through which you have just passed. Now, the
large towns and busy villages disappear, the mines grow rarer, the roads
look deserted, the wide pathways dwindle to the merest foot-track. Again
you behold the spacious moor rolling away in alternate hill and dale to
the far horizon; again you pass though the quaint coast villages; and
see the few simple cottages, the few old boats, the little groups
talking quietly at the inn door, as they have already presented
themselves along the southern and western shores of Cornwall. Soon,
however, your onward road towards Piran Round becomes yet more desolate.
Ere long, not even a solitary cottage is in sight, not a living being
appears: you find yourself wandering along the uneven boundary of a
wilderness of sand-hills heaped up from the seashore by the wind. You
look over a perfect desert of miniature mountains and valleys, in some
places overgrown with thin, dry grass; in others, dotted with little
pools of mud and stagnant water. Year by year, this invasion of sand
encroaches on the moorland--year by year, it is ever shifting, ever
increasing, ever assuming newer and more fantastic forms, now in one
direction and now in another, with each fresh storm.

When you leave this dreary scene, you only leave it for the wild flat
heath, the open naked country once more. You follow your long road,
visible miles on before you, winding white and serpent-like over the
dark ground, until you suddenly observe in the distance an object which
rises strangely above the level prospect. You approach nearer, and
behold a circular turf embankment; a wide, lonesome, desolate enclosure,
looking like a witches' dancing-ring that has sprung up in the midst of
the open moor. This is Piran Round. Here, the old inhabitants of
Cornwall assembled to form the audience of the drama of former days.

A level area of grassy ground, one hundred and thirty feet in diameter,
is enclosed by the embankment. There are two entrances to this area cut
through the boundary circle of turf and earth, which rises to a height
of nine or ten feet, and narrows towards the top, where it is seven feet
wide. All round the inside of the embankment steps were formerly cut;
but their traces are now almost obliterated by the growth of the grass.
They were originally seven in number; the spectators stood on them in
rows, one above another--a closely packed multitude, all looking down at
the dramatic performances taking place on the wide