From the windows of our hotel we saw, as from a stage-box, the humors of the fair, and especially did we obtain an excellent view of “The Enchanted Temple of Science and Mystery,” and similar enlivening exhibitions. The wrestling booth was, as might be expected in this muscularly Christian country, a favorite resort. A peep within this gladiatorial arena, however, only revealed very mild-looking athletes, and spectators as grave as judges, looking much more as if they were at meeting than at a fair. It must be stated, to the credit of the Liskeard revellers, that everything went on with the utmost decorum and order. It shows the primitive simplicity of these west country folks that they can still find so much pleasure in these unsophisticated amusements, but it must be borne in mind that Liskeard is a town usually so quiet, not to say sleepy, that it has been declared by a resident that he could fire a gun down the street without hitting any one!...
The Cornish folk are, as a rule, earnest in their religious convictions, though, like other Kelts, occasionally inclined to fanaticism. All traces of the savagery which distinguished them in the rough days of the wreckers, have, of course, entirely passed away under the light of advancing civilization. The Cornishmen are extremely hospitable, and the county dainties of cider, clotted cream, potato cake, griddle or girdle cakes (baked upon the hearth), and fish or squab pies, are luxuries not to be despised any more than the figgadowdy (Anglicé, plum-puddings). Like all the inhabitants of remote districts, the Cornish folk are extremely clannish, and think much of the ties of kindred, the proverbial expression “A Cornish Jack” showing how every individual endeavors to prove himself everybody else’s “Cousin John.” They are very superstitious, though whether they yet retain the old beliefs mentioned by Polwhele, such as that of the ghost of a ship-wrecked mariner announcing his fate by calling his own name on the rock, and that when the wind roars boisterously it is the wicked giant Tregeagle roaring, we cannot, of course, say.
Many names of places bear witness to the widely scattered traditions connected with King Arthur. One group of rocks of various sizes goes by the name of “King Arthur’s cups and saucers,” a name involving a bold anachronism, for one hardly imagines saucers to have been much used before the introduction of tea and coffee, beverages, as every one knows, not brought into use in this country for more than a thousand years after the supposed period of King Arthur.
The belief in fairies has not yet gone out in this remote shire, and we have been in an old house said to be haunted by the ghost of a cow.
The fauna and flora of Cornwall are much the same as in other parts of Western England, except, of course, that some shrubs and other plants usually found only in warm climates or in greenhouses grow here freely out of doors. The Cornish chough among birds, and among plants the Cornish heath, are, as the names show, indigenous here. It is strange that the little harebell, so universal in Scotland and in most parts of England, should be here a great rarity. We recollect how, on our excursion to the Lizard, a lady of the neighborhood of Helstone had been entreated by a friend unable to accompany her to bring home a harebell, if she found any, as none grew near her own residence.
Those travelling in a country new to them are often more struck by some feature of the landscape different to what they have been accustomed to, than by the grander outlines of the scenery. Who, for instance, that has ever travelled in Western Cornwall, can fail to recollect the milestones in the shapes of obelisks, or the substitutes for stiles formed by narrow openings in the hedges with stepping-stones placed at equal distances, like the ploughshares in the ordeal by fire, for foot passengers to pass across? The little cabbage-plantation or mound of débris in the centre of a field is another characteristically Cornish institution. Any account of Cornwall would be incomplete without some allusion to the pilchard fishery, next to mining, the great industry of the county. Innumerable quantities of this fish are annually salted and exported to the Roman Catholic countries of Southern Europe to be eaten during Lent. The popular Cornish name of the pilchard, “Fair Maid,” is said to be from the Spanish fumado,—i.e., “smoked fish.”