one place, I noticed what seemed to be a headless female figure, perhaps the Virgin, and as large as life:  my Jehu said he had heard that it once had a head.  We soon came to a small square inclosure, said to be a most ancient cemetery; I scrambled over the wall, and found among the briars and weeds one solitary tomb of a venerable and Runic aspect, but I soon found out that it recorded the name of somebody who departed Ye LYFE somewhere in 1577; nothing so extremely ancient.  A rough rock-besprinkled hill now attracted me, as I heard it was called another Carn-breh, and was surmounted by some mound, or ruin:  so out of the gig, and up in no time.  Clearly it had been an ancient beacon place, as atop are the remains of a small square-built terrace inclosing some upright stones placed irregularly,—­a sort of huge fireplace.  One of the neighbouring rocks presented on its surface a fine specimen of what are called rock basins; but unluckily for the antiquary, this excavation is on the side of the stone, not on the summit; so that it could not possibly hold water, and is clearly caused by some particular moss eating away the stone.—­By three o’clock returned to Penzance, had dinner (it was breakfast too), bought a mineral memorial, and in the gig again, over the sands to the outlandishly named Mara Zion, or Market Jew, words probably of similar import.  Opposite to this little place, and joined to it by a neck of rocks passable at low-water, stands that picturesque gem, Mount St. Michael.  You know the sort of thing; an abrupt, pyramid of craggy rock, crowned with an edifice, half stronghold and half cathedral.  It is a home of the St. Aubyn family, and is well kept up in the ancient style, but in rather a small way:  a portcullised entrance, old armour hanging in the guard-room, a beautiful dining-hall with carved oak roof, and panels, and chairs; a chapel to match, with stained windows; an elegant Gothic drawing-room, white and gold; and everything, down to black-leather drinking jugs, in character with the feudal stronghold.  I mounted the corkscrew tower, and got to the broken stone lantern they call St. Michael’s chair; an uncomfortable job, but rewarded by a splendid panorama, gilt by the setting sun:  in the chapel too, I descended into a miserable dungeon communicating with a monk’s stall, where doubtless some self-immured penitent had wasted life away, only coming to the light for matins, and only relieved from solitary imprisonment by midnight mass.  This has been discovered but very lately in repairing the chapel:  it was walled up, and contained a skeleton.  As a matter of course, this old castle contains a little hidden room, where that ubiquitous vagabond, the royal Charles, laid his hunted head:  the poor persecuted debauchee sponged upon all his friends like Bellyserious Buggins.  Back again, by water this time, to little Mara Zion, but ever and anon looking with admiration on that beautiful mount; the western rocks are really magnificent, as big as the largest hay-stacks,