THE PEOPLE AND THE FARMS 117 



hollow chimney. For a minute or two the whole big 

 room would be almost too hot and lit up as by 

 a flash of lightning. Then the roaring flames would 

 sink and vanish, leaving nothing but a bed of grey 

 ashes, jewelled with innumerable crimson and yellow 

 sparks, rapidly diminishing. Then I would begin to 

 think that " sitting by the fire " in this land was 

 a mockery, that I was not warmed and made 

 happy like a serpent in the sun, but was overcome 

 from time to time by gusts of intolerable heat and 

 light, with intervals of gloom that was almost dark- 

 ness and bitter cold between. I should not have 

 cared to spend the entire bitterly-cold winter of 

 1 906-7 with no better fuel, but for a time I liked it 

 well enough ; it was a pleasure to feel the stirring to 

 life of old instincts, to recover the associations which 

 fire has for one that has lived in rude lands ; and 

 then, too, the glorious effect of the blaze at its 

 greatest was intensified by the cold and gloom that 

 preceded and followed it. 



As I wished to know how they lived I had the 

 ordinary fare and found it quite good enough for any 

 healthy person : pork fattened on milk and home- 

 cured ; milk (from the cow) and Cornish clotted 

 cream, which is unrivalled ; sometimes a pasty, in 

 which a little chopped-up meat is mixed with sliced 

 turnip and onion and baked in a crust, and finally the 

 thin Cornish broth with sliced swedes which give it 

 a sweetish taste. Then there was the very excellent 

 home-made bread, and saffron cake, on which the 

 Cornish child is weaned and which he goes on eating 



