The Land's End: A Naturalist's Impressions In West Cornwall, Illustrated

CONTENTS


England's observables —Why I delayed visiting Cornwall—A vision of the Land's End-Flight to St. Ives-Climate-The old town-The fishermen-Their love of children-Drowned babes—The fishing fleet going out at sunset-Old memories suggested-Jackdaws at St. Ives—Feeding the birds—A greedy sheep-dog-Daws show their intelligence—Daws on the roofs—Their morning pastime-Dialogue between two daws.
KNOW, said wise old Fuller, most of the rooms of thy native country before thou goest over the threshold thereof. Especially seeing England presents thee with so many observables. But if we were to follow this advice there would be no getting out of the country at all. It is too rich in its way: the rooms are too many and too well-furnished with observables. Take my case. I have been going on rambles about the land for a good many years, and though the West Country had the greatest attraction for me, I never got over the Tamar, nor even so far as Plymouth, simply because I had not the time, albeit my time was my own. Or because there was enough and more than enough to satisfy me on this side of the boundary. It is true that one desires to see and know all places, but is in no hurry to go from a rich to a poor one. I was told by every one of my friends that it was the most interesting county in England, and doubtless it is so to them, but I knew it could not be so to me because of the comparative poverty of the fauna, seeing that the observables which chiefly draw me are the living creatures-the wild life-and not hills and valleys and granite and serpentine cliffs and seas of Mediterranean blue. These are but the setting of the shining living gems, and we know the finest of these, which gave most lustre to the scene, have been taken out and cast away.
Cornwall to me was just the Land's End- dark Bolerium, seat of storms -that famous foreland of which a vast but misty picture formed in childhood remains in the mind, and if I ever felt any strong desire to visit Cornwall it was to look upon that scene. Then came a day in November, 1905, when, having settled to go away somewhere for a season, I all at once made up my mind to visit the unknown peninsula and to go straight away to the very end. It almost astonished me when I alighted from my train at St. Ives to think I had travelled three hundred and twenty odd miles with less discomfort and weariness than I usually experience on any journey of a hundred.