came along, bought up and deported the lot, it would just serve us right. They value things more than a hundred years old in the United States of America. We as a nation don't. This most important matter of the preservation of Cornish antiquities I find is no new cry. In the Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1844, are printed two letters on the subject above the signature "P.," Penzance. After deploring the destruction of St. Piran's Church and other antiquities, the writer goes on to say: "If something be not soon done to arrest the progress of destruction by the killing kindness of antiquarian specimen hunters, and by the systematic and wholesale plunder of stone-carriers, masons, and farmers, and by the ruder, but scarcely less injurious attacks of wanton ignorance, within a century more, the record, the picture, and the piecemeal in the museums will alone remain to assure our descendants that Cornwall had a past, and, no new abode of civilised man, was inhabitedaye, and Christianised too more than a thousand years before New Holland and New Zealand, which may then be rising to the rank of empire, were known to exist!" -- This writer suggested a stringent law being passed, which should make the proprietors responsible for the safety of the antiquities on their land, but which, of course, should only punish them for wilful injury or culpable neglect, or connivance at the impunity of the offender when he was known. He thought the mischief had been effected chiefly by the small proprietors, tenants, and above all by the agents, where it had not been perpetrated by wanton ignorance. THE CHAPTER XVII CAPE CORNWALL, BOTALLACK MINE HE antiquary and lover of wild, rocky coast scenery could not do better than make St. Just his headquarters for a day or two. The district abounds, as we have seen, with remnants of a past civilisation, and besides these, Cape Cornwall and the famed Botallack Mine are most easily visited from this place. Just a mile and a half almost due west from St. Just, Cape Cornwall is reached. This notable promontory rejoices in being the only "cape" in England. Other promontories might have been called capes, but they have not. It is one of the most prominent headlands on the western coast, and is roughly in contour exactly like St. Michael's Mount and many other of the other headlands around the Land's End district. But, unlike St. Michael's Mount, it is still connected with the land by a low isthmus. In formation it is not like Land's End, of columnar granite, but is of the slate formation which extends to Pendeen from here. Its summit is a huge, rounded hillock with steep declivities around. Dr. Borlase speaks of it as the promontory of Helenus, because it has been said that Helenus, the son of Priamus, who arrived here with Brute, "lieth buried there, except the sea have washed away his sepulchre." But the name is more probably derived from the old Cornish, Pen Hailen, the great head; or from Pen-hail-mên, the great stone head. On the top of the eminence there seems to have been a building, probably a beacon and watch tower, to give notice to the country around of any hostile approach. Cape Cornwall was one of those cliff castles severed from the mainland by trenches and walls, like the Logan Stone promontory, Land's End, and many others. The old rural simplicity and wild naturalness of this headland are being quite ruined by the extraordinarily strong and lofty walls being built there. Roads are being made as well, one to run all round the cape; and generally an atmosphere of artificiality is enveloping the spot, which to the lover of wild, rugged scenery is regrettable. A gentleman, Mr. Frank Oates, is building a very large house on the high land overlooking the cape, and has, I believe, bought the whole place. He was very successful at the Cape-not this one, which he left as a boy for the other-and has returned to his old birthplace to live. I searched for the remains of St. Helen's Oratory on the isthmus, and at last found a small roofless room of roughly hewn stones on the ground of which cabbages were growing. Two circular niches now alone remain to show any ancient structure, and as a high wall is being built around the field in which the remains of the oratory stand, they will soon retire altogether from public sight. Nearly a mile south-west of Cape Cornwall are the two fearfully dangerous rocks-the Brisons. These, as seen from Sennen, look like one. They rise some seventy feet above high-water mark and are also called the Sisters. Brison is the Cornish word for prison, and it is said that as such they were formerly used; but if people were ever sent there it seems a more appropriate name would have been Executioner's Islands, for surely nothing human could live there long. A terrible wreck occurred on these deadly Brisons on January 11th, 1851. A brig, New Commercial, bound from Liverpool to Spain, struck between these rocks and soon went to pieces. Blight thus describes the scene: "The crew, nine men, with one woman, the wife of the master, got on the ledge. They were discovered from the shore as soon as day broke, but it was then impossible to render them any assistance. In this wretched condition they remained until about nine o'clock, when a tremendous wave rose and carried them all off. Seven out of the ten at once sank. Of the remaining three, one, a mulatto, contrived to get on a portion of floating wreck, and after being buffeted about for some hours, he managed, with a remarkable coolness and presence of mind, by means of a plank, which he used as a paddle, and a piece of canvas, which served him as a sail, with the assistance of the strong tides, to keep clear of the boiling surf. Whilst this poor fellow was thus struggling for |