rm and
wreckage; there are many times here when the waves lap peacefully
against the old stone piers, when the air is soft and delicious, and
when the women at their doors, engaged in their everlasting task of
knitting jerseys for their men, can chatter of the happiest subjects
without dreaming of storm or shipwreck. This is the calmer mood in
which visitors generally find Polperro.

Probably not many visitors will trouble to inquire into the derivation
of the name of Polperro; they will be content to know that it is
Cornish. There would be something to do indeed if tourists were to ask
the meaning of every place-name they meet with, and if they depended
on local replies their last state would certainly be worse than their
first. But an intelligent inquiry into the origin of place-names is
always delightful and useful. _Pol_, of course, is one of the
recognised Cornish prefixes; it is simply pool, the Welsh _pwll_, a
creek or inlet or "pill." The _perro_ is supposed to be a corruption
of Peter, and the whole name would thus mean Peter's Pool, so called
from a chapel to St. Peter that once stood on Chapel Hill. An earlier
name was Porthpeyre, which neither assists nor contradicts such a
derivation. That St. Peter should be the patron of an old fishing town
is only natural. Leland speaks of the place: "a fishar towne with a
peere." There are some who say that you really have to walk sideways
in Polperro, the streets are so narrow; but that is an exaggeration.
Small as the place is, it afforded abundant material to Mr. Jonathan
Couch, the country doctor who lived and died here (1788-1870), for his
_History of Polperro_, which is a very charming book; and he further
added to the reputation of the town by discovering certain
ichthyolitic remains known as the "Polperro fossils." Happily he was a
naturalist who recognised that the study of man is an important branch
of all natural history; and geologic curiosities, interesting as they
are, can hardly compete with the tales of old Polperro privateers and
smugglers. Polperro built its own boats as it bred its own seamen, and
both were excellent. That they were arrant smugglers was a
characteristic of the times and of the locality; it is not for us to
judge them. That they were men of piety is proved by the epitaph of
that smuggler who prays for the pardon of the Preventive man who had
shot him down:--

"I by a shot which rapid flew
Was instantly struck dead.
Lo