36 THE LAND'S END 



world, because I've got to live in it and get my living 

 out of it." 



They certainly have to work hard to make the 2 

 per acre they have to pay for their stony fields. But 

 they are a tough, industrious, frugal people, in many 

 instances little removed from peasants in their way of 

 living, and are strongly attached to their rude homes 

 and rough country. If you tell them that their lot is 

 exceedingly hard, that they pay too high a rent, and 

 so on, enumerating all the drawbacks, they assent 

 eagerly, and will put in many little touches to make 

 the picture darker ; but if you then advise them to 

 throw up their farms and migrate to some place you 

 can name, in the Midlands say, where they will pay 

 less for better land, and be out of the everlasting 

 wind which tears every green leaf to shreds and 

 makes their lives a perpetual discomfort, they shake 

 their heads. They cannot endure the thought of 

 leaving their homes. It is only the all but complete 

 ruin of the tin-mining industry that has sent so many 

 Cornishmen into exile in distant lands. But these 

 wanderers are always thinking of home and come 

 back when they can. One meets them every day, 

 young and middle-aged men, back from Africa, 

 Australia, America ; not to settle down, since there is 

 nothing for them to do not just yet at all events ; 

 but because they have saved a little and can afford to 

 take that long journey for the joy of seeing the dear 

 old faces again, and the dear familiar land which 

 proved so uninteresting to the reverend author of 

 Forest Scenery. 



