POPULAR IDEAS OF CORNWALL 19 found brown faces and black hair in the Fair Isle of the Shetlands, where half the population inter- married with some Spaniards of the great Armada wrecked on their coast. In this part of Cornwall one constantly sees women with clear-skinned faces, dark-brown eyes and hair, of a distinctly foreign type. The people, with their rather remote and surface friendliness, have often been described. They will greet you pleasantly and courteously courteous manners have lingered here small boys, and men too, still salute a stranger in passing with a greeting, and if one asks the way the answer will be no abrupt direction, but a careful and minute description repeated until clearly understood. Even in Wilkie Collins's time the people were noticeable for their courtesy. He says : " The manners of the Cornish of all ranks, down to the lowest, are re- markably distinguished by courtesy a courtesy of that kind which is quite independent of artificial breeding, and which proceeds solely from natural motives of kindness and from an innate anxiety to please. Few of the people pass you without a salutation." As it was then so it is now. Yet everywhere one feels a want ; there is a lack of something. Perhaps it is they are too
