Three occupations are followed—farming, mining, and fishing, but the Cornish are a handy race, and it is not an uncommon thing for a man to cultivate a farm, work in a mine, and fish in the sea. A "wheelbarrow farm" is a small holding which a man may get along with, with the assistance of a wheelbarrow, and is common enough in the mining districts. When a mine is near the sea, the wheelbarrow farmer has a boat, and puts in time fishing when not underground. There are no factories, as understood elsewhere, and if you see smoke afar off, it's just some farmer burning weeds, or a railway engine puffing along. There's never smoke enough in any one place to soil a butterfly's wing, and some medical men have already made note of the fact.

In the mining district people talk tin and copper, and dream about little else, though it's tin for choice. Redruth is the reputed headquarters of the tin worship. When we reached the town, everybody seemed to be in the street, talking at once. We thought some great calamity had happened, but found out that it was only the usual when men came in from Camborne, and round about. There is an inner temple, called an Exchange, but most of the exchanging seems to be done in the street. Men talk together, and then out come little note-books. It looks like street-betting, but the policeman takes no notice, so, of course, it's something else. Millions sterling have changed hands in this way, and in this street, but we were told that times were dull now. People were lively enough, and whether they win or lose, they go on talking and dreaming of tin.

It has been a wonderful land, this, and the stories told of fortunes made in tin and copper give fairy tales a back seat; but then, for every fortune made, a fortune is lost; and the way to get ten shillings worth of tin is to melt twenty shillings worth of gold, we were told. Of course, there's the other side, but we hadn't time to go into it—it was too much like fiscal politics.

The people about here are prosperous to look at, but we were told that they were ruined regularly once a week or fortnight, as the case may be. Strangers may make mistakes when they see ruined people for the first time, but they get to know that when a tin man looks most prosperous, he's most ruined. A copper man may be afflicted in the same way, but tin was uppermost when we were in the place.

The great men in these parts are captains—mine captains. A Newmarket horse-trainer and jockey combined is not more looked up to on the heath than a mine captain here. He is the man who knows, and can put a friend on to a good thing; people always think a mine captain has a good thing up his sleeve, and you must be civil to him, to make him shake it out. They are modest men, however, and live in small houses to check any tendency to pride, and on Sundays Cap'n Jack and Cap'n Jose, and the best samples, go preaching. The kingdom of heaven is very much like a mine to a miner, and if she "cuts rich" he wants to be there.

A mine is "she," and has many wooers when rich, or reputed to have great expectations. Mines in these parts are also feminine in the coquettish way in which they show just sufficient of their attractions at one time to lure men on and on, and then—nothing! The caprices of a season's beauty are not greater than those of a mine, nor is the condition of a Derby favourite more closely watched and canvassed. A mine may look well, or be in a bad way, and all the men crowd around Wheal This and Wheal That as though her breath were perfumed, and then turn their backs upon her when old age and wrinkles come, and her "eyes are picked out," and she's neglected, and left to grow dropsical, and pass from memory. Sometimes a pet Wheal over-runs the constable, and ruins all her lovers, and then no secret is made of her wicked little ways; but no professional beauty is more run after and talked about when she's in her prime.

Guy was relieved to find that the Gulf Stream was not held responsible for tin. We had heard so much of the Gulf Stream, how it made the 'taties grow, and the flowers bloom, and the air warm, and the wind cool, and the skies blue, and the rain wet; but no one here said it had anything to do with the making of tin. You may stream for tin, but that is only one way of getting it; and the Gulf Stream doesn't come in, and there are tin crystals in streams, but this is a detail known mostly to natives.

Miners call themselves "Cousin Jacks," and a Cornish miner in any part of the universe answers to "Cousin Jack." The Bookworm tried to find the origin of the name from a man "tending the engine" at a mine, who replied, "S'poase Adam gave it out when he named t'other animals." This was a good beginning. The men change their clothes in the engineroom; they call it "shifting," and a shift is worth the trouble, for a miner coming up from the bowels of the earth with a bit of tallow candle in his cap looks a clay-gnome of bad character, and gentle manners only increase prejudice, for why should such a forbidding-looking animal be gentle?

He was not in the least surprised to see us, but when he had shifted, we were surprised to see him. He was no longer gnome, but man, and good at that. Was there anything we would like to see or hear about? He was entirely at our disposal. He showed us crystals of pure tin, colourless, and flashing like diamonds. He supposed that tin might be manufactured the same as diamonds, but wasn't sure, and thought that Nature must have taken a lot of trouble when making tin. Would not be surprised if the pressure of the two seas had much to do with it. It was very singular that Cornwall was the richest spot in the universe in tin stone. There was plenty of tin elsewhere, but not Cornish tin, oh, dear, no! Tin was known in the days of Moses, and where could it have come from but here? As a commercial commodity, tin certainly first came from Cornwall, and so, first of all, brought Britain under the influence of the older civilizations. CÆsar no more discovered Britain than Columbus America, and Cornish miners were gentlemen in manners, and hospitable in the days of Diodorus Siculus, who attributed their advance in civilization to their frequent intercourse with Greeks and Phoenicians. It was on record that a Phoenician merchant, finding that he was followed, ran his ship ashore rather than let another into the secret of getting tin. Mr. Chamberlain could have done no better, could he?

