When the train chugs into St . Ives, on the north coast of Cornwall a few miles east of Land 's End you see first a crescent-shaped white beach , filled with vacationers from York and Durham and the chillier parts of the Scottish Highlands. Not your usual English scene: there are hibiscus and bougainvillea; "chemist shops" selling Coppertone; bikinis of both sexes lying in a baking sun. It's July in southwestern England.

Around the western tip of the crescent is yet another crescent, this one filled with fishing boats and outlined by a busy boardwalk. And out at the end of the boardwalk, on the top of the hill, is an ancient stone chapel, dedicated to St . Michael and commemorating a spot of ground that has been sacred to the fishermen since the early Dark Ages.