



Produced by David Widger from page images generously
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THE LAND'S END

A NATURALIST'S IMPRESSIONS IN WEST CORNWALL

By W. H. Hudson

With Forty-Nine Illustrations By A. L. Collins

New York, D. Appleton And Company

1908

[Illustration: 0017]




THE LAND'S END




CHAPTER I WINTERING IN WEST CORNWALL

_England's "observables"--Why I delayed visiting Cornwall--A vision
of the Land's End-Flight to St. Ives-Climate-The old town-The
fishermen-Their love of children-Drowned babes--The fishing fleet going
out at sunset-Old memories suggested-Jackdaws at St. Ives--Feeding the
birds--A greedy sheep-dog-Daws show their intelligence--Daws on the
roofs--Their morning pastime-Dialogue between two daws._

|KNOW," said wise old Fuller, "most of the rooms of thy native country
before thou goest over the threshold thereof. Especially seeing England
presents thee with so many observables." But if we were to follow this
advice there would be no getting out of the country at all. It is too
rich in its way: the rooms are too many and too well-furnished with
observables. Take my case. I have been going on rambles about the land
for a good many years, and though the West Country had the greatest
attraction for me, I never got over the Tamar, nor even so far as
Plymouth, simply because I had not the time, albeit my time was my own.
Or because there was enough and more than enough to satisfy me on this
side of the boundary. It is true that one desires to see and know all
places, but is in no hurry to go from a rich to a poor one. I was told
by every one of my friends that it was the most interesting county in
England, and doubtless it is so to them, but I knew it could not be so
to me because of the comparative poverty of the fauna, seeing that the
observables which chiefly draw me are the living creatures-the wild
life-and not hills and valleys and granite and serpentine cliffs and
seas of Mediterranean blue. These are but the setting of the shining
living gems, and we know the finest of these, which gave most lustre to
the scene, have been taken out and cast away.

Cornwall to me was just the Land's End-"dark Bolerium, seat of
storms"-that famous foreland of which a vast but misty picture formed in
childhood remains in the mind, and if I ever felt any strong desire
to visit Cornwall it was to look upon that scene. Then came a day in
November, 1905, when, having settled to go away somewhere for a season,
I all at once made up my mind to visit the unknown peninsula and to go
straight away to the very end. It almost astonished me when I alighted
from my train at St. Ives to think I had travelled three hundred and
twenty odd miles with less discomfort and weariness than I usually
experience on any journey of a hundred.

It is common, I think, for lovers of walking to dislike the railway. So
smoothly had I been carried in this flight to the furthest west that I
might have been sailing in a balloon; and as for the time occupied it
would surely be no bad progress for a migrating bird, travelling, let
us say, from Middlesex to Africa, to cover the distance I had come in a
little more than seven hours!

St. Ives is on the north side of the rounded western extremity of
Cornwall, and from the little green hill, called the "Island," which
rises above and partly shelters the town, you look out upon the wide
Atlantic, the sea that has always a trouble on it and that cannot be
quiet; and standing there with the great waves breaking on the black
granite rocks at your feet, they will tell you that there is no land
between you and America. Nevertheless, after London, I wanted no better
climate; for though it rained heavily on many days in December and the
wind blew with tremendous force, the temperature was singularly mild,
with an agreeable softness in the air and sunshine breaking out on
the cloudiest days. The weather could be described as "delicate" with
tempestuous intervals. On bright, windless days I saw the peacock
butterfly abroad and heard that idle song of the corn bunting,
associated in our minds with green or yellow fields and sultry weather.
I was still more surprised one day late in December at meeting with a
lively wheatear, flitting from stone to stone near the Land's End. This
one had discovered that it was not necessary to fly all the way to North
Africa to find a