Cornwall (England : County) -- Description and travel
The coast to the south of Land's End is even more interesting, and if
any of those who say they are "disappointed" with Land's End could walk
round here they would soon recover. The coast-line is serrated by
innumerable small bays like deep bites and in each one some wild and
strange rock-forms imitating natural objects can be seen. We pass at
first by Carn Greab, Cock's Comb Rock, where a conspicuous group
includes the Armed Knight, and then we come to a tiny island called Enys
Dodman, which has a great archway scored through it by the action of the
waves. Pardenick Point rises perpendicularly about two hundred feet from
the sea; the curious "pillar" appearance of the rocks is very striking,
and not less so the reddish veins which run like streams sheer down the
granite in places. Anyone lingering here, as the sun sets and the
shadows grow long, can make out all sorts of weird shapes and haunting
faces in the cliffs, as odd as any mediaeval artist's conceptions
embodied in gargoyles. We pass Mozrang Pool, the Maid's Pool, and then
the Red Rock, and the Chilly Carn; next a chasm called by the poetical
name of "The Song of the Sea," and so to the "Cove under the Vale." All
along the coast, those who have time to explore it will find strange
sea-caverns, logan-stones, natural arches and other fantastic forms.
Then we reach Tol Pedn, where is quite the grandest scenery in the
whole district. Approaching from the landward side on an autumn or late
summer day the heights are seen covered by a wonderful carpet of purple
or crimson and gold. It is made by the intermingling of the dwarf gorse
and the heather, which are so interwoven they could not be separated. As
the result of this close embrace these two plants, both small, form a
gorgeous tapestry of colour, and the vast heights and sounding hollows
of the headland are glorified by them. Tol Pedn means Holed Headland and
evidently refers to the Funnel, a great chasm a hundred feet in depth
and eight feet in diameter, cut out as if by a giant cheese-scoop down
to the roaring sea. Below, the tide scours the bottom at every return,
and at low tide it is possible to enter from the beach. In early spring
the close sward on the higher reaches is starred with little blue
squills. Great care must be taken not to slip and lose one's balance on
this short turf, because in Cornwall one is never fenced in by puny
supports. The Chair Ladder usually attracts much wonder, it is an
immense pile of upright blocks. The whole scarping and shaping of the
cliff is vigorous and original, and looking down from above into one
gully after another you can see the gulls float in effortless dignity
over the measureless gulfs below.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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