IIIFORMER INDUSTRIES

CROMWELL’S CASTLE FROM CHARLES’S CASTLE

Here they took possession of an old breastwork on Carn Near, and erected an advanced battery to command Broad and Crow Sounds. It could reach any ship that went into or came out from St. Mary’s Harbour, and generally with effect, for ships must often pass very near in order to avoid rocks or flats. The King’s party in consequence soon became so distressed that a messenger was sent for orders to the Prince in Holland, and brought back permission from him for the Cavaliers to surrender and make the best terms they could for themselves. Eight hundred soldiers were taken prisoner with Sir John Granville, and officers “enough to head an army.”

Soon after the reduction of the islands, a strong circular tower, now known as Oliver Cromwell’s Castle, was built on Tresco. It was so placed, low down on the shore, that its guns could sweep the surface of the water for a great distance. It was constructed in part from the materials of a much older fortress on the hill above, called Charles’s Castle, a building of great strength, but in an unfavourable situation for defence.

After the Restoration, when the Godolphins were again in power in Scilly, