io 4 THE LAND'S END 



St. Ives beach I one day saw another specimen. He 

 was in the middle of an altercation with a carter who 

 was loading his cart with dogfish which the fish- 

 buyers had turned up their noses at and so it had to 

 be sold for manure. He was in a state of intense 

 excitement, dancing about on the sands and dis- 

 charging a torrent of wild gibberish at the other. 

 I remarked to a young Cornishman who was standing 

 there looking on and listening, that I could not 

 understand a word and could hardly believe that all 

 the man's jabber really meant anything. " I can 

 understand him very well," said the young man : 

 "he is talking proper Cornish'' 



At Sennen Cove I came upon yet another example : 

 he too was in a dancing rage when I first saw him, 

 chattering, screeching and gesticulating more like a 

 frenzied monkey than a human being. The man he 

 was abusing was a big stolid fisherman, who stood 

 with his hands in his trouser pockets, a clay pipe in 

 his mouth, perfectly unmoved, like a post : it was a 

 wonderful contrast and altogether a very strange 

 scene. 



This small, dark, peppery man, who is found 

 throughout the country, and whose chief character- 

 istics appear to be intensified in West Cornwall, is no 

 doubt a survival or, more properly speaking, a rever- 

 sion to a very ancient type in this country. At all 

 events, there is a vast difference between this little 

 blackie or brownie of Bolerium and the prevailing 

 type. The man of the ordinary type is medium-sized 

 and has a broad head, high cheek-bones, light hair, 



