Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/49

LOOE AND POLPERRO 43 they prefer ; the distance is about four miles The little port was once much more inaccessible than it is now ; passengers literally dropped into it by a path part of which was cut into steps ; no wheeled vehicle could possibly get down. The houses cluster at the mouth of a deep ravine that runs up to the village of Crumplehorn. Approach- ing the place by road, Mr. Norway says that " just at first one sees nothing of the town, but all at once it bursts upon the sight as the road runs round a bend, a striking huddled group of houses, cast so strangely into a heap as to produce the impression that they must have been built originally upon the hillside at comfortable dis- tances apart; and that by some slipping of the rock foundations the houses have slid and slid until they can slide no further, but are brought to a standstill in the very bottom of the hollow. " The confusion of the town is immense. It is a labyrinth of winding alley often ending in a cul-de-sac. But the downward sweep of the headlands is superb ; and under the towering cliffs studded with bosses of golden furze lies a little pier and harbour with the sea-foam flying sharply round the jutting peaks of rock before a stiff south-wester, while the gulls wheel shrieking overhead, and out at sea a schooner is labouring heavily." Unfortunately, the cliffs, both here and and at Talland, have lately been somewhat dis- figured by huge scaffoldings erected by the Admiralty for speed tests ; but it takes more than this to spoil Polperro. In spite of its appearance of having slipped, many of the houses look as if they were carved out of the very rock itself, and in some cases their steps actually are so carved. Polperro, part of which is in the parish