WINTERING IN WEST CORNWALL 5 



six minutes. But the houses are closely packed, or 

 rather jumbled together with the narrowest and crook- 

 edest streets and courts in which to get about or up 

 and down. They have a look of individuality, like a 

 crowd of big rough men pushing and elbowing one 

 another for room, and you can see how this haphazard 

 condition has come about when you stumble by chance 

 on a huge mass of rock thrusting up out of the earth 

 among the houses. There was, in fact, just this little 

 sheltered depression in a stony place to build upon, 

 and the first settlers, no doubt, set their houses just 

 where and how they could among the rocks, and when 

 more room was wanted more rocks were broken down 

 and other houses added until the town as we find it 

 resulted. It is all rude and irregular, as if produced 

 by chance or nature, and altogether reminds one of a 

 rabbit warren or the interior of an ants* nest. 



It cannot be nice to live in such a warren or rook- 

 ery, except to those who were born in it ; nevertheless 

 it is curiously attractive, and I, although a disliker of 

 towns or congeries of houses, found a novel pleasure 

 in poking about it, getting into doorways and chance 

 openings to be out of the way of a passing cart which 

 as a rule would take up the whole width of the street. 

 Outside the houses hung the wet oilskins and big sea- 

 boots to dry, and at the doors women with shawls 

 over their heads stand gossiping. When the men are 

 asleep or away and the children at school these appear 

 to be the only inhabitants, except the cats. You find 

 one at every few yards usually occupied with the 

 head of a mackerel or herring. The appearance was 



