questions are always
answered civilly. No propensity to jeer at strangers is exhibited--on
the contrary, great solicitude is displayed to afford them any
assistance that they may require; and displayed, moreover, without the
slightest appearance of a mercenary motive. Thus, if you stop to ask
your way, you are not merely directed for a mile or two on, and then
told to ask again; but directed straight to the end of your destination,
no matter how far off. Turnings to the right, and turnings to the left,
short cuts across moors five miles away, churches that you must keep on
this hand, and rocks that you must keep on that, are impressed upon
your memory with the most laborious minuteness, and shouted after you
over and over again as long as you are within hearing. If the utmost
anxiety to give the utmost quantity of good advice could always avail
against accident or forgetfulness, no traveller in Cornwall who asks his
way as he goes, need ever lose himself.

When people possess the virtue of natural courtesy they are seldom found
wanting in other higher virtues that are akin to it. Household
affection, ready hospitality, and great gratitude for small rewards of
services rendered, are all to be found among the Cornish peasantry.
Their fondness for their children is very pleasant to see. A word of
inquiry or praise addressed to the mother makes her face glow with
delight, and sends her away at once in search of the missing members of
her little family, who are ranged before you triumphantly, with smoothed
hair and carefully wiped faces, ready to be reviewed in a row. Both
father and mother often wish you, at parting, a good wife and a large
family (if you are not married already), just as they wish you a
pleasant journey and a prosperous return home again.

Of Cornish hospitality we experienced many proofs, one of which may be
related as a sample. Arriving late at a village, in the far west of the
county, we found some difficulty in arousing the people of the inn.
While we were waiting at the door, we heard a man who lived in a cottage
near at hand, and of whom we had asked our way on the road, inquiring of
some female member of his family, whether she could make up a spare bed.
We had met this man proceeding in our direction, and had so far
outstripped him in walking, that we had been waiting outside the inn
about a quarter of an hour before he got home. When the woman answered
his question in the negative, he directed he