coloured bottles. Neither is there a lawyer in the place: but it is said that there are at least more than one close by in the little town of Stratton.
Until about thirty years ago, the ships which traded to and from Bude ran in upon the sand, and, lying there, discharged and took in their cargoes. They were small sloops, generally, and the risk was great upon a shore so exposed. But about that time a Company obtained an Act of Parliament, and the canal, already mentioned, was completed. This—after a succession of remarkable inclines from the high hills inland, up and down which the barges are worked by a very ingenious management of water-power—ends in a large basin with a wharf, opening upon a lock, and leading out directly, at high water, into the sea itself. The advantages of this canal are very great. Ships, once inside the lock, can lie safely in the basin, and the whole country is benefited by the conveyance of coals, timber, and other traffic into the interior.
More than all, the canal supplies the neighbouring villages, within a circuit of perhaps twenty miles, with the famous Bude sea-sand. For centuries this has been taken from the beach in front of the village, and for centuries no lasting increase and no decrease have been marked. After a small visible diminution by means, it may be, of two months’ steady work in carrying it away, a tide comes in, and deposits again in the same place, within a range of perhaps some ten or twenty acres, all that is required: or, if a succession of such tides may come, there soon follows another with a change of wind, and the excess is swept out, once more, into the sea. This sand is valuable as a manure, containing sixty or seventy per cent. of lime; and its good effects upon heavy lands may be traced for years after. At what may be called the farmers’ idle time, in August, between the two harvests, there may be often seen upon the sands, in addition to the carts of the canal company, as many as fifty or a hundred country waggons at one time, all busy in loading the sea-sand. The canal company have laid down iron tram-roads, running far down towards low-water mark, upon which their peculiarly constructed carts run, and a horse draws easily two or three tons of sand. It is said, that the first notice of Bude is with reference to its sand, in a charter dated in the reign of Richard the Second.
The coast of Cornwall, from its northern extremity, 10 miles from Bude, southward to Trevose Head, which is distant about 20 miles, sweeps in a long curve, to which the name of Bude Bay is given in the maps. The coast is terrible throughout the whole extent. Rock-bound, with cliffs rising often to the height of 300 and nearly 400 feet, there are only a few breaks of sand here and there, at distant intervals, interrupting the constant dash of the waves against the very bases of the cliffs. Of these breaks of sand that at Bude with its harbour (a deeper indentation of perhaps a quarter of a mile) is the most important.
Lofty and precipitous as many of the cliffs are, immediately close to Bude, the highest on the coast are in the adjoining parish of Morwenstow, where one, Henna Cliff (the Raven’s Crag) towers to a height of more than 400 feet. It is Morwenstow, also, whose vicar’s name will long be remembered, not alone for energetic work in his own village, but as the author of some of the most beautiful modern English ballads. These long ranges of cliffs are seen from the shore at Bude, lying as it does in the depth of the bay, extending southward to Trevose, and on the north to Hartland Point, with Lundy Island, clear and lofty, separate in the farthest distance.
The haven or harbour at Bude is in shape something like the section of a pear, from which the end at the stem has been cut off. It faces west; on the north side the cliffs for about a quarter of a mile are low; on the south they are lofty, with beds of rock and reefs below them. Upon the north side, below the cliffs, stretches a magnificent reach of sand, firm and dry at low water, for the length of between three and four miles. Between the two sides, nearly midway, a large rock stands boldly up, in appearance like that of St. Michael’s Mount; and it had anciently a chapel dedicated to St. Michael on its summit. No ruins of this remain. From the base of the cliffs at the south side a breakwater, constructed at great cost by the canal company, runs out and joins the “Chapel Rock.” This forms a good shelter for vessels once inside, but limits the entrance of the harbour to the narrow space between its extremity at the rock and the north cliffs: not exceeding, perhaps, 300 yards: and even this space is not all equally available for vessels entering the port. The real entrance is as narrow, except under very favourable circumstances of weather, as the channel of the little river which deepens close under the Chapel Rock towards the sea.
Hence it is that there is very little exaggeration in saying that ships seldom get into or out of Bude without some slight risk. Let the weather be ever so moderate, there may be a little roll of the sea on, and the wind may drop, and the ship drift upon a rock; or, from ignorance of the locality, a strange captain may keep his vessel a little away from the Chapel Rock,—too close to which, generally, he cannot go,—and so, run in upon the sand or reefs to the north.
But it is (and frequently it happens) when there is an “awkward” tide, and perhaps some six or eight ships waiting to run in, that we see excitement and anxiety at Bude. Every hour since low water the sea and the wind have been anxiously watched by the old captains of the place, by the owners who are at home, and by the “hovellers.”[1] As the hour of high water approaches, you may often see faces lengthen, and hear grave doubts expressed as to the safety- ↑ The hovellers are the pilots of the Cornish sea-ports. At Bude they are employed, some six or eight, by the owners of a boat built for the purpose. It is their duty to watch at every tide, either to bring vessels in or to help them out. It is the only small boat kept at Bude, except the life-boat: there is no “boating” on such a shore. It is not only sea-sickness which would probably be the result of an attempt at it. A sad calamity happened some twenty years ago. The hovellers’ boat put out a little distance to a ship lying off, in a strong easterly breeze; the ship sailed away; evening was coming on; the boat could not pull in against wind and tide; there were no possible means of help; and, in sight of all, it was watched drifting out until dark, farther and farther. Neither boat nor men were ever heard of after.
