details.  Here our friend’s intimate knowledge of the country came in useful.  There was no direct driving road along the coast, so it was arranged that our driver should accompany us where he could, and then when his road diverged he should meet us at certain points to be explained by our friend later in the day.  Mutual distrust, we supposed, prevented us from paying him in advance, and possibly created a suspicion in the driver’s mind that there was something wrong somewhere, and he evidently thought what fools we were to walk all the way along the coast to Land’s End when we might have ridden in his trap.  We journeyed together for the first mile or two, and then he had to leave us for a time while we trudged along with only our sticks to carry, for, to make matters equal in that respect, our friend had borrowed one at the hotel, a much finer-looking one than ours, of which he was correspondingly proud.

[Illustration:  PENZANCE]

[Illustration:  DOROTHY PENTREATH’S STONE, ST. PAUL’S CHURCH.]

He insisted upon our seeing everything there was to be seen, and it soon became evident that what our companion did not know about the fine rock scenery on this part of the coast of Cornwall was not worth knowing, so that we were delighted to have him with us.  The distance from Penzance to Land’s End was not great, but by the route selected it occupied the whole of the day, including many stoppages, and we had a glorious walk.  The weather had been rather squally yesterday, and there was a steady breeze still blowing.  We enjoyed seeing the breakers dash themselves into foam against the rocks and thunder inside the fissures and caverns below.  Occasionally we got a glimpse of the red tinge given to the smoother waters of the sea by the shoals of pilchards passing along the coast, so that in the same journey we had seen the water reddened with herrings in the extreme north and with pilchards in the extreme south of Britain.

At Newlyn we were delighted with the quaint, crooked little passages which did duty for streets, and we were informed that the place was noted for artists and fish—­a rather strange combination.  We learned that when first the pilchards arrived at Land’s End, they divided into two immense shoals, one going in the direction of Mounts Bay and the other towards St. Ives Bay, the record catch in a single haul at that place being 245 millions!  There was a saying at Newlyn that it was unlucky to eat a pilchard from the head, as it should be eaten from its tail; but why, it was difficult to define, unless it was owing to the fact that it was the tail that guided the head of the fish towards the coasts of Cornwall.

We also passed through a village named Paul, which had been modernised into St. Paul.  Its church had a rather lofty tower, which stood on the hill like a sentinel looking over Mounts Bay.  This place was also burnt by the Spaniards in 1595.  It appeared that George Borrow had visited it on January 15th, 1854, as he passed through on his way to Land’s End, for the following entry appeared in his Diary for that day:  “Went to St. Paul’s Church.  Saw an ancient tomb with the inscription in Cornish at north end.  Sat in a pew under a black suit of armour belonging to the Godolphin family, with two swords.”  We copied this Cornish epitaph as under: