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IQOI-1902.| A Winter in Cornwall. 355 
the pleasures of the Cornish folks, and in towns like Fowey 
almost every householder owns a boat of some kind or other. 
Besides the usual method of allowing such to float in the 
harbour, attached to chains which are fixed to an iron ring at 
the bottom of the sea, some residenters have erections like 
masts on the top of their garden walls, with ropes that run 
round with a pulley at the end, and to these ropes the craft is 
fixed, When it is desired to draw the boat to the foot of the 
stone stairs that run down to the water’s edge, all they have 
to do is to loosen the rope from the cleek on the pole and haul 
in the vessel hand over hand. The only reason for mentioning 
this plan is to explain that locally this apparatus is called 
“frapes,” the derivation of which word I cannot discover. At 
first sight it looks like a corruption of the French frapper, but 
the English meaning of the word does not bear out that 
hypothesis. Possibly it may be a relic of the extinct Cornish 
tongue. 
As is matter of history, constant fighting used to take place 
between the Cornish and Continental nations, chiefly the 
French and Spanish, and to guard against the incursions of 
these enemies, a series of small castles or blockhouses were 
built along the rocky coasts. Numerous ruins of these still 
exist, and at Fowey itself there are remains of three. Between 
the one on the Fowey side and the other at Polruan, a small 
town opposite, tradition has it that a heavy iron chain was 
stretched across the water so as to impede the passage of 
hostile vessels. A link of this chain, believed to be genuine, 
is preserved in that most singular construction known as 
“The Grotto,” at Pridmouth Cove, a few miles along the coast 
from Fowey. In our day blockhouses—which, by the way, 
are somewhat similar in shape to our Scottish peel-towers— 
have given place to coastguard stations, and these to a certain 
extent supply the material to man that Navy of which all 
loyal Britons are justifiably so proud. 
Before passing on to the next division of our subject, a few 
words anent the climate may not be amiss. Comparing it 
with Scotland, it is, naturally, from the geographical position 
of the country, much milder, but in winter this undoubted 
gain is neutralised by the heavy rainfall. All winters are 
; not, of course, so humid as the one I spent there, which was 
