been subjected to strong heat, and which must have served either as a kitchen or as a place for smelting tin. Another division contained rude querns and mullers, and may have been the mill of the establishment. In the courtyard was a granite boulder, which had certainly been used for grinding-not, probably, corn, but tin ore; and in an adjoining chamber was found a rude trough, close to which lay a piece of metal which, though not sufficiently fused, had clearly passed through the fire. The hut-cluster thus examined may be taken as a type of all the others. Portions of the Hill of Chysoister (the name, it is asserted, signifies "heap-shaped," or "bee-hive" houses) have been roughly levelled into terraces for cultivation, and there are stone-walled enclosures, apparently for sheep. In

HUT-VILLAGE AT CHYSOISTER. (After Borlase.)

fact, the inhabitants of this primitive village seem to have greatly resembled in their way of life the Cornishmen who are their modern representatives. They were at once miners, and farmers, and fishermen, attending to either business as the season of the year allowed or suggested. They were very far indeed from savages; and their whole system of life was certainly more advanced than that indicated by the isolated huts of the eastern district. Many settlements, precisely resembling this at Chysoister, occur, and have been examined, in different parts of West Cornwall. Perhaps the most noticeable are at Chapel Euny, at Bosullo, and at Mulfra; in all of which we have the same central court, with side chambers in the same positions opening into it. It may be added that in some parts of Carnarvonshire there are early enclosures, the ground-plans of which might pass for those in Cornwall; and the articles found in them, and in the huts near Holyhead, examined by Mr. Stanley, are the same as those found at Chysoister.

There are two features of these Cornish hut-villages, however, which have not yet been mentioned, and which deserve attention. In most, perhaps in all, of them there is an underground cave, or "fogou," with a long, sometimes winding, entrance, opening to a subterranean chamber or chambers; and the villages are either strengthened in some manner (we have seen that there was a parapet and a walk behind it at Chysoister), or they are near to some hill-castle to which the inhabitants could betake themselves with their goods in time of danger. Of the caves there is a striking example at Chapel Euny, in the parish of Sancreed, and another at Trewoofe, or Troove, not far from Penzance. Similar caves exist in Scotland and in Ireland, where they are almost always connected with 'raths," or forts, sometimes within, sometimes outside the walls. They may have served for storehouses, and perhaps as places for occasional concealment. It is said that a Mr. Levelis, of Trewoofe, hid for some time a party of Cavaliers in the cave there, after the overthrow of the royal cause in 1646. Of the relations between the villages and the hill-forts, the most remarkable instance is that of Bosullo, where the settlement is

A. Entrance; B. Central Court; c. Circular Hut; D, D. Long Hut with Partition; E. Small Bee-hive Hut; F. Oval Hut; G. Hearth; H. Square Hut; K, K. Pit, and Traces of Smelting; L. Round Grinding Stone; M. Raised Platform, or Rampart.

ANCIENT HUT-VILLAGES.

117

altogether undefended, but is connected by a paved way with the Castle of Chywoone, which crowns the hill-top immediately above the village. Chywoone Castle is provided with hut structures all round the inner wall, the refuges, no doubt, of the villagers of Bosullo. The castle itself is the most easterly of a chain of seven hill-forts, which extend to the Land's End, and between which signals might easily be exchanged. But it is unlike any of the others, and indeed there is nothing in Cornwall with which it can fairly be compared. It has two lines of circular walls, built without mortar, but of excellent masonry; "the stones," wrote Sir Gardner Wilkinson, "fitting to each other as in the old Etruscan walls at Cortona." About 200 yards from the entrance is Chywoone "Quoit " (so cromlechs are called in this part of Cornwall), one of the closed or Kistvaen-like structures, all of which were originally more or less covered with stones and earth. The table-stone measures 12 feet by 11. The "quoit" is, of course, sepulchral, and in all probability of far greater antiquity than the castle.

dwellings" as they are called, just as their surface streamings for tin, generally to be found in some neighbouring valley, are known as the "old men's workings." But what is their date? Do they really go back to the days of Phoenician intercourse, or are they much more recent? This question it is hard to answer. But the fact that late Roman coins have been found in some of these huts indicates that they were occupied during the Roman period, and later; and we may perhaps accept all the relics of past life and labour which have been discovered in them as belonging to that time. But there is no apparent reason why the hut-clusters themselves should not be more ancient. The dwellings are, no doubt, of a more developed character and indicate a higher life than the pounds and huts of Dartmoor; but they are all the more fitting for the "courteous" tin-workers of Diodorus.

We must come back, however, to the present, and install ourselves for a time at Penzance, the best point from which to visit the Land's End and the whole of the grand coast, from the Logan Rock round to St. Just. "All the comforts of the Saut-market," to borrow from Bailie Nicol Jarvie, are to be found at Penzance, the "Holy Headland," so called from

a chapel dedicated to St. Anthony which once stood on a point adjoining the pier. Except for the museum of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, and for the excellent public library, the town itself has small attraction; but the bay that opens in front, with St. Michael's Mount on one side, and the long range of the Lizard coast (beyond our present bounds) stretching away southward, and on the other the lower shore with its villages and inlets, sweeping round to Lamorna, are full of the peculiar beauty, and rich in the soft, misty sunshine which belong to this frostless climate, where hedges of scarlet geranium, and great trees of fuchsia, flourish unharmed through the winters. Mount's Bay is one of the principal stations of the pilchard fishery, and affords accommodation to

a fleet of nearly 200 boats. On a fine evening, when this fleet is assembled in the bay, equipped and ready for sea, or, with hull and sail illumined by a setting sun, is leaving the shore in a line extending seaward as far as the eye can reach, the sight is one not easily to be paralleled. It is the pilchard which figures in the old Cornish toast of "Tin, fish, and copper," and whilst tin and copper are yearly contributing less and less to the wealth and welfare of the country, the "fish" maintain their importance. The pilchard fishery is conducted on the largest scale, and interests of great magnitude are involved in its success. The yearly produce averages from 20,000 to 30,000 hogsheads; and during one season it is recorded that no less than 75,000,000

pilchards were enclosed by the seines of St. Ives alone in a single day. Towards the middle of spring the pilchards rise from the depths of the sea, and consorting at first in small shoals, unite into larger ones, until at last, about the end of July, they combine in one mighty host, led by the so-called "Pilchard King," and by the most powerful of the tribe. Then commences that extraordinary migration which calls out the Cornish fishermen. Pursued by hordes of predacious fish and greedy flocks of sea-birds, the pilchards advance towards the land in such amazing numbers as almost to impede the passage of vessels, and to discolour the water in all directions. The spectacle of this great fish-army passing the Land's End is described as one of the most wonderful and interesting that it is possible to imagine. It strikes the land, generally, somewhat north of Cape Cornwall, where a detachment turns towards St. Ives. But the greater host passes between Scilly and the Land's End, and follows the windings of the shore at least as