A view from the top of the southern cliffs looking over the entrance to cove of Porth Loe towards the north cliffs where the three-masted iron sailing ship Khyber (1880) was wrecked. Two men, with their backs to the camera, are in conversation to the bottom left of the image. A group of two women and a man are lower down the cliff top huddled together watching the rollers breaking on the beach in a mass of white foam. The photograph was possibly used to create the painting in G14298 by Alexander Gibson.

The three-masted ship Khyber (1880) was on passage from Melbourne to Falmouth, Queenstown or Plymouth for orders with a cargo of wheat in bags. Having left on 24 October 1904, the passage had been uneventful until a gale off the Azores on about 5 March 1905 when they hove to. They did not sight land until 14 March when they saw Wolf Rock while on starboard tack heading towards The Lizard. On making The Lizard at about 630pm the crew found that they were not going to weather it so wore onto port tack. The wind increasing to a gale blew the sails out and the replacement storm sails. They fired 24 rockets and burnt flares to call for assistance. The ship drifted until anchors were dropped at about 11pm off Guthensbras Point and eventually dragged shoreward. Sometime after 710am on 15 March 1905 the anchors parted and the Khyber struck the rocks, breaking up in about 10 minutes. 23 of the 26 crew were lost. [Inquiry Report, 30 May 1905]