CORNWALL AND THE LAND S END. 491 



LXXXIX. CORNWALL AND THE LAND S END. 



Many of the practices prevailing in Cornwall, with the modes 

 of speaking, and forms of expression among the people, are so 

 nearly allied to those of New England, as to satisfy me that we 

 must have imported them from this part of the world, and that 

 scions from Cornwall are thickly ingrafted in our pilgrim land. 

 I wish we might inherit, in the fullest measure, the spirit of full- 

 souled hospitality which I found among them. I have only to 

 regret that the rules which I have prescribed to myself forbid 

 my saying what I would. But the feelings of grateful and affec 

 tionate respect are not the less strong for being suppressed ; and 

 my Cornwall friends, from their own generous natures, may be 

 assured that my sense of their constant and disinterested kind 

 ness is all which they themselves would desire it should be. 



On this excursion into Cornwall, I went to the Land s End, 

 and planted my foot on the very last rocky point, extending into 

 the sea, which I was able to reach. I had but a few moments 

 before passed a traveller s home, with the significant sign, &quot; The 

 First and the Last House in England.&quot; Nothing can be more 

 picturesque than this rude and rock-bound shore, with its white- 

 fringed ruffle of surf, as far as the eye can reach, and a few 

 scattered rocks at a distance, over which the swelling waves 

 were profusely pouring their showers of diamonds, so treacherous 

 to the home-bound mariner, so picturesque and beautiful to the 

 landsman, as he suns himself upon the grassy shore, watching 

 the distant sails scattered upon the wide expanse, full-freighted 

 with human life and hopes, glittering in the sunlight, and float 

 ing like water-fowl in their native element. 



As I stood upon the far-jutting point of the promontory, and 

 felt that no intervening country separated me from the land of 

 my birth, and the home of what is most dear to me, I found my 

 head growing dizzy, my heart beating as though it were strug 

 gling to get out, and my cheeks quite wet, perhaps with the 

 spray ; and I could only find relief in sending a thousand un 

 spoken messages of affection, and in more earnest prayers for the 

 prosperity of the land, and the loved ones whom I had left 

 behind. May the winds waft the former to their objects, and 

 the last find a response in heaven ! 



