On the opposite coast, which was only about a mile away, was the famous Prussia Cove, named after a notorious smuggler who bore the nickname of the King of Prussia; and adjoining his caves might still be seen the channels he had cut in the solid rock to enable his boats to get close to the shore.  His real name was Carter.  He became the leader of the Cornish smugglers, and kept the “Old King of Prussia Inn,” though having the reputation of being a “devout Methodist.”  He was said to be so named because he bore some resemblance to Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia.  We had seen other inns in the south of the same name, but whether they were named after the king or the smuggler we could not say.  He seemed to have had other caves on the Cornish coast where he stored his stolen treasures, amongst which were some old cannon.

One moonlight night, when he was anxiously waiting and watching for the return of his boats, he saw them in the distance being rapidly pursued by His Majesty’s Revenue cutter the Fairy.  The smuggler placed his cannon on the top of the cliff and gave orders to his men to fire on the Fairy, which, as the guns on board could not be elevated sufficiently to reach the top of the cliff, was unable to reply.  Thus the boats escaped; but early the following morning the Revenue boat again appeared, and the officer and some of the crew came straight to Carter’s house, where they met the smuggler.  He loudly complained to the officer that his crew should come there practising the cutter’s guns at midnight and disturbing the neighbourhood.  Carter of course could give no information about the firing of any other guns, and suggested it might be the echo of those fired from the Fairy herself, nor could any other explanation be obtained in the neighbourhood where Carter was well known, so the matter was allowed to drop.  But the old smuggler was more sharply looked after in future, and though he lived to a great age, he died in poverty.

Our road crossed the Perran Downs, where, to the left, stood the small village of Perranuthnoe, a place said to have existed before the time of St. Piran and named Lanudno in the taxation of Pope Nicholas.  It was also pointed out as the place where Trevelyan’s horse landed him when he escaped the inrush of the sea which destroyed Lyonesse, “that sweet land of Lyonesse,” which was inseparably connected with the name of King Arthur, who flourished long before the age of written records.  Lyonesse was the name of the district which formerly existed between the Land’s End and the Scilly Islands, quite twenty-five miles away.  When the waves from the Atlantic broke through, Trevelyan happened to be riding on a white horse of great swiftness.  On seeing the waters rushing forward to overwhelm the country, he rode for his life and was saved by the speed of his horse.  He never stopped until he reached Perranuthnoe, where the rocks stopped the sea’s farther progress.  But when he looked back, he could see nothing but a wide expanse of water covering no less than 140 parish churches.  He lived afterwards in the cave in the rocks which has ever since borne the name of Trevelyan’s Cave.  It was beyond doubt that some great convulsion of nature had occurred to account for the submerged forests, of which traces were still known to exist.