26 THE LAND'S END 



ing village the boats are taken out at the stroke of 

 twelve on Sunday night. The St. Ives men do not 

 like to run it so fine, and the gulls are never able to 

 understand this long break in the fishing. On the 

 Saturday, after feeding, they retire to the sea and the 

 rocks, where they pass the day comfortably enough, 

 sitting with beaks to the wind and digesting a plenti- 

 ful meal. On Sunday morning they congregate in 

 the harbour with empty stomachs only to find the 

 boats lying empty and idle and all the men 

 away; they do not like it, but they put up with it, 

 and by and by loiter off to pick up what they can for 

 themselves, or to wait patiently on the sea and the 

 rocks, through another long twenty-four hours. On 

 Monday morning they are very hungry indeed, and 

 come in with stomachs that scream for food. 

 They come in their thousands, and still nothing for 

 them the boats lying empty and idle, the men still 

 at home in bed and no movement in the harbour ! 

 They cannot and they will not endure it. Then 

 begins a tremendous demonstration of the unem- 

 ployed. On my first Monday I was roused from 

 slumber before daylight by the uproar. It was not 

 now that tempest and tangle of broken, squealing and 

 grinding metallic noises emitted by the big gulls when 

 they are in numbers fighting over their food, it was 

 the loud long wailing call of the bird, incessantly 

 repeated, a thousand wailing like one, and at intervals 

 the dreary laughter-like chorus of short reiterated 

 cries ; then again the insistent wailing calls. When 

 it became light they could be seen as a white cloud 



