one of their little elder
brothers was screaming, squabbling, and tumbling down in the passage
with prodigious energy and spirit. The mothers of England--and they
only--can imagine the deafening and composite character of the noise
which this large family party produced. To describe it is impossible.

Ere long, while we looked on it, the domestic scene began to change.
Even as porters, policemen, and workmen of all sorts, gathered together
on the line of rails at a station, move aside quickly and with one
accord out of the way of the heavy engine slowly starting on its
journey--so did the congregated mothers in the inn kitchen now move back
on either hand with their babies, and clear a path for the great bulk of
the hostess leisurely advancing from the fireside, to greet us at the
door. From this most corpulent and complaisant of women, we received a
hearty welcome, and a full explanation of the family orgies that were
taking place under her roof. The great public meeting of all the babies
in Lizard Town and the neighbouring villages, on which we had intruded,
had been convened by the local doctor, who had got down from London,
what the landlady termed a "lot of fine fresh matter," and was now about
to strike a decisive blow at the small-pox, by vaccinating all the
babies he could lay his hands on at "one fell swoop." The surgical
ceremonies were expected to begin in a few minutes.

This last piece of information sent us out of the house without a
moment's delay. The sunlight had brightened gloriously since we had last
beheld it--the rain was over--the mist was gone. But a short distance
before us, rose the cliffs at the Lizard Head--the southernmost land in
England--and to this point we now hastened, as the fittest spot from
which to start on our rambles along the coast.

On our way thither, short as it was, we observed a novelty. In the South
and West of Cornwall, the footpaths, instead of leading through or round
the fields, are all on the top of the thick stone walls--some four feet
high--which divide them. This curious arrangement for walking gives a
startling and picturesque character to the figures of the country
people, when you see them at a distance, striding along, not on the
earth but above it, and often relieved throughout the whole length of
their bodies against the sky. Preserving our equilibrium, on these
elevated pathways, with some difficulty against the strong south-west
wind that was now blowing in