Song of the Sea and Diamond Horse

The visitor to West Cornwall who penetrates the winding lanes to Nanjizal Bay just south of Lands End is rewarded with a view of a remote and attractive beach, sandy at low tide, set between bold headlands of rugged granite. On one side the sea foams and smokes through a narrow arch in the rocks known locally as the Song of the Sea. A little stream flows to the beach past the overgrown foundations of an old watermill, and on the far side of the stream a winding cliff path beckons one towards Lands End. It is worth following that path. It leads through natural cliff gardens of sea pinks and foxgloves, campion and blue sheepsbit, past the ferny tunnels and caves of early tin workings, to Zawn Reeth and the Diamond Horse.

Zawn is the Cornish word for a narrow gully or cleft in the rocks leading down to the sea. Zawn Reeth, the Red Zawn, has a tiny strip of beach divided into two segments by the Diamond Horse, a great buttress of rock which will one day become an island. In October 1869 a small hut was erected at the top of the Zawn, and a gang of men struggled to haul a heavy cable up the steep slope from the streamer 'Fusilier' anchored just offshore. The rope kept breaking and things were not going well.

The 1869 Telegraph Act had set a date on which all the private telegraph companies, which had blossomed following the invention of telegraphy by wire, were to be bought-out by the Government, who were intent on creating a unified national network. The terms, which had been published, were very generous. This, not unexpectedly, generated a burst of activity as private companies rushed to install new lines in scarcely profitable areas, to await the benefits of this compulsory but benevolent nationalisation. The men at Zawn Reeth that autumn morning were labouring to lay such a line, perhaps unaware of its historic significance for its was destined to be the first submarine telegraph cable ever laid in Cornish waters. The intention was to link the mainland with the Isles of Scilly, visible to the labourers as a faint silhouette on the far horizon some twenty-eight miles away. On a clear day the visitor may be able to locate them from the rocky summit of the adjacent headland, together with the slim finger of the Wolf Rock lighthouse almost lost in the glare far to the south west.

A contemporary report (Illustrated London News, Oct 9th, 1869) gives an optimistic account of the venture. Apparently the 'Fusilier' spliced the main cable onto the heavier armoured 'shore-end' and steamed away to Scilly. It arrived a little south of its scheduled course, and after some trouble with the Scilly shore-end, successfully landed the cable. The report concludes by saying that the final tests, when signals were received on an instrument giving a direct printout in Arabic text, gave "proof of the excellent conducting power of the cable". The government representative was satisfied, and the Scilly cable was in and operational before the critical day when the Telegraph Act received its Royal Assent and nationalisation arrived. It is only when one digs further into the archives that a sense of something amiss is felt.

Why was the Company again at Zawn Reeth in June of the following year when another account in the Illustrated London News records the "completion" of the project, and the accompanying artist's sketch shows the labourers again struggling up the cliff with the shore end? Why was a direct printer never used again after the initial tests, but only a Morse recorder requiring skilled and laborious translation from code to plain text? What about that casual remark saying the 'Fusilier' arrived a little south of its intended course?
The breaking rope at Zawn Reeth on that October morning was not the sum of the days troubles, it was only the beginning. A report by a telegraphist, later Post Master General at Penzance (Uren 1907), who witnessed the days events gives the whole story. The writer of the original news report, in company with many others that day, was the victim of a telegraphic deception.

It may have been the heavy swell, poor pilotage, or parsimony in calculating the length of main cable required, but whatever the reason, the Fusilier arrived at Scilly badly off course and was still some four or five miles short of the landfall when the end of the cable was reached. The people and dignitaries of St Mary's were gathered on shore to see the landing. The entrepreneurs were mindful of the approaching nationalisation day, and Mr Rowland, the engineer in charge was under pressure.

A man of resource, if of strictly questionable integrity, his quick thinking saved the day. He put the vessel hard ahead to snap off the last few hundred yards of cable, and streaming this astern sailed triumphantly into the shallows near Penninis Head to the boom of the ships gun and the cheers of the islanders, who fully believed the other end was in Cornwall. Had the islands been less remote a band would have played. One can now pick up clues in the original report. It mentions problems with splicing the main cable to the pre-laid shore-end, which was not completed until dark on Sunday 26th October 1869. Was this some ruse necessary to conceal the deception, and to allow the engineer to prepare for his next step, a demonstration that the system actually "worked"?

By some electrical legerdemain he was able to show his technically naive observers a number of spurious signals purporting to come from Nanjizal. The original report again hints at, but does not tumble to the deception, for it mentions "special tests" necessary because of the way the cable was constructed. Perhaps he was sending to himself round a loop of cable in the bay, we shall never know. At any rate the Government representative seems to have been satisfied, and it was fortunate for Rowland that none of those gathered requested a message requiring an exact answer from the mainland.

There is a certain natural justice in that, due to a legal nicety, the Government refused in the end to buy the cable! The Company was left to reap what meagre returns it could from the trickle of genuine traffic which followed the eventual completion of the link in June 1870. The success was short lived, the cable broke in 1877, not for the first time, and Company funds did not allow its repair. It was sold for a modest sum to the Post Office and diverted into Porthcurno, but that is another story.

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