102 CORNWALL saints, possibly the one is always associated with the other as the outward sign of wonder-working power. The extraordinary stretch of sand called Perran Beach would be remarkable anywhere, but it is more remarkable still on the rock-bound coast of Cornwall. Norden, with unconscious Irishism, describes Perran as being "almost drowned with the sea sande." The whole region for three miles in length and as much in breadth is sand alone. Inland a few plantations of pines struggle to sur- vive just beyond its zone, and the little slate-roofed houses have a strangely glaring unfinished look ; the hedges which divide up the land show here and there straggly scrubby bushes all bent violently eastward by the prevailing winds, and in the dreary corner of sandhills between them and the sea is somewhere to be found the tiny chapel of St. Piran, which is very interesting because it is the very earliest ecclesiastical building to be found in the land. It dates from the eighth or ninth century and is only twenty-five feet long. It was covered with sand as if buried in a snow drift and for seven centuries was completely lost. It is probably to this it owes its preservation. Sir A. Quiller- Couch's irreverent but amusing story concerning it in his Delectable
