A YACHTSMAN'S GUIDE-BOOK.
'THE volume before us, with its attractive little maps and pleasant descriptions of ports and waterscapes, comes to us as a professed yachtsman's guide to the cruising waters of
* Si1ng Dun Part re, the Coasts of ICont Sussex, Hants, 4o., containing Descriptions of overp Creok, Harbour, ana Roadstead, front the /1/41'ore to 'fresco, of Scaly, By Prauk Cowper, N.A. With numerous Charts. London : Croat Gill.
the English coast—an earlier instalment having preceded it— dealing with what the writer calla the home-waters of London yachtsmen. Needless to say that it is the work of an enthusiast, to whom yachting is what Alpine-climbing is to its votaries, and, we suppose we may add, what golfing and. its kindred pursuits are to theirs. In some form or other, athleticism, under which general head yachting, as Mr. Cowper understands it, is to be ranked, is taking a place in our English civilisation which as to its future results is past all calculation. It is no doubt the natural outcome of the rapid increase of city life and tainted air, the necessary rebound of mind and body against sedentary occupations, and their search after the restoratives which refit them for an annual battle. The passion for gymnastics in any shape grows more and more, till the spirit which dictates such remarks as Lowell's or the Capri " lotos-eater's," about viewing mountains best from the bottom, waxes more and more into disfavour ; and the most sedentary and anti- vigorous of mankind threatens to be, before long, legislated upon a necessary bicycle, if that growing but perilous and unpicturesque instrument do not finally disproportion the backs of the rising generation before they come to maturity. When Mr. Chamberlain frankly avows to an assembled school his strong disinclination for physical exercise, in emulation of a famous old Judge, who attributed his vigorous health at an advanced age to "never, since the earliest hour he could remember, having indulged for a minute in any physical exercise he could possibly avoid," he creates a mild feeling of pity in the wondering throng, to whom the highest purpose of life may prove to be "beating the record "in some form or another. The time has rather passed, though the present writer well remembers it, when not to care for shooting, within the limited circles, was almost social ostracism. Other pursuits have since then been admitted as of equal merit, but the general British principle remains the same.
This is the principle which Mr. Cowper imports into his book. Yachting, as the outside world perhaps a little under- stands it, is still something of the resource of a wealthy idler. The yacht-owner of imagination yet recalls to us a mild Monte Cristo, enjoying the ozone and the scenery in an indolent repose, while all the work is performed by well-
appointed and picturesquely dressed mariners, and the very movement is done for him by the waves and wind. From this point of view, athleticism would be a grave misnomer for the spirit which moves Mr. Cowper and his fellows in their ven- tures upon the great waters, and the title of his book, Sailing Tours, is something more appropriate than a Yachtsman's Guide. Inspired by what he calls the "cruising spirit," which, according to him, grows and goes hand-in-hand
with racing, though the latter is but its offspring—and in this connection he strongly deprecates the craze for craft built merely for the purpose of "racing machines "—he went through vicissitudes enough in fulfilling his purpose of guide-writing :—
" We pointed out," he says, "in the preface to the first volume that there were considerable risks which must be incurred by any one who should undertake to write such a series of guides. We have since then experienced a good many of these hazards ; but as we did all our work with the aid of only one boy, never em- ployed a pilot, and found our way in by ourselves, even in the dark, into such awkward places as St. Mary's Pool, Scilly islands, and Salcombe, and never suffered from any serious mishap, we feel we can safe'y recommend to others the cruising-grounds we have described in these pages, armed, as they will be, with infor- mation we did not possess.'
After a passing tribute to the excellence of existing charts, and their invaluable character as daily and nightly corn- panions,—a matter upon which his earlier book gave rise to some misunderstanding—Mr. Cowper modestly claims for his present work the desire—purpose rather—of supplementing them rather than anything else, in exploring remote and in- tricate channels which they' must of necessity fait to delineate minutely. It is more and more evident," he adds, "that the love of adventure in one's own boat is becoming in- creasingly widespread. This is as it should be. Islanders, descendants of men who came over-sea, whose wealth has come mainly by the sea, or by reason of transport over the sea, adventurers of the hardiest kind, the sea must always have attractions for genuine Englishmen." At half, or even a quarter of the expense of an alpine-climb or foreign trip, a small cruiser of the kind the writer recommends, manned by four or five willing amateurs, will provide every kind of com- fort and every kind of adventure ; and the deeds of tlia summer will be the delightful companions of the winter, to the mind worried by business and the system stifled by fogs. Nobody can wish for a more sympathetic study-companion when he must needs imbibe his ozone through these pages, than this paladin of the British waters. The stay-at-home pulse is quite stirred by feeling itself, however distantly, akin to the Vikings and the Norsemen of a fogless yore, and the occasional but sad reflexion why the hardy descendants of these hardy men cannot somehow secure themselves an im- munity from sea-sickness, is put aside as an unworthy intruder.