Mining was a science now, more or less exact, and very exacting. We were in the centre of a great school of mines, and students came here from all parts to learn their business and get diplomas. He told us something of superstitions common to miners. Science explains everything, of course; but can't get rid of old beliefs in a hurry. A mine's reputation was sometimes her weak point, just like a fine lady's, and when it was blown upon, then, good-day and good-bye! Get a chat, when you can, with an underground mine captain.

South Africa is a sort of outlying farm for the mining division, and when things are brisk every mail brings twenty or thirty thousand pounds sterling for wives and families and the old folks at home. Every market night is an object-lesson in political economy. When the Boer War was on, most of the shops were in mourning, and people went about with hunger in their eyes. Cousin Jack goes abroad to make money, and what he saves he sends home. On his return his delight is to get a wheelbarrow farm, and come into Redruth market, and talk tin. Cousin Jack likes to come home to die and be buried. He's like a Chinaman in his love for native dust.

Some Cornishmen live where they are born, but, as a rule, they drift to all quarters of the world, and look longingly homewards, like the Jew towards Jerusalem. The most conservative of all men is the fisher, whose little all can be put on board his boat, and who is seldom far from the smoke of his own chimney. The miners are restless, and always ready to strike their tent and march. Only, wherever they go overseas, their children are Cornish—the saints and piskies, the nuggies and buccas, are all drummed into them, and there's no sun so bright, no sea so blue, no air so soft in all the world, as in the dear old county which they "belong" to, and shall see one day. There spring up melodies in the little hearts over the seas, until they are Cornish in every beat and throb. A youngster was posting a letter in Sydney, New South Wales, and a friend of the family asked, "Where's that letter going, sonnie?" "Home." "Where's home?" "Why, Cornwall, to be sure."[H] Outside of itself the county has a large population containing a goodly percentage of the salt of the earth.

Redruth is under the shadow of Carn Brea, the home of paleolithic man. The "Castle" doesn't count for much now the Druids have been played out. The Bookworm told us that enough rubbish had been written about the Druids to build a respectable beacon fire, and what was worth preserving would go in a watch-pocket. However, there is Carn Brea, and those who wish to see the Druids' altars may, without let or hindrance. The Carn looks over the mines, and you may see the sea on the north and the sea on the south, winking like two eyes of heavenly blue. The guide-books recommend a clear day for preference. It is said that underneath this bare and poverty-looking ridge of rocks there is mineral wealth enough to buy up King Solomon's mines. It's nice to know that the riches of the world are under one's feet, and all poor people on the tramp who like the sensation can have it here free of charge. In fact, there is no charge for anything—you may drink at the holy wells, visit the churches, see the antiquities, go down the mines, walk through museums, and "do" everything with a smile and a civil tongue. No charge; tip as you please. A cheerful giver has his reward.

It was somewhere under the shadow of Carn Brea that "Baron Munchausen" was born in the lively brain of one Rudolph Eric Rasp, a fugitive Hanoverian, at one time Assay-master and store-keeper at Dolcoath Mine. Herr Rasp, Professor of ArchÆology, and Curator of the Museum at Cassel, and member of the Royal Society, England, appropriated some precious medals under his charge, and skipped. He hadn't learnt the tenth commandment properly, and forgot the eighth. People in places of trust are better educated now, but this was one hundred and fifty years ago. The Bookworm told us that Baron Munchausen was a real man, and Herr Rasp wrote his wonderful "adventures." No one knows the house in which Herr Rasp lived, but the Bookworm insisted on looking at every cottage and barn with the touch of antiquity upon it, within a radius of three miles from Dolcoath. He liked to do it, and was satisfied. The invention of coal gas as an illuminant took place at Redruth, and a tablet commemorating the discovery is actually placed outside the house in which William Murdoch, the inventor, lived. Murdoch was not a Cornishman, hence the tablet. The Bookworm touched the walls of the house, the door-handle, and the knocker, but we didn't see that anything special came of it. Camborne is also in the mining division, and has wider streets and fewer shops than Redruth; but, then, it has gone in for brains, and young men wishful to learn mining come here now, and go through a course of lectures in class-rooms, and go underground and work. "The Oxford of mining students" is Camborne, only the students live where they like, and have latch-keys. Joshua Cristall was born here, so also was Richard Trevithick, the first to apply steam to locomotives. We did not see any public monument to either.

The people in this division are "Weslums," and great on chapels, but "fall from grace" when there is a political election. It is sad, but politics stir up the old Adam worse than a drop in the price of tin. Candidates for parliamentary honours are only accepted by insurance offices at extra-risk premiums. Guy intends going in for Parliament one day, and studied the matter on the spot. He thinks he knows a softer place.

A good deal of woman-labour is employed in mines. They are the bal-maidens, and work on the dressing-floors. Work agrees with them, and Professor Sandow wouldn't find much room for developing the muscles of a bal-maiden. We saw some at work from the train, and heard them singing. We saw others nearer, and they were singing also. It's just part of the business to sing, and more hymns are sung over Cornish tin than over all the rest of the minerals raised in the world. One girl starts singing, and the rest join in; and very sweet singing it is when heard in the open. The surface men catch on, and there's just sweet harmony, whilst the stamps are dancing, and the great bob is going up and down, pumping out water. Nothing stops when the orchestra is in full swing. The men generally sing, too, when going and coming, and they like a hymn with a good, rousing march tune. After the night and early morning shifts, the hills and valleys are tuneful, and people hearing know what hour it is, as the shifts are regular. There are four shifts in the twenty-four hours. A shift is called a "coor."