five hundred fathoms deep, not far from a
perpendicular dropped from Ludgvan quoit,
quite beyond the reach of our diving
apparatus.

Alas!—No Daws!

To make up for this continued ornithological
disappointment, some sandwiches and
a bottle of pale ale make their appearance,
through the agency of a benevolent fairy.
The time occupied in attentions to them, may
also be devoted to a little sober reflection.

With all its wildness, its retirement, and
its semi-insular position, this is a particularly
enjoyable part of the world to those who
like it. And to some constitutions, mental
and bodily, the sea, sea air, sea views,
seaside walks, sea-grown diet—THE SEA is a
matter almost of necessity. Without it, such
folks barely exist; with it, they flourish
vigorously.

What a nuisance for such people to find
themselves fixed for life in the Midland
Counties of England, where they cannot get
a glimpse of a lovely, straight, blue horizon
without a journey! Still worse, to be
transplanted to Central Europe, to some Canton,
Grand Duchy, or Kingdom, of which the
whole navy may consist of a couple of four-
oared boats, and a barge! An utterly hopeless
case would be banishment to the heart
of either of the American Continents, where
the natives have as clear a notion of the
ocean, as we have of the features of the North
Pole. To live and die without ever having
seen the sea; what an incomplete life!
Geographers complain of the vast
disproportion of water on the terraqueous globe; but
we have now more land than we can occupy
properly, and turn to good account. The
seas prevent us from being a nuisance to
each other, at the same time that they admit
of a reasonable amount, both of visiting, and
marketing.

The sea here does not produce exactly the
same impression on the mind as in most
other parts of the English coast. There, it is
a successful aggressor; here, it is a baffled
bully. These cliffs are of granite and other
most hard materials, yielding, apparently, not
an inch to the fury of Atlantic waves; they
seem rather to defy them, planting firm
outposts of rock in their domain. They are
magnificent and sublime; but they affect us
in quite a different way, and are less touching
to the feelings, less startling to the
imagination, than the falling and melting masses of
the Norfolk and many other cliffs. In these
we behold a smiling, liberal, and prosperous
victim, who can ill be spared, mercilessly laid
low, destroyed, and made to disappear, by an
unrelenting enemy, who is none the richer
for his triumph, and who, we plainly see, will
never cease from his work of destruction, so
long as anything remains to be destroyed.
But the cold, gray, hoary cliffs of Cornwall,
are also firm, hard-hearted, and churlish.
They give nothing; what little they do yield
is violently extorted from them. They defy
the storms, the frosts, the floods, and the
breakers. Time only, and slow invisible
agencies, can touch them. They are not
eternal; but of a duration extending much
farther than we can conceive, both back into
the past, and on towards the future. Their
tenant, the Cornish chough, on whose head
naturalists have now set a price, may belong
to but one of a series of Faunas which, in
their respective generations, have haunted
these immovable, outlandish hiding-places,
and then have followed the course of all
things earthly.

"Do not look so down-hearted, though
the ale and sandwiches are finished. The
air here sharpens the appetite, but you will
find something on the dinner-table, and
then—"

"It was not merely that; it seems to me
that your Daws are a myth, a mocking mirage.
The species is a plausible invention of
Pennant's, adopted, without sufficient
evidence, by Mr. Yarrel. Our friend's specimens,
at Penzance, are factitious things, made up
of false feathers and paint. Here am I, day
after day, out on a fool's errand, bent on a
wild-goose chase; and I'm beginning to be
tired of it."

"For shame; to let such thoughts escape
your lips! Even if our Daws were a myth, and
an unattainable ideality,—that you, with your
eyes open, should not perceive its significance!
Is not life itself a wild-goose chase, during
which, though we are sure to lose many a
bird that we set our hearts on bagging, we
also pick up many a prize that we had not
hoped to meet with by the way ? Look at
the history of all human knowledge. Have
we not grasped at a philosopher's stone, and a
golden draught of unfading youth; and do we
not hold a Chemistry in our hands? And, in
the wildest wild-goose chase are there no
refined pleasures to be tasted, no deep wisdom
to be learned, along the road I Are we not
taught, while travelling forward, to despise,
to reject, to believe, and to dare; all during
the course of our continued disappointments?
Is it nothing simply to be here;—to view
these glorious sights, and to feel, in beholding
them, the thrill of admiration, reverence, and
wonder?

"Enough. I am rebuked. Henceforth,
Onward shall be our hunting shout. What
unexpected godsend may be found, who can
tell beforehand I The Daws invite me, and
I follow them.

Now Ready, Price 3s. in cloth, the
VOLUME FOR 1851 OF
THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE
OF CURRENT EVENTS;
Which being declared, by the judgment of the Court of
Exchequer, a legal publication not coming within the
provisions of the Stamp Act, will be regularly continued and
much improved.