He was quite an original, this Captain Jan; a man who knew the forty miles of underground workings in Botallack as well, I suppose, as a postman knows his beat; a man who dived into the bowels of the earth with the vigour and confidence of a mole and the simple-minded serenity of a seraph. The land at this part of Cornwall is not picturesque, except at the sea-cliffs, which rise somewhere about three hundred feet sheer out of deep water, where there is usually no strip of beach to break the rush of the great Atlantic billows that grind the rocks incessantly. The most prominent objects elsewhere are masses of debris; huge pieces of worn-out machinery; tall chimneys and old engine-houses, with big ungainly beams, or "bobs," projecting from them. These "bobs" are attached to pumps which work continually to keep the mines dry. They move up and down very slowly, with a pause between each stroke, as if they were seriously considering whether it was worth while continuing the dreary work any longer, and could not make up their minds on the point. Their slow motions, however, give evidence of life and toil below the surface. Other "bobs" standing idle tell of disappointed hopes and broken fortunes. There are not a few such landmarks at the Land's End--stern monitors, warning wild and wicked speculators to beware. One day--it might have been night as far as our gloomy surroundings indicated--Captain Jan and I were stumbling along one of the levels of Botallack, I know not how many fathoms down. We wore miners' hats with a candle stuck in front of each by means of a piece of clay. The hats were thicker than a fireman's helmet, though by no means as elegant. You might have plunged upon them head first without causing a dint. Captain Jan stopped beside some fallen rocks. We had been walking for more than an hour in these subterranean labyrinths and felt inclined to rest. "You were asking about the word _wheal_," said the captain, sticking his candle against the wall of the level and sitting down on a ledge, "it do signify a mine, as Wheal Frances, Wheal Owles, Wheal Edwards, and the like. When Cornishmen do see a London Company start a mine on a grand scale, with a deal of fuss and superficial show, and an imposing staff of directors, etcetera, while, down in the mine itself, where the real work ought to be done, perhaps only two men and a boy are known to be at work, they shake their heads and button up their pockets; perhaps they call the affair wheal _Do-em_, and when that mine stops, (becomes what we call a `knacked bal') it may be styled wheal _Donem_!" A traveller chanced to pass a water-wheel not long ago, near Saint Just. "What's that?" he said to a miner who sat smoking his pipe beside it. "That, sur? why, that's a pump, that is." "What does it pump?" asked the traveller. "Pump, sur?" replied the man with a grim smile, "why, et do pump gold out o' the Londoners!" There have been too many wheal _Do-ems_ in Cornwall.