SUNSHINE AT THE LAND'S END. 77 



Land's End. Paths wind over each headlong and dip into the 

 valleys, conducting the stranger at every stage to new beauties. 

 The whinchat sits on the furze bushes, a gull or two float 

 lazily round each point ; here and there you startle a magpie, 

 or come upon a family of wagtails flitting up and down a 

 streamlet. Every bank is thinly clad in smooth, velvety turf, 

 starred with stone-crop and centaury. In damp weather 

 numberless small snails appear on this herbage, and are be- 

 lieved to add greatly to the succulence and sweetness of the 

 mutton produced by the district. Heather fringes granite on 

 every side, and on the left, far below, murmurs the unwearied 

 surge. An enormous expanse of sea is to be discerned from 

 this elevated station, flecked with many a sail, all of them, how- 

 ever, in the calmest weather, keeping a prudential distance 

 from the shore. Soon we come to St. Levan's Church, perhaps 

 the most lonely-looking edifice in England. Its grey walls and 

 tower are weathered and lichen-clad, the summer wind sighs in 

 the long grass of the yard, gravestones and enclosure are being 

 rapidly overgrown with rank vegetation ; not a living thing is 

 discernible around, and a ring of blue sea encircles the pro- 

 spect. When the village is reached we find everything, even 

 down to pig-sties built of granite, cows, pigs, and men alike seem 

 sleepy and contented the lotus-eaters of Cornwall set down in 

 the dreamiest of atmospheres, far from cities and railroads and 

 turmoil. The stone crosses in its churchyard and the brawling 

 jesters carved on a bench-end, which you can see through the 

 open door, present a curious contrast, and much enhance the 

 singular interest attaching to the place. After a mile more the 

 road dips to Porthgwarra Cove, a little colony of fishers. A 

 tunnel cut through the granite leads to their boats. Standing 

 above it another phase of sea-scenery delights us. The clearest 

 of water sparkles and gleams below us in the tiniest of bays ; you 

 see every parti-coloured pebble fathoms below; while above, an 

 ever-shifting network formed of the sun's rays on the broken 



