"The long wave lapping on the shingly beach,"
It is also comparatively near to Land's End; and "the land of Lyonnesse," so often alluded to in the legends of King Arthur, is said to be a district now submerged by the sea, but formerly lying between Land's End and Scilly. All these are but conjectures, however. More reliable records of the past are to be found in the traces of charcoal-burning in the woods round the Looe, which bear evidence of the sacrifice of their trees made by the then owners of the property to the royal cause during the civil wars. The Cornishmen were mostly Royalists. Though the Looe is always spoken of as a _lake_, it is, in fact, only divided from the sea by a narrow neck of land called the Bar, which once in about every three years is cut through with a great amount of ceremony, the mayor of Helstone asking permission of the lord of the manor, and presenting him, as immemorial custom enjoins, with three half-pence.
Porthleven, the little port or watering-place of Helstone, may be interesting to Londoners as the shipping-place of much of the granite used in building the Thames embankment.
Between the Lizard and Mount's Bay is a fine rugged piece of scenery, the grandest headland of which is called Trewarvas Point. From it can be seen the three noble capes of Mullion, Helzephron, and the Lizard; and at Trewarvas itself are some romantic fantastic-shaped rocks, one of which, from some fancied resemblance to an ecclesiastic in his robes, has obtained the name of the "Bishop."
From Helstone we went to Falmouth, the enchanting beauty of the scenery round which place is little known to those who have merely paid a flying visit to that dirty seaport, and perhaps inspected the harbor. Falmouth itself, as we suppose most persons know, is not a particularly ancient town. Sir Walter Raleigh was the first to discover its great advantages of situation, and it was at his recommendation that Queen Elizabeth had the town and harbor built. But, comparatively modern as is Falmouth itself, its neighborhood abounds in the associations of antiquity. A gentleman's seat on the shore of the beautiful creek known as Helford River still bears the name of Gyllindune,--_i.e._, "William's grave," from being a traditional burial-place of Prince William, son of Henry I., and lost in the wreck of "The White Ship." This tradition goes far to contradict a statement we met with in a number of a popular magazine, to the effect that while the French popular mind retains many legends of the highest antiquity, in England popular tradition does not stretch back to a period more remote than the civil wars of the seventeenth century....