The Rumps

The Rumps is a headland on the Cornish coast, marked in the account by ancient earthworks and a rabbit warren cut through by coastal erosion. The walkers reach it at dusk after following the rising and falling path past Com Head; there they camp among the old mounds, facing a landscape where human history and unstable ground meet. The site’s significance is both physical and immediate: it offers a hidden place to sleep, but its edge is being eaten away by the sea.

Earthworks and the Headland

An ancient fort once stood at The Rumps, looking back towards Tintagel headland and out into the Atlantic Ocean. The narrator imagines that, if King Arthur had existed, he would have chosen this defensible position rather than a more ornamental setting farther east. The old earthworks make the headland feel like a repository of forgotten stories, while their grassy mounds provide cover for the tent. The same ground is also an active rabbit warren, so the walkers’ refuge is shared with wildlife.

A Night Without Food

The walkers arrive hungry and eat their last packet of noodles. Although the narrator remembers hunting rabbits with her father and considers making a snare, exhaustion and the lack of fuel to cook a catch make the idea impractical. In the darkness, the rabbits can be heard tearing and chewing grass around the tent. At dawn, fresh droppings lie beneath its flysheet, and rabbits hop only a few feet away. The walkers leave them undisturbed and make tea; Moth finds a hairy wine gum in his pocket, which they divide between them. The small sweet becomes their only food after the noodles are gone.

Erosion and Meaning

Looking back as they leave, the walkers see that landfalls have exposed the warren’s runs: tunnels emerge from the earth and end in mid-air above a vast cave. The narrator wonders how many rabbits have fallen into the sea and whether the pounding below will eventually drive the survivors away. The image makes the headland’s instability tangible: the rabbits’ shelter is disappearing even as it remains inhabited. At The Rumps, the walkers’ own precarious night under a tent is set beside a landscape in which refuge is temporary, and the ground itself can vanish.