The finest thing in Camborne is the road that leads out of it. That is a clumsy paraphrase of Johnson, I know, touched, too, with a suspicion of Irishry; but for all that, true enough. I don’t know that the little hamlet of Barrepper would, with an advent from more pleasing scenes, have seemed so welcome a place, but after Camborne it was welcome indeed. A little hamlet, Barrepper, on the highroad to Hayle. It consists, apparently, of half a dozen cottages, every one uninhabited and in ruins, and one general shop, which is also the post-office. One wonders whence come the people to buy and post. No one was there when we passed by, save the shopkeeper postmaster, and he sat outside his shop, reading a newspaper in the road. Close by a brooklet trickled across the highway, under a rude stone bridge, and this was all of Barrepper. Now the country side became flat and singularly uninteresting; utterly undistinguished. The mining-field was left behind, and the streams ran clear again, but the level lands and the smug hamlet of Carnhell Green, through which we passed, were featureless. The straggling stony village of Gwinear, too, is remarkable for nothing but its name—a name, like those of many Cornish villages, full of possibilities.

The Cornish have a wonderful Procrustean trick of altering proper names to suit the conveniences of their speech, only the trick works commonly but one way with them, and that is with the lopping off, rather than the addition or elongation of, syllables.

For example, the villages and churches of Phillack and Filleigh are named after the martyr saint Felicitas; and what was once a baptismal name for girls, Felicity, very often met with in the county, is at this day not only colloquially but baptismally given as Filly or Philly.13

To see these names (as one frequently does) on tombstones of quiet sober graveyards, strikes the stranger with an effect of misapplied humour, but a Cornishman sees no levity in them. But, in Cornwall generally, girls’ names are strangely contorted, as witness the very favourite appellations of Jenifer for Guinevere, and Tamsin for Thomasine. These we saw often, and once that rare and pretty name, Avice.

To revert again to place-names, Saint Blazey is a rendition of Saint Blaise; Saint Rumon, who lends his name to two parishes, becomes Ruan; Saint Austell presumably derives from Augustulus; Saint Buryan is a shortening of the name of Saint Buriana; the village of Gerran has its name from Gerennius, who was nothing of a saint, indeed, but very much of a chieftain; and Saint Mellion is from Saint Melanius. Sennen, too, smells suspiciously like a corruption of Symphorien. Even where names are not thus reduced, or where, being of but one syllable, they admit of no further contraction, your true Cornishman will contrive to twist them inconceivably. Of these, Saint Clare has become Saint Cleer, and the name of Saint Erth, the village by which we now came into Penwith, was once Saint Erith. Here we entered upon the final stage of our journey, catching glimpses of Mount’s Bay and Saint Michael’s Mount, and Marazion, as the sun went down.

When we came to the level-crossing that mars the roadway just outside Marazion Road Station, the gates were closed for all but foot-passengers, and we heard the rushing of the “down” train between the hills. It was quite dark now, and I knew the road from here into Penzance for a dusty and stony two miles, so we needed little consideration upon the question whether or not we should take train for that short distance. We took it, or, to avoid quibbles, I will say it took us.

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