54 THE LAND'S END 



they know ; inhabited, for there are a few small sad- 

 looking granite cottages and farms and hamlets, but 

 of a rude and desolate aspect, and therefore in har- 

 mony with their emotions and preconceived ideas 

 about the place. It is a treeless barren country, hill 

 and moor, with furze and brown heath interspersed 

 with grey boulder stones, the whole dominated by 

 the great desolate hill of Chapel Carn Brea. The 

 travellers look out, straining their eyes to see the 

 end ; but before that comes the hilly country is left 

 behind, and at the last it is flat and tame with a sad- 

 looking granite-built village and the grey sea beyond. 

 One has watched the bright eager look that expected 

 so much fade out of the various faces ; and by the 

 time the pilgrims get down to scatter along the cliff 

 or to go at once to their luncheon at the hotel it is 

 pretty well all gone. And if you go back to Penzance 

 to join the next lot, and then again, and every day for 

 a week or a month, you will witness the same thing 

 the collection of unlike faces with the light of the 

 same feeling in the eyes of all, increasing as they 

 advance over that rude moorland country and fading 

 out at the end to that blank look " Is this the Land's 

 End is this all ! " 



What, then, did they expect ? Wilkie Collins best 

 answers that question in his pleasant book of rambles 

 written more than half a century ago, when he says 

 that the Land's End is to Cornwall what Jerusalem is 

 to the Holy Land, the great and final object of a 

 journey to the westernmost county of England, its 

 Ultima Thule, where it ceases ; a name that strikes 



