nd it was at this
spot that Mr. E. Spender, the founder of the _Western Morning News_,
was drowned, with his two sons; a memorial marks the spot. But many
parts of the extensive bay are perfectly safe, and there are several
nooks that are becoming increasingly popular with visitors from
Plymouth, such as Port Wrinkle, with its coastguard station, and the
pretty village of Downderry. A portion of the coast is in the parish
of St. John's, and here there is a grotto excavated by a lieutenant,
who is said to have cured himself of gout by this labour; the walls
and entrance are inscribed with verse. Another of the Whitesand
parishes is Antony East, so named to distinguish it from other
Antonies further westward, which extends from the Lynher to the coast.
In this is the seat of the Pole-Carew family, a branch of the old
Devonshire Carews. The house dates from 1721, and has some good
pictures by Holbein, Vandyke, and Reynolds. Carew, the Cornish
historian, who died in 1620, lived and wrote his works here.

CHAPTER II

LOOE AND POLPERRO

As we pass along the coast from Whitesand Bay towards Looe we are
approaching a spot that is now prized for its exceeding loveliness,
but that formerly took high rank among the seaports of the West
Country. In appearance and in ancient position it must be classed with
Dartmouth and Fowey, which both were likewise notable ports in days
when the English navy was in its sturdy infancy--days when the
national pulse beat most keenly in the south and east instead of in
the north and midlands. Commerce and industrialism have largely
changed all that; Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham have assumed
metropolitan importance in their densely populated districts. Only
Plymouth in the south-west is now of first-class consequence to the
nation; and Plymouth is a _parvenu_ compared with Looe and Fowey. The
actual decline of these two little towns may not be great, but
relatively it is enormous. Yet it deserves a milder term than decay,
for the present-day life here is still wholesome and in a certain
sense prosperous. It is a gentle and placid prosperity, very largely
the happiness of places that have no history. There is the
compensation of a glorious past, and there is the further
compensation that such places preserve for us the best picture of
what Old England truly was in days before she became "a nation of
shopkeepers." It is no use to go to the flourishing commercial cities
to find traces