flagstaff with sloping crossyard, betokens
the coastguard station. Beyond it rise black jagged cliffs; mile after
mile of iron-bound wall: and here and there, at the glens' mouths,
great banks and denes of shifting sand.... Above, a green down
stretches up to bright yellow furze-crofts far aloft. Behind, a reedy
marsh, covered with red cattle, paves the valley till it closes in;
the steep sides of the hill are clothed in oak and ash covert....
Pleasant little glimpses there are, too, of gray stone farmhouses,
nestling among sycamore and beech; bright green meadows,
alder-fringed; squares of rich fallow-field, parted by lines of golden
furze; all cut out with a peculiar blackness and clearness, soft and
tender withal, which betokens a climate surcharged with rain. Only, in
the very bosom of the valley, a soft mist hangs, increasing the sense
of distance, and softening back one hill and wood behind another, till
the great brown moor which backs it all seems to rise out of the empty
air. For a thousand feet it ranges up, in huge sheets of brown
heather, in gray cairns and screes of granite, all sharp and
black-edged against the pale blue sky." The description of the town
itself that follows might apply tolerably well to a number of such
fishing-ports in the West Country; but Kingsley is most clearly not
speaking of Clovelly, and he introduces Cornish names. That corner of
North Devon must be content with figuring in _Westward-Ho!_ and not
claim _Two Years Ago_. There was the cholera also, which was a very
terrible reality at Mevagissey in 1849, and which did its good work as
well as its evil, by causing the place to be thoroughly cleansed. The
truly Cornish name of the town derives from a double dedication to the
Saints Meven (or Mewan) and Issey; St. Mewan being a Welsh saint, and
St. Issey probably an Irishman. The place has won, and deserved, the
nickname of Fishygissey, but there is none the less a real charm about
it; its distance from the railway, however inconvenient for visitors,
brings compensations that many can appreciate. The pier dates from
1770, but the harbour is much more recent. A fine and costly harbour
constructed about 1890 was destroyed in the following year by the
great blizzard, which is distinctly "_the_ storm" in the West of
England; the present quays were built in 1897. At one time more
pilchards were taken here than at any other spot, but the pilchard is
a fickle fish, and has no consideration be