ay, on the summit of a
steep hill. Wherever we looked, the horizon was bounded by the long,
dark, undulating edges of the moor. The ground rose and fell in little
hillocks and hollows, tufted with dry grass and furze, and strewn
throughout with fragments of granite. The whole plain appeared like the
site of an ancient city of palaces, overthrown and crumbled into atoms
by an earthquake. Here and there, some cows were feeding; and sometimes
a large crow winged his way lazily before us, lessening and lessening
slowly in the open distance, until he was lost to sight. No human beings
were discernible anywhere; the majestic loneliness and stillness of the
scene were almost oppressive both to eye and ear. Above us, immense
fleecy masses of brilliant white cloud, wind-driven from the Atlantic,
soared up grandly, higher and higher over the bright blue sky.
Everywhere, the view had an impressively stern, simple, aboriginal look.
Here were tracts of solitary country which had sturdily retained their
ancient character through centuries of revolution and change; plains
pathless and desolate even now, as when Druid processions passed over
them by night to the place of the secret sacrifice, and skin-clad
warriors of old Britain halted on them in council, or hurried across
them to the fight.

On we went, up and down, in a very zig-zag course, now looking forward
towards the Cheese-Wring from the top of a rock, now losing sight of it
altogether in the depths of a hollow. By the time we had advanced about
half way over the distance it was necessary for us to walk, we
observed, towards the left hand, a wide circle of detached upright
rooks. These we knew, from descriptions and engravings, to be the
"Hurlers"--so we turned aside at once to look at them from a nearer
point of view.

There are two very different histories of these rocks; the antiquarian
account of them is straightforward and practical enough, simply
asserting that they are the remains of a Druid temple, the whole region
about them having been one of the principal stations of the Druids in
Cornwall. The popular account of the Hurlers (from which their name is
derived) is very different. It is contended, on the part of the people,
that once upon a time (nobody knows how long ago), these rocks were
Cornish men, who profanely went out (nobody knows from what place), to
enjoy the national sport of hurling the ball on one fine "Sabbath
morning," and were suddenly turned into pi