is more water than can thus be carried off, and it was
formerly the custom to cut the Bar at such times that the superfluous
flood might rush through. A culvert has now been constructed for this
purpose, so that the cutting of the Bar is now superseded. A writer
who was at school at Helston tells us that "when the floods became
serious, and the Loe too near Helston to be pleasant, there was a
solemn function performed by the men of Helston, with the Mayor at
their head, called breaking the Bar. The Loe was so full that a small
trench cut between it and the sea let out the waters; there was then a
rush of water and the Loe became connected with the sea by a deep
chasm through which the tide flowed. I have never seen the Bar broken,
but I have seen the deep chasm in the bar of sand with the tide
flowing in and out. The natural forces which originally made the Bar
restored it, and in the course of some months it became the same as
before." Mr. Hind says he was told by a sailor that "when he was a boy
Loe Bar used to be broken once a fortnight"; but we sometimes
exaggerate the things that we remember of our boyhood, and certainly
the cutting can never have been as frequent as this. C. A. Johns, who
knew Helston well, says that it was rarely necessary to cut the Bar
more than twice a year, sometimes not even once; and further,
describing a cutting, he says: "In a few hours a deep mighty river is
bursting out with inconceivable velocity, and engaging in violent
conflict with the waves of the ocean; as the two meet they clash
together with terrific uproar, while the sea for twenty, or even
thirty miles, is tinged of an ochreous hue. Even at the Scilly Islands
the cutting of the Loe Bar has been notified by the altered colour of
the water." As the pool belonged to the lord of Penrose, it was
customary to present him with a purse containing three-halfpence to
obtain his permission for the cutting of the Bar. All this is a thing
of the past, but Loe Pool remains as the only sheet of water in
Cornwall worthy to be termed a lake, with banks finely wooded and
carpeted with flowers. In shape it is more like a broad river than a
lake, and it is in fact the land-locked estuary of the Cober, cut off
from full intercourse with the sea by this pebbly and sandy spit.
Helston claims that it was once a seaport, with vessels sailing close
up to its walls; and the formation of the Loe Bar, which destroyed all
access, is said to have been one o