CHANNEL PORTS- 



could talk long and lovingly of St. Ivesj 

 which has the loveliest bay in Cornwall 



Here is no narrow chasm, where 

 houses squeeze and crowd like swallows' 

 nests and great rocks bar the way. St. 

 Ives sits by a smooth circle of sea into 

 which a tongue of rocky land thrusts a 

 bold curving headland, inclosing an inner 

 harbor in the great sweep of the bay. 

 Here by the sea dwells the "real" St. 

 Ives, close-pressed, low-crouched, stone- 

 built to withstand the worst storms of 

 sea and time. 



Up the green hillside climb the summer 

 homes, the villas and cottages and hotels, 

 that belong to the transient St. Ives. As 

 its mean winter temperature is but 4 de- 

 grees lower than that of Rome, it has a 

 fair percentage of winter visitors, while 

 in summer its hotels are crowded. St. 

 Ives does not let its visitors interfere 

 with its business, which is pilchard fish- 

 ing — a picturesque thing to the idle on- 

 looker, but heavy-smelling work for the 

 fishermen — and renting studios. 



It has been said that of the 200 or 

 more canvases dispatched each year 

 from Cornwall to London "seven-eighths 

 have been painted at Newlyn or St. 

 Ives." Certainly, in the tangled streets of 

 the little town, wherever a window gives 

 upon the sea be sure an easel stands. 



St. Ives gets its name from an Irish 

 princess, St. la, who floated thither upon 

 a leaf and landed on Pendinas, the rocky 

 headland which St. Ives calls "the island." 

 "Are there many saints in Cornwall?" I 

 once asked a Cornish friend. "Don't 

 you know the old saying?" he replied. 

 "There are more saints in Cornwall than 

 in heaven." I'm not prepared to dispute 

 it, and certainly the Cornish saints have 

 arresting names and habits. 



"a lady saixt indeed" 



My St. la has been hotly contended, I 

 must admit. "A lady saint indeed !" cried 

 the artist scornfully. "Just go to Brit- 

 tany and learn what extraordinary things 

 St. Ives did there ! Things no lady saint 

 would have done !" Just as if only mas- 

 culine saints did extraordinary things ! 



It was in 450 that St. la drifted in on 

 her leaf and suffered martyrdom. The 

 Irish saints had delightful means of trav- 



mmm m 



:ers~ 31 



1IC 



lina^g^tejpk'aiijxame on a'ififllsjtone. 



jiy one wftWi*5*»AyN fiW/elsh caracle 

 "'in inn 1 I I in I Tn C^rriHi th" pljice is 

 called Porth la, and the squafe^towered 

 church there by Porthminster sands com- 

 memorates the name. In its tiny yard is 

 a beautiful old cross dug up a century 

 ago from the place where it had lain for 

 how many hundred years ? YYe like to 

 think it St. la's own, but there are those 

 that say it is later, and others who main- 

 tain it is older far than she. The stone 

 of it, like that of many another Cornish 

 cross, was probably part of a menhir, 

 those curious druidical monuments fre- 

 quent in Cornwall and Brittany. 



At St. Ives we touch "modern con- 

 veniences" once more, and by changing 

 trains twice may reach Polperro's nearest 

 coast neighbor, the two Looes ; for they 

 are two, on either side of a trickling 

 "littel broke that cometh down out of the 

 hilles" to the sea, with a quaint old leg- 

 end-bearing bridge to bind them, like 

 many other Cornish ports. 



The houses are in all shades that 

 "whitewash" yields — blue, pink, lavender, 

 corn, or silvery gray — framed in their 

 honeysuckle, roses, and rich trees, climb- 

 ing the hills upon both sides of the way. 

 Upon the river's east bank there is a level 

 stretch permitting a roadway, but the 

 west bank leaps straight up from the 

 water edge. 



look's brave history 



The towns are not very ancient, but be- 

 fore the days of Elizabeth they had sent 

 many boats to the wars with France and 

 Spain. Details of these are hazy in Looe 

 minds, but one thing holds fast — one boat 

 sailing from the port must be a George, 

 in memory of a George which took three 

 Spanish galleys single-handed in an "in- 

 ternational unpleasantness" hundreds of 

 years ago. 



There is the island off the western cliff, 

 scene of many adventures in those gay, 

 swaggering days gone beyond recall. De- 

 licious is that one where the fast-sailing 

 smugglers derisively offer the revenue 

 cutter a tow-line. Looe depends upon 

 her summer guests and her fishing-boats, 

 of which about 50 go to the fisheries off 

 the Irish coast. Those fishing-boats, 



