[Illustration:  Near Land’s end.

From Water Color by Wm. T. Richards.]

The ordinary fishing boat is manned by five or six men and makes two trips each week to the deep-sea fishing “grounds,” seventy-five to one hundred miles away.  The craft is rude and comfortless in the extreme and so constructed as to be nearly unsinkable if kept off the rocks.  The fish are taken by trawling great nets and drawing them aboard with a special tackle.  The principal catch of the Newlyn fishermen is herring, which are pickled in the village and exported, mainly to Norway and Sweden.  The value of the fish depends on the state of the market, and the price realized is often as low as a shilling per hundred weight.  The majority of the population of Cornwall is engaged directly or indirectly in the fisheries, and considering the inferiority of most of the country for agriculture and the extensive coast line with its numerous harbors, it is not strange that so many of the natives should follow this life.  In earlier days, smuggling and wrecking constituted the occupation of a large number of the Cornishmen, but under modern conditions these gentle arts can no longer be successfully practiced, and fishing furnishes about the only alternative.

Just across the peninsula is St. Ives, another fishing village, even more picturesque than Newlyn and quite as much in favor with the artists.  To reach this town we turned a few miles from the main road on the following day, but missed the fisher-fleet as before.  The bay on which St. Ives is situated is the most beautiful on the Cornish coast, and on the day of our visit the bright stretch of water, sleeping placidly under the June skies and dotted with glistening sails, well maintained its reputation for surpassing loveliness.  Before we entered the town a man of whom we inquired the way advised us to leave our car and walk down the sharp descent to the coast, where the village mostly lies.  The idea of the return trip was not pleasing, and we boldly started down, only to wish we had been more amenable to the friendly advice, for a steeper, narrower, crookeder street we did not find anywhere.  In places it was too narrow for vehicles to pass abreast, and sharp turns on a very steep grade, in streets crowded with children, made the descent exceedingly trying.  However, we managed to get through safely and came to a stop directly in front of the Fifteenth Century church, an astonishingly imposing structure for a village which showed more evidences of poverty than of anything else.  The church was built at a time when the smugglers and wreckers of Cornwall no doubt enjoyed greater prosperity and felt, perhaps, more anxiety for their souls’ welfare than do their fisher-folk descendants.

On re-ascending the hill we stopped at the Castle for our noonday luncheon, but the castle in this instance is a fine old mansion built about a hundred years ago as a private residence and since passed into the possession of a railway company, which has converted it into an excellent hotel.  Situated as it is, in a fine park on the eminence overlooking the bay, few hostelries at which we paused seemed more inviting for a longer sojourn.