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SANDY BEACHES OF THE NORTHERN COAST 105 Of all the four seaside places discussed in this chapter Bude has perhaps most strongly its own character. Whoever heard of a seaside place with a sweet -water canal running down the beach ? Canals are not usually associated with beauty and the very word canal is enough to frighten off many people. But the canal at Bude is quite peculiar. It only serves the purpose of a harbour for the ketches or fishing-boats apparently, and a very awkward harbour it makes too when a distracted ketch harassed by the strong flow- ing tide and baffled by a teasing wind, noses this way and that and fails to hit the narrow entrance. Then, a thing of beauty and distress, she heels over on the beach as the tide runs out, and the natives gather round to speculate whether she will " break her back " or not. Bude possesses a breakwater too, but the oddest breakwater ! For, instead of curving round like most normal ones, it sticks out straight into the sea and forms a favourite public promenade, with the added excitement that in rough weather you may very easily be swept off the hog's back of rounded stones and dashed to pieces against the rocky masses on either side. Owing to the fact that Bude Bay is on a coast 14