We shall not, perhaps, be thought the worse of for writing as landsmen of this attractive book, as we may thereby the better recommend it to the more sympathetic " wet-bobs " for whom it is written, and amongst whom its readers will, of course, mainly be found. We say "mainly," because the book is full of historical and local information about the places where the traveller has passed, and as it is professedly a guide-book, nobody can quarrel with that information for being of the guide-book nature. We like to read, moreover, or, at all events, to glance at, the talk about monks and Spaniards and Tudor houses, and of young Master Russell, who lived at Kingston Russell, hard by Dorchester, and, having just returned from Spain, was sent for to interpret between Sir Thomas Trenchard, of Wolveton, who had lived all through the Wars of the Roses, but had no Spanish, and ' had given hospitality to the Spanish Archduke Philip and his wife when driven in by stress of weather. He talked Spanish So well that the Archduke took him to town and presented him to the King. "So began the fortunes of the Russell family, and so Covent Garden Market and Bloomsbury loomed in the future." The last post of this early Russell was that of envoy to Spain to escort his first patron's grandson to Eng- land to marry Mary ; and so he ended with the Dons as he began with them. As Dorchester forms a point of connection with the Russells, so Starcross and Exmouth introduce us to the Courtenaye of the blue blood, to whom Howards are as mush- rooms, and who trace descent from the Emperors of the East, adding to that privilege the substantial advantage of having made more money, or gained more land by marriage, than any family except the Hapsburgs. Powderham, the historical seat of the Courtenays, appears to have come to them in that way.
We are in our rights in lingering over the Devonian part of Mr. Cowper's book, because it has evidently a great attraction for the writer, if only by right of the supreme beauty of the coast, which he thoroughly appreciates. An eye for scenery must certainly form part of the equipment of Mr. Cowper's followers. We were, indeed, first attracted to his pages by his description of Salcombe (Salcombe-by-Kingsbridge, as it is more exactly called, in contrast to the other Salcombe of North Devon) as the "most enchanting of out-of-the-way inlets." None who know of that hidden little halfway-house between Plymouth and Dartmouth will deny the claim. The Kingsbridge estuary at that point, where craggy Postlemouth overhangs the quaintlittle corner called Smalls, and the lights of Salcombe glimmer across the water-arm, is like a very beautiful inland lake, matchless in a climate which is pro- bably the choicest in its southern kind of any corner that we know, and in surroundings of singular beauty. The lands- man makes his way to it in what is nowadays an almost forgotten fashion,—by a long coach-ride from Kingsbridge Junction to Kingsbridge, and then by boat down the estuary for a long stretch further. The mariner must gain the place from Dartmouth in the manner indicated in Mr. Cowper's book. It is a good specimen of his method :— " There is no mistaking the start. The rocks which jut out through the poor turf are most formidable, and of all shapes. They consist of dolomite end mica slate formation, quite dif- ferent from the slates of the cliffs about Dartmouth. These rocks run in ridges like 'combs' down the side of the steep slopes, and look almost black The Start Light shows two lights, one above the other in the same tower; the high light is a revolving white light, revolving every minute and visible twenty miles ; the lower light is shown over the Sherries and between the bearings of S. f W. and W. 1 N. The revolving light is visible between E. and S. by W. W. The Syren Foghorn gives three blasts in quick succession, varied by high, low, and high notes. The Lizard bears W. 6 N. from the Start, distant sixty-two miles. . . . . We are now approaching a difficult harbour. There is just six feet of water over the best part of the bar at low water, and a very heavy swell comes in here. We steer over to the west side towards the first headland inside the Bolt Head. A small bay lies in between. The bar is just inside this head, and the deepest side is close to the west cliffs. There is a white mark on the cliffs where the bar is, and thence the bar goes across the mouth of Salcombe River
to a ravine or gully on the east shore at Lembery Point. The bar is very narrow, and there is deep water on both sides of it. A very long rolling sea breaks on the sand, and it requires some nerve to go in Under such circumstances. No one should go in unless he is sure there is plenty of water."
The description of the entrance into Salcombe is equally detailed, and shows how close has been the observation to back the readiness of hand which was Mr. Cowper's chief qualifica- tion for his work. Throughout the book the same careful minuteness has been preserved ; and the dusting off the Start and the scrape in over the bar, after being told that getting in was impossible, are vivid enough to us, who remember well how prone is that bar to deceit, and to leaving the too trusting mariner to repent outside after a late search for fish off Bolt Head. As we wander with the author, watching him in our own way from the shore, we recognise in his descriptions many of our old acquaintances, such as quaint little Lymington, which was once bigger than its neighbour, Portsmouth, and "supplied Edward III. with twice as many ships ; " while, with a touch of pleasant humour, conscious or unconscious, Mr. Cowper brings into a strange proximity some kinsmen of the Crown, ancient and modern, when, in consecutive para- graphs, he informs us how King Monmouth was proclaimed in the streets of Lymington, and that within an easy drive of it Sir William Harcourt has built himself a house. Strange tales of conjugal differences among the fisher-folk at Lyming- ton of 1736 raise thoughts for reflection upon another subject of the day, which we have left ourselves no space to follow ; and a glimpse at Lulworth suggests to the reader something of the delight which our mariner took in it. How "the dimpled slopes are covered with flowers, and Durdledoor " [curious name !] "is the haunt of guilleurts and auks, shags and puffins ; " and how every one ought to lionise Lulworth Cove—" the most dainty, fascinating little swimming-bath" imaginable, with twelve feet of water in the centre, and the sand sloping evenly down to it all round—are pleasantly recorded in connection with the stronghold of the old Catholic Welds. So in the last chapter we bid goodbye to Mr. Cowper as we welcome him back to London, agreeing with him that, perhaps in more senses than one, the "entrance to the Thames is a nasty business after all ! "
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