PEDESTRIAXISM IX CORNWALL. 219 



" We get on into another district. Here public opinion is not flattering. Some of the 

 groups gathered together in the road to observe us begin to speculate on our characters before 

 we are quite out of hearing. Then this sort of dialogue, spoken in serious, subdued tones, just 

 reaches us. Question ' What can they be ? ' Answer ' Trodgers ! '- 



" This is particularly humiliating, because it happens to be true. We certainly do trudge, 

 and are therefore properly, though rather unceremoniously, called trudgers, or ' trodgers/ But 

 we sink to a lower depth yet a little further on. We are viewed as objects of pity. It is 

 a fine evening. We stop and lean against a bank by the road-side to look at the sunset. An 

 old woman comes tottering by on high pattens, very comfortably and nicely clad. She sees 

 our knapsacks, and instantly stops in front of us, and begins to moan lamentably. Not under- 

 standing at first what this means, we ask respectfully if she feels at all ill? ' Ah! poor fellows, 

 poor fellows ! ' she sighs in answer, ' obliged to carry all your baggage on your own backs ! 

 very hard ! poor lads ! very hard indeed ! ' and the good old soul goes away groaning over our 

 evil plight, and mumbling something which sounds very like an assurance that she has no 

 money to give us. 



" In another part of the county we rise again gloriously in worldly consideration. We 

 pass a cottage ; a woman looks out after us over the low garden wall, and rather hesitatingly 

 calls us back. I approach her first, and am thus saluted : ( If you please, sir, what have you 

 got to sell ? ' Again, an old man meets us on the road, stops, cheerfully taps our knapsacks 

 with his stick, and says, ' Aha ! you're tradesmen, eh ! things to sell ? I say, have you got 

 any tea ? ' (pronounced tay] . Further on we approach some miners breaking ore. As we pass 

 by we hear one asking amazedly, ' What have they got to sell in those things on their backs ? ' 

 and another answering, in the prompt tones of a guesser who is convinced that he guesses 

 right, ' Guinea-pigs ! ' 



"It is, unfortunately, impossible to convey to the reader any adequate idea by mere 

 description of the extraordinary gravity of manner, the looks of surprise, and the tones of 

 conviction which accompanied these various popular conjectures as to our calling and station in 

 life, and which added immeasurably at the time to their comic effect. Curiously enough, when- 

 ever they took the form of questions, any jesting in returning an answer never seemed either to 

 be appreciated or understood by the country people. Serious replies fared much the same fate 

 as jokes. Everybody asked whether we could pay for riding, and nobody believed we preferred 

 walking, if we could. So we soon gave up any idea of affording any information at all, and 

 walked through the country comfortably as mappers, trodgers, tradesmen, guinea-pig mongers, 

 and poor back-burdened vagabond lads, altogether, or one at a time, just as the peasantry 

 pleased." 



Penzance is itself the most westerly port of England. It has a noble pier, 700 feet long, 

 and a lighthouse, the red light of which can be seen nine miles off. It has a lifeboat, the crew 

 of which has done many a gallant deed. Out of a population of twelve or thirteen thousand in 

 and about the town, at least twenty-five per cent, are hardy men of the sea fishermen or sailors. 

 It was the scene, only a couple of years ago, of a most exciting event. 



A French brig, the Ponthieu, went ashore near the town, during the prevalence of a strong 

 south-west gale. The Marazion rocket apparatus was worked successfully, and the line was 

 thrown over the wreck, but the crew, being ignorant of the mode of working it, fastened it 



