Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/217

CHAPTER XI FROM land's end TO ZENNOB THE western promontory of granite to which we give the name of Land's End is not the grandest piece of coast in these parts ; but it has the prestige of a deep sentiment attaching to it, and there is no other spot in England that draws visitors with such a powerful attraction. In one sense the Scillies are the true Land's End, beyond which the deeper gulfs of ocean lie ; and, again, there is another land's end at the Lizard, the southernmost point of England, and yet another at Lowestoft, the most easterly. But Lowestoft looks towards the Teutonic Continent, and the Lizard towards what we may call the Latin ; both remain European in their outlook. Land's End has a different attitude ; it looks westward, and the migratory instinct of European races has ever taken them towards the West. It is the Bolerion of Ptolemy, the Bolerium of Roman writers, the Pemvith of the Celts. Adding a Saxon affix, Simeon of Durham named it Penwithsteort, the " tail of Penwith." There is some doubt about the true meaning of Penwith ; Mr. Baring-Gould gives it as " headland of blood," which it might well be as the last battle-ground of a defeated people ; another interpretation says the " wooded 211