eel shrieking overhead, and out at sea
a schooner is labouring heavily." Unfortunately, the cliffs, both here
and at Talland, have lately been somewhat disfigured by huge
scaffoldings erected by the Admiralty for speed tests; but it takes
more than this to spoil Polperro. In spite of its appearance of having
slipped, many of the houses look as if they were carved out of the
very rock itself, and in some cases their steps actually are so
carved. Polperro, part of which is in the parish of Talland and part
in Lansallos, remains more lonely and primitive than Looe, for it is
not touched by the railway, and its site offers little temptation to
expansion. But it is becoming more and more sought after; artists have
learned to love it and have introduced it to the art galleries; the
inevitable sophistication must follow, just as Clovelly and Robin
Hood's Bay have become sophisticated. But nothing can take from
Polperro the loveliness of its position at the mouth of this seaward
gorge, the beauty of the hills that surround it, the deep, restful
blue of its seas. There are three piers protecting its safe little
harbour, but even these are hardly enough in times of tempest, and
heavy baulks of wood are let down into grooves, further to break the
force of the waves. The sea has played a deadly part to Polperro folk
in the past, and is ready to do so again. Old Jonathan Couch, the
forefather of our present "Q," gives a striking picture of what
Polperro used to be like in a storm during the days when he was doctor
here, a century since:--"The noise of the wind as it roars up the
coomb, the hoarse rumbling of the angry sea, the shouts of the
fishermen engaged in securing their boats, and the screams of the
women and children carrying the tidings of the latest disaster, are a
peculiarly melancholy assemblage of sounds, especially when heard at
midnight. All who can render assistance are out of their beds, helping
the sailors and fishermen; lifting the boats out of reach of the sea,
or taking the furniture of the ground-floors to a place of safety."
Every fishing port round the coast knows what such a tempest means,
and the horror, the hopeless and helpless desolation it arouses in
the minds of the women at home, if it should overtake their men at
sea. In these aspects, at least, our shores are still primitive; they
still know the primal force of wind and waves: there is no
sophisticating, no taming of these. But days are not all of sto