and martial ardour became as dormant as music amongst us, till they suddenly woke up together the other day, and Robin Hood’s descendants, seizing the rifle, found it come as handy to them as the long bow, and beat the whole military world at hitting the mark they aimed at.
And altogether a very different race are these Volunteers from those we remember. They have the culture of half a century on them, united to the old “pluck.”
But our poor villagers were every bit as brave and self-devoting, and when hearing of the brighter present we ought not to forget the kindly and gallant past.
COVERED UP.
The laws of change, more than any others, appeal to the instincts and the sight, not only of the educated and scientific, but also of the rude and ignorant. We constantly observe alterations going on in ourselves, our belongings, and almost everything around us, and yet it seldom occurs to us that there is an unseen, of which the effects only are visible, while the actual workings that conduce to those effects are hidden, or at best, very partially revealed to us. In this latter category we may class the phenomena of geology, which show us what wholesale changes this old world has undergone, and for aught we know, may yet have to undergo before all things are completed. These are the silent changes which have taken, not years nor centuries, but countless ages of so lengthened a duration that they cannot be grasped by the human mind. In fact, in the greater number of cases, scientific men can only judge relatively of the time consumed and of the amount of change that has taken place in that period; for nature very rarely shows herself at work, though never quiescent. In some few of these cases the changes have been so recent as to be matters of history, or even to come within the memory of man. And in saying this, I do not mean to include those fearful and sudden catastrophes which have been produced by earthquakes or the eruptions of volcanoes, as at Pompeii and Lisbon, but rather changes which are going on slowly and surely from day to day, by which the conditions of the surface are perceptibly altered and the relations of land and sea become differently proportioned. In a former paper[1] we saw how certain tracts of land had been at one time or another engulphed by the remorseless waves, and were for ever lost to the country, as far as any practical value was concerned. On the other hand, in accordance with that compensating principle with which Nature abounds, not only in geology, but in every other phase, the sea has in various places gradually receded, so that the once submerged land has been laid bare and reclaimed to useful purposes; for instance, I may mention the Morfa Harlech, that immense alluvial flat which is so well known to every tourist in North Wales as extending from the base of Harlech Castle to the sea. This expanse, on which now crops of ripe corn are growing, was unmistakably covered by the water at one time, and if the sea were to take it into its head to retreat in the same way a little farther south, occupied by the present Bay of Cardigan, we should get an extraordinary insight into the condition of the Cantreff y Gwaelod, or Lowland Hundred, that important district where no less than fifty cities are said to have flourished.
In this paper, however, I propose to draw the attention not so much to the ravages of the sea, as to those of the land, though, after all, were it not for the ceaseless action of the waves, triturating and reducing everything to the same fine degree, one of the most destructive geological elements, viz., sand, would be wanting. Few who loiter about on the sea-shore and sportively kick up the small clouds of sand, would imagine that that apparently light and almost impalpable powder could form one of the most subtle and sure means of destruction; and that although its progress is slow, it is no less certain than the terrible stream of lava which issues from the mouth of Vesuvius.
I will endeavour to bring forward a few examples in our own kingdom, where not only tradition, but even the memory “of the oldest inhabitant,” can prove that in certain places towns and buildings existed, nay, and do yet exist, under smooth and equable layers of sand, which look as if the foot of man had never trod that portion of the country. The north coast of Cornwall is very liable to these inundations, and is characterised by what are called “dunes” or “towans”—bare expanses of sand hillocks, very monotonous to gaze upon and very fatiguing to walk in.
These dunes are, in a great degree, the prevailing features of the entire parish of Perranzabuloe, the very name of which, “Perran in sabulo”—Perran in the sand—attests the universal presence of the enemy. We know that the district was overwhelmed, partly by tradition and partly by ocular demonstration. The legend states that St. Patrick visited Cornwall on a missionary and preaching errand, and that, on his departure from thence, he deputed St. Piran, one of the bishops on whom he had laid hands, to proceed there and further his Christian efforts. St. Piran came about the fifth century, converted the natives from paganism, built an oratory, and departed this life, full of years and sanctity. Thereupon a church was built over his grave, and was in constant use for something like a century, when it was conjectured that, in consequence of some alteration in the coast level, the district was overrun with sand, and the church, in common with everything else, was covered up. Even in those early days, the devouring character of the sand was known and dreaded, and experience had shown that a stream of running water was the only thing that would stop it in its career.
A second church was therefore built, fortified by the stream, and remained for ages as a monument of the Christian feelings of the ancient Cornishmen, who enlarged it about the middle of the fourteenth century. Time flew on, and mining industry sprang up, with all the changes of surface to which it gave rise, entailing, among other things, the diversion of the stream, unfortunately for the church, which was covered- ↑ See vol. iii., p. 187.
