The entrance to the churchyard of Zennor on the west is by the usual stepping-stone stile, eight stones in number with the intervals not filled up with earth, a stone bench for sitting upon either side, and the stone slab in the centre for resting coffins upon as the mourners enter the church.

The vicar, seeing me looking round the church, came out of his house close by and most courteously pointed out to me many interesting details.

On an old headstone of slate, standing now in the belfry, I read :

(Note "b" in "bubble" left out and put in after, "vapor" without the "u," and misery spelt "misrey.") On a fly-leaf of one of the register books of the church is this:

"Elizabeth Stevens 1732

Of Zennor here

do writ when

This you see remember me
When I am out
of sight."

Previous to the restoration of Zennor Church, most of the windows had had their ancient stone tracing replaced by wooden sashes. It is said, I know not with what truth, that a former vicar had the ancient windows put into his stable, but in order that the church should not suffer any loss, he very considerately had his discarded stable-windows put into the church.

The name Zenobia is common as a baptismal name in Zennor. It in reality commemorates Saint Sinara, the patron of Zennor. The most famous bearer of this formidable appellation was Zenobia Stevens, of Trevegia-Wartha, in Towednack. The description of this old lady is given by the Rev. James Hamley in his Autobiography of a Cornish

A QUAINT OLD LADY

193

Rector (the author changed the name of the old lady, it will be noticed, and also the locale) :

"Soon after our settlement at Truro, we were surprised by a visit from old Mrs. Matthews, a tenant of my mother's, who came to request that her lease of ninety-nine years, which had just run out, might be renewed. Leases were granted in those days subject to the condition that after the death of three persons, whom the lessee was allowed to nominate on payment of a sum down, the estate should revert to the proprietor, whether the term of ninety-nine years had expired or not. I suppose such an instance as this had hardly ever occurred before, of one of the lives coming, at the expiration of the term, to petition for a renewal. Supposing Mrs. Matthews's life to have been on the estate, as the phrase was, the very day of her birth, she must have been entering now on her hundredth year. And yet there she stood as upright as my mother, and much more robust. She was dressed in what was called a Joseph, which might have been coeval with herself, for any remains of colour that it had; but the quaint riding-dress was perfectly whole and nicely brushed, and so were the silver-buckled shoes that peeped from under it. Her head-dress, like the lady in Christabel, was a thing to dream of, not to tell, it was so marvellously and inexplicably put together. What it was made of, none but a milliner of those days could hope to explain; but it looked very grand, especially by the side of my mother's little cap. From the waist downwards she wore what she called, I think, a ' safeguard,' a coarse garment of camlet or serge, which served to protect her Joseph, as well as to cover her feet when she was in the saddle. The long skirt of this garment was now drawn through her pocket-hole. Her hair was twisted behind into what was then called' club,' a sort of overgrown pigtail, as it seemed to us. In her hand she carried a riding-whip with a very silver knob."

Zennor is called "the place where the cow ate the bellrope," probably a saying which arose from the barrenness of the surrounding hills. The poverty of the land made the Zennor people frugal and thrifty, so that they were said to live like goats, and gave rise to their nickname "Zennor goats" and the local proverb, "As careful as Zennor people."

About a quarter of a mile north of the church, following a lane, and then passing through a gate on the right and walking through some rough land covered with brambles and bracken, I came to the famous Zennor logan stone. This I measured, and found it to be 22 feet 5 inches long, poised at about one-third of the length-naturally the thicker end— on a point, resting on a huge block of flat granite half sunk in the ground. On its upper surface it has large rock-basins, or giants' seats, as they are called, which are distinctly of natural formation, for I have observed them on granite blocks all over the Land's End district, not only on large pieces of granite, but also on tiny bits. These low armchair-seat-like depressions in the stone are where softer portions of the granite have been decomposed and washed out by weather and rain. I know many writers aver that they are artificial, but they could not have observed exactly similar phenomena on small pieces of granite, even on granite pebbles one can pick up on the seashore. Around this Zennor logan stone, which I must confess I was unable to move, at least I failed to notice any movement (I was alone), lie scattered amid the bracken around many large boulders of granite. One way of becoming a witch is to get on top of this stone nine times without shaking it, a method which my observation led me to think would enable ladies in the neighbourhood easily to acquire the powers of sorcery if they so desired.