a time when the smugglers and wreckers of Cornwall no doubt enjoyed
greater prosperity and felt, perhaps, more anxiety for their souls'
welfare than do their fisher-folk descendants.

On re-ascending the hill we stopped at the Castle for our noonday
luncheon, but the castle in this instance is a fine old mansion built
about a hundred years ago as a private residence and since passed into
the possession of a railway company, which has converted it into an
excellent hotel. Situated as it is, in a fine park on the eminence
overlooking the bay, few hostelries at which we paused seemed more
inviting for a longer sojourn.

Four miles from Penzance is Marazion, and St. Michael's Mount, lying
near at hand, takes its name from the similar but larger and more
imposing cathedral-crowned headland off the coast of France. It is a
remarkable granite rock, connected with the mainland by a strip of sand,
which is clear of the water only four hours of the day. The rock towers
to a height of two hundred and fifty feet and is about a mile in
circumference. It is not strange that in the days of castle-building
such an isolated site should have been seized upon; and on the summit is
a many-towered structure built of granite and so carefully adapted to
its location as to seem almost a part of the rock itself. When we
reached Marazion, the receding tide had left the causeway dry, and as we
walked leisurely the mile or so between the town and the mount, the
water was already stealthily encroaching on the pathway. We found the
castle more of a gentleman's residence than a fortress, and it was
evidently never intended for defensive purposes. It has been the
residence of the St. Aubyn family since the time of Charles II, and the
villagers were all agog over elaborate preparations to celebrate the
golden wedding anniversary of the present proprietor. The climb is a