THE INLETS OF THE SOUTH COAST 119 them, on the southern side, the little Chapel of St. John." Though many new and better-class houses have been built, this description still holds good. The cliffs all round are very sheer and steep, dropping straight into the water, which is deep up to the base. In some of the little old houses there are low, dark rooms smelling strongly of fish and brine, with the beams showing. Mr. Thomas Couch says : "In the old home of the Quillers [his mother's family] there was hanging on a beam a key, which we, as children, regarded with respect and awe, and never dared to touch, for Richard Quiller, Jane's father, had put the key of his quadrant on the nail with strong injunctions that no one should take it off until his return [which never happened] ; and there, I believe, it still hangs." This doubtless gave " Q " his idea for the key on the beam in that curiously unequal story, Dead Matis Rock. The two Looes, East and West, facing each other across the mouth of the river, which here looks like the mouth of a river and not a fiord as at Fowey are easily understood. You can see them both from the bridge, whereas in Fowey on first arrival it is very difficult to know where you are and I doubt if anyone really knows even after
