IT is to be presumed that the volumes of the Western Antiquary will not be considered complete until there has been gathered together in its pages every note of interest concerning the far-famed western land of giants, fairies, mermaids, and cliffs; of lost cities, fire-worship, demons, spectres, and saints; of sorceries, witchcrafts, legends, and superstitions. Nor will the useful publication rest content until it has become a record of the gravest facts of history, such as that of a daring deed committed some eighty years ago at the Land's End, the story of which I now recite.

    The Land's End! Poets, painters, authors, have all combined to render this headland famous by song, by colour, and by book. It is true that it is surpassed in grandeur, and in picturesqueness, by many points around—by the greenstone cliffs of Zennor, the headlands of Tol-pedn and Treryn. The reason for this may be found in the fact that the cliff which bounds the extremity is, as it has been termed, abrupt rather than elevated, not being more than sixty feet above the level of the sea. But as we gaze upon the scene its beauty grows upon us. "A Londoner," in his Walk to the Land's End, has well described both land and sea. Here, he says, two channels commingle with the ocean. Far out as eye can reach, and round on either hand till it meets the remotest part of the rugged shore, stretches the watery expanse. The billows come tumbling in, and break in thunder at the base of the cliffs, dashing the impatient spray well nigh to their summit. A descent may be made by steep paths to a lower level, and then may be seen the cavernous opening which the plunging assaults of the waves have worn through from one side of the buttress to the other. With what fury do they rush into the recess, and make horrid whirlpools behind the mass which some day will be an isolated member of the rocky group scattered along the shore! Wilkie Collins says of the Land's End that the bold view possesses all the sublimity that vastness and space can bestow; but it is that sublimity which is to be seen, not described, which the heart may acknowledge and the mind contain, but which no mere words may delineate, which even painting itself may but faintly reflect.

    This narrow pathway of earth, the most westerly point of England has been likened unto the snout of an alligator! This by sober "Murray," who otherwise gravely informs us that the Land's End is the Furthest Land—the "Penwith-start" (i.e., the "start," Saxon), or "end " of Penwith, as the hundred is still called. Penwith (Celtic) signifies the "chief headland," the Bolerium of the ancients. It is described as a long, low promontory, wholly composed of granite, bristling with spines, darkened by the spray of the sea, and the mists driven past it from the Atlantic.

    The descent to this group of rocks is by a rapid slope over a narrow isthmus. Below the surrounding cliffs, in gloomy recesses, lie huge rocks rounded like pebbles, and eternally tossed into the mouths of caverns, in which the voice of the sea is never hushed. The idea of a fall over the precipice among them is awful! Such a catastrophe nearly befell a gentleman on horse-back at the beginning of this century!

    It is already on record that natives have been blown from the cliffs of Cornwall by accident, owing to the fury of the wind. At West Looe, on September the 24th, 1758, the wife of one John Gill, a farmer, was going to Torpoint upon a loaded horse, with fruit for Plymouth-dock market. As she was travelling upon the cliffs by the seaside she was overpowered by a sudden gust of wind, and forced, together with her horse, over the cliff, to the loss of both their lives. They fell at least 200 feet.

    In Household Words for 1852 there is described, on the Land's End, a gap between two rocks, sharp to the left, and a steep, smooth, inclined plane shooting into the sea—a "nice little trap," down which one Captain Crawler, since dead, began to slip, but was caught by the elbows on those two rocks; and, being a powerful man, recovered himself. It is, therefore, not unbefitting to the associations of this historic headland that there should recur to the mind those well-known verses of Charles Wesley, which he is said to have composed on the spot:—

    Now for the adventure to which we have referred. The gentleman's name was Sir Robert Arbuthnot, an officer in the army. In 1852 he sent the late Charles Dickens the narrative which was published in Household Words for that year.

    It appears from this that in June, 1804, when Arbuthnot was captain in a dragoon regiment and aide-de-camp to General Wilford, who was stationed at Falmouth, he attended him on an inspection of a yeomanry corps at Penzance. The day after the inspection, the general, with a party, proceeded to the Land's End on an excursion of pleasure. After taking refreshment at a house known by the name of "The First and Last House in England," three of the gentlemen preceded the others. These were Lieutenant Cubitt, of the Royal Artillery, a clergyman who resided at Marazion, and Arbuthnot himself. On arriving at the top of the slope reaching down to the extremity of the Land's End—on each side of which was a steep precipice—Sir Robert noticed that the grass was short and slippery. Although a dragoon officer, he says he did not think it prudent to ride down. His two companions, however, being of a different opinion, did so, while he followed them, leading his horse. After remaining a short time at the bottom they mounted to rejoin the general. This officer, with his party, had reached the spot where the adventurers had started, and were astonished—especially the general—at seeing the young captain at the bottom of the hill, and terrified at what afterwards occurred. Although Capt. Arbuthnot did not think it prudent to ride down, he fancied there could be no danger in riding up. Accordingly he mounted. The party had not proceeded far when his mare—a very spirited animal—became unruly, in consequence of the girths of the saddle going back. She began to kick and plunge, inclining to the precipice on the right. Although in imminent danger, Arbuthnot did not, happily, lose his presence of mind, and threw himself off when not more than four feet from the edge of the cliff. His was a hussar saddle, and the bridle, having a whip at the end of it, he threw over the mare's head, and was able to keep hold of it and to check her, so as to prevent the animal kicking him. When she turned with her back to the cliff he let go. She fell down, and was dashed to pieces, leaving him safe on the cliff, but close to the edge!

