in. This gallery was much lower than the main one, not being higher than 3 feet, but probably in a portion now choked it rose, at all events in places, to a greater height. This side gallery never served for the storage of smuggled goods. It was a passage that originally was carried as far as the little cluster of cottages at Trevethan, whence, so it is said, another passage communicated with the sands of Porth Mear. The opening of the underground way is said to have been in a well at Trevethan. But the whole is now choked up. The tunnel was not carried in a straight line. It branched out of the trunk at an acute angle, and was carried in a sweep through the rocks with holes at intervals for the admission of light and air. The total length must have been nearly 3500 feet. The passage can in places be just traced by the falling in of the ground above, but it cannot be pursued within. At the beginning of this century this smugglers' cave was in use. There is still living an old woman who can give information relative to the use of this cave. "Well, Genefer, did you ever see smugglers who employed the Vouggha?" Vouggha, as already stated, is the old Cornish word for cave. "Well, no, sir. I can't say that; but my father did. He minded well the time when the Vouggha was filled wi' casks of spirits right chuck-full." "But how were they got there?" "That was easy enough. The boats ran their loads into Porth Cothan, or, if the preventive men were on the watch, into Porth Mear, which is hidden by the Island of Trescore, drawn like a screen in front. They then rolled the kegs, or carried 'em, to the mouth of the Vouggha or to Trevemedar, it did not matter which, and they rolled 'em into the big cave, and then stopped the mouth up. They could go and get a keg whenever they liked by the little passage that has its mouth in the garden." "Did the preventive men never find out this place?" "Never, sir, never. How could they? Who'd be that wicked as to tell them? and they wasn't clever enough to find it themselves. Besides, it would take a deal of cleverness to find the mouth of the Vouggha when closed with clats of turf and drawn over with brambles; and that in the garden could be covered in five minutes--easy." After a pause the old woman said, "Ah! it's a pity I be so old and feeble, or I could show you another as I knows of, and, I reckon, no one else. But my father he had the secret. Oh, dear! oh, dear! what is the world coming to--for education and all kinds o' wickedness? Sure, there's no smuggling now, and poor folks ha'n't got the means o' bettering themselves like proper Christians."