CORNWALL stock contrived to reach the ship, then slowly sinking. Three journeys between wreck and shore were made by these brave men, but they only managed to save 91 persons, one of whom was the captain ; 1 96 were drowned. Of these 120 lie in St. Keverne churchyard. In 1 89 1 the Bay of Panama, a Liverpool boat of 2282 tons, was lost here; 18 of her crew were drowned. More fresh in the public memory is the loss of the Mohegan, in October, 1898. The boat struck one of the Manacles, and within twenty minutes was submerged with the exception of masts and funnel. Rescue work was very difficult, but the Porthoustock lifeboat succeeded in saving 44 persons, 106 being lost. So mysterious was this calamity, that some have believed the rocks to have a magnetic power. Such are only a few cases out of many. Vessels sometimes get among the Manacles through carelessness, and emerge safely ; in such instances the captain prudently drops a sail over the name of his boat, that it may not be seen and reported from the shore. A vessel may even strike the rocks and receive only a grazing, for the sea here is not so uniformly rough as it is round the Scillies or on the N. coast. But everything points to insufficient warning at this spot. The death-roll to be read in the churchyards of this Lizard district is by no means com- plete ; before 1808 there was no law requiring drowned persons to be buried in churchyards at all. There was also in old times a. 176
