CORNWALL'S CONNEMARA 31 



strewn abundantly with granite boulders, rough with 

 heath and furze and bracken, the summits crowned 

 with great masses of rock resembling ancient ruined 

 castles. Midway between the hills and the sea, half 

 a mile or so from the cliffs, are the farms, but the 

 small houses and walled fields on the inhabited strip 

 hardly detract from the rude and savage aspect of the 

 country. Nature will be Nature here, and man, like 

 the other inhabitants of the wilderness, has adapted 

 himself to the conditions. The badgers have their 

 earths, the foxes their caverns in the rocks, and the 

 linnet, yellow-hammer, and magpie hide their nests, 

 big and little, in the dense furze bushes : he in like 

 manner builds his dwelling small and low, shelter- 

 ing as best he can in any slight depression in the 

 ground, or behind thickets of furze and the rocks he 

 piles up. The small naked stone farm-house, with its 

 little outbuildings, corn - stacks, and wood piles 

 huddling round it, seem like a little flock of goats 

 drawn together for company and shelter in some rough 

 desert place on a cold windy day. Looking from a 

 hill-top on one of the small groups of buildings and 

 in some instances two or three farms have clubbed 

 their houses together for better protection from the 

 blast they resemble toy houses, and you have the 

 fancy that you could go down and pick them up and 

 put them in your pocket. 



The coast road, running from village to village, 

 winding much, now under now over the hills, comes 

 close to some of the farms and leaves others at a 

 distance ; but all these little human centres are united 



