Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/189

Rh been struck by the similarity of the name of Mousehole with that of Household Heath, with which he was so familiar at Norwich; there seems no satisfactory explanation of either name. Perhaps both embody some Celtic root. Mousehole was once called Porth Enys, the island-port; and there is a little islet, St. Clement's, lying off it. The place is in every way quieter than Newlyn; there are fewer visitors in the summer months, less bustle on the quays, less stir of fish-auctions; even the artists are rarer. All is quaintness and primitive seclusion. There may be a somewhat too aggressive savour of pilchards; but we must excuse this when we remember what the pilchards mean to these fisher-folk, who were once considered somewhat of a race apart, with a supposed infusion of Spanish blood in them. There was a quay here and a chapelry in very early days, and the place was active enough before Penzance had come forward as a port at all; it is said that there was also a small oratory on St. Clement's Isle. The fisherfolk have spent a good deal on improving their harbour. The coast is grand and cavernous. On both sides, near Newlyn and at Lamorna, there is some busy quarrying; the quarries at Lamorna supplied much of the granite for the Thames Embankment. Being a favourite trip from Penzance, the cove at Lamorna is pretty well known; it opens to the sea from a very beautiful little valley formed by the Lamorna stream, wooded with hazels and alders. There need be no complaint just here that Cornwall is treeless, though beyond and above the land stretches unwooded and desolate. But it is a grand sort of desolation; only in thick weather or fierce driving storms do we feel in a kind of lost world. At the head of the