outlier of rocks in the sea, surmounted by a
lighthouse: looks _like_ the end of the struggle between conquering
man, and sturdy desolation. One place, where I tremble to think I
have been, struck me as quite awful: helped by an iron-handed
sailor, who comforts you in the dizzy scramble with "Never fear,
sir, you shan't fall, unless I fall too," you fearfully pick your
way to the extreme end, where it goes slick down, and lying
prostrate on the slippery granite (which looks disjointed
everywhere, and as if it would fall with you, bodily) with head
strained over you see under you a dreadful cavern, open nearly to
where you are, up which roars the white and angry sea. O brother
David, and foot-tingling Sire, never can you take that look; and
never would I again. Only think of tipping over! ugh.--Into the gig
again, beside my shrewd Sam Weller driver, and away. Here and there
about this part of Cornwall are studded rude stone crosses,
probably of the time of St. Colomba, as they are similar to those
at Iona: about two or three feet high, and very rude. In 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), bou