OUR HOLIDAY IN CORNWALL 79 



lands yellow with wheat and corn ripe and ready 

 for scythe or sickle, now over bleak moorland 

 dotted here and there with the tall chimneys of 

 extinct volcanoes, now silent and smokeless because, 

 owing to foreign competition, the market for tin 

 has temporarily departed, let us hope to return 

 again, of which, indeed, there does exist some 

 little hope, as the price of tin in the market 

 has again gone up to paying-point. No sooner, 

 however, does this faint hope of revival occur 

 than the miners themselves seem determined 

 to give themselves the final coup de grace by 

 striking for higher wages than, apparently, the 

 present state of things would seem to warrant. 



Notwithstanding this apparent badness of the 

 times, poverty, if it exists in Cornwall at all, is 

 certainly not to be seen on the surface. What 

 strikes one as much as anything is the fondness 

 of Cornish people for holiday-making, picnicking, 

 and excursionizing. One cannot go out across the 

 country in any direction without finding jolly, 

 joyful parties, in trains and on Jersey cars, in 

 fields, and on the sea-shore, all on pleasure bent ; 

 and they do enjoy themselves thoroughly, unre- 

 strained by social formalities. 



On our drive, about half-way home, our coach- 

 load met another coach-load at a wayside inn 

 which bears the peaceful sign of an enormous lion 

 lying down outside a nice little lamb. 



In a field hard by was a picnic party, with a 

 band playing. One of the young fellows on the 