    A person went down in a basket and brought up the shattered saddle and bridle, which a saddler at Penzance begged Captain Arbuthnot to give him that he might hang it at the door of his shop.

    Many stories of the event have been circulated, but this is the true one, as it was written by the rider himself, on account of a passage in an article in a popular magazine to which his attention had been drawn, and of which the inaccuracy will now be apparent:

    "A cavalier after dinner, one day, betted that he would ride to the Land's End next morning. So he mounted and got thus far. The shuddering horse turned and backed. The rider just saw the horse's hind feet going over the brink, threw himself off in an agony, and escaped. The animal perished, and the last print of the clinging hoof is kept fresh by the guides. What an act of horsemanship to witness! This happened not many years ago, though the biped performer is since dead."

    I have looked into many books on Cornwall, but have failed to find the record of any similar occurrence. On the incident of the one related above, the author of Pentowan, Pengersick Castle, and Kynance Cove, has apparently based a chapter in his tale of The Wizard of West Ptnwith. The frontispiece to this story is a terrifying picture of a horse falling to the foot of a cliff. Its rider is safe at the top—but the man's legs are hanging over the edge! In this book the horseman is said to ride to the edge of the precipice and look over. As they turn on their way back something attracts the mare's attention. She trembles. Her back is towards the precipice—her hind feet close to the edge of the cliff. Neither horse nor man see the extent of the danger, for their backs are towards it. The animal refusing the entreaties of the rider to proceed, rears. One brief minute, and both will be lost—destruction is inevitable. Unutterable suspense and speechless silence reign among the spectators. A voice is heard: "Throw yourself off the horse, and hold on!" Obeying this command as from a superior, the young officer flings himself off, holding tenaciously, as for life, to the turf on which he falls. He hears his steed screeching with pain as she tumbles against the rugged cliffs below. He has fallen, it is true, on the cliff—only just escaping the jaws of death, for his legs an overhanging the precipice! Mute with fear, he stirs not, for it seems to him that the soft turf into which he has dug his fingers is fast giving way. This, in reality, is not the case. His body is safe on terra firma, yet his feet are overhanging, and so long as he yet holds on he is safe; but his power so to do grows rapidly weaker and weaker, and then the horrors to follow rapidly course his brain. Not two minutes, however, elapse before he feels the joyful sensation of being powerfully seized and lifted to a safer harbour above. His deliverer is a spectator of the feat who was standing near behind a rock, and he it was who shouted to the rider to throw himself off, and his was the strong arm which rescued the poor, frightened man.

    Had it not been for his presence of mind the officer would doubtless have fallen, for, powerless of limb, when he fainted and let go his grip, he must have followed his horse down, down to a terrible doom!

    Wilkie Collins, writing before any authentic publication of the story, says the man was drunk. For a wager he rode his horse to the extreme verge of the cliff. There the poor animal, seeing its danger, turned in affright, reared, and fell back into the sea raging over the rocks beneath. The man threw himself off just in time, within a few inches of the edge, and so barely saved the life which he had so richly deserved to lose. The mark of the horse's hoof, still kept sharply modelled, was to be seen in the thin grass.

    Another writer says that Captain Arbuthnot rashly attempted to ride down the declivity, in spite of the warning of the persons present. The horse becoming terrified and unmanageable as he approached the edge, the captain by a desperate effort threw himself off; the animal, at the same time, fell over among the rocks below, and was dashed to pieces.

    The authoress of John Halifax, Gentleman, in her Unsentimental Journey through Cornwall, gives the adventurer's name as Armstrong. She atones for this, however, by recording an otherwise un-read-of incident of a bullock which fell off into the boiling waves: "Everybody thought he was drowned till he was seen swimming about unhurt. They fished him up, and exhibited him as a curiosity."

Extracted from The Western Antiquary, Volume VI, Part XI, April 1887, pp255-257.