158 THE LAND'S END 



by travellers. Several of the men present had been 

 great travellers themselves, and almost every one had 

 a good story or two to relate, but the best of all 

 was one of a traveller who had been walking for many 

 hours in one of the stoniest districts he had ever been 

 in. As far as he could see on every side the earth was 

 strewn with masses of stone, and he was quite tired 

 of the endless desolation. At length he came on a 

 native engaged in piling up stones in a field, and 

 approaching him addressed him as follows : " My 

 good man, can you tell me where the people of these 

 parts procure stone with which to build their 

 houses ? " That was the mocking question, and the 

 witty answer of the native created a great laugh at 

 the table, but unfortunately I have forgotten what it 

 was. I have tried in that stony place to recall it 

 without success. It may be that some reader of this 

 chapter has heard and remembers the answer ; if so, 

 I hope he will have the goodness to communicate it to 

 me, and relieve my tired mind from further efforts to 

 recover it. 



Now one day in Cornwall, while walking on a vast 

 stony hill above the little village of Towednack, I 

 spied a man at work digging up stone in the middle 

 of a freshly ploughed field at the foot of the hill. 

 He had a crowbar, which he would thrust down into 

 the soil to find where there was stone near the surface ; 

 then with his three-cornered, long-handled spade he 

 would dig down and expose it, and if too large to be 

 lifted he would, with drill and wedges and iron mallet, 

 split it up into pieces of a convenient size. In this 



