SUNSHINE AT THE LAND S END. 71 



none of any great altitude (the hill on the north-west of 

 Towednack, 805 feet above the sea is the highest of these), but 

 all of them singularly interesting from their wild and weather- 

 worn appearance. When these are not known as cairns (huge 

 upheavals of granite), they are generally crowned with cliff- 

 castles^ of which Treryn Dinas, near the Logan Stone, is an 

 example familiar to most Cornish tourists. 



Penzance will be found the best headquarters from which to 

 explore this remarkable district. Apart from its own attrac- 

 tions of equable climate, and the almost tropical luxuriance of 

 its vegetation, it can supply vehicles of all kinds with drivers 

 able to point out the objects of interest in the neighbourhood. 

 The stranger will not have been many days here before he notices 

 the furious driving of everything upon wheels ; this imparts 

 considerable liveliness to the streets. In the market-place 

 stands an old stone cross, and not far off are several sentry 

 boxes, occupied by dames selling tripe. As this dainty is fixed 

 on wooden skewers, and frequently half-roasted in the sun- 

 shine, so abundant at Penzance, Cockney tourists must beware 

 of mistaking it for cat's-meat. Together with pilchards, tripe 

 seems to form the staple luxury of the town. Add to these 

 features groups of Newlyn fishwives, bearing on their shoulders 

 huge baskets by a broad strap crossing their foreheads, a general 

 odour as if everyone lived on fried fish, an enormous quantity 

 of very yellow buns in the shop windows, coloured thus with 

 saffron a curious mixture of maritime and fashionable life, and 

 you will gain a good notion of Penzance. It would be wrong 

 to forget its pasties the national dish of the county. They 

 are composed of anything and everything that can be eaten and 

 digested, insomuch that an old proverb says " the devil dare 

 not come into Cornwall for fear he should be made into 

 a pasty ! " The most celebrated of these varied delicacies is 

 undoubtedly the stargazy-pasty, formed of pilchards radiating 

 from the centre of the dish, where their heads emerge in a 



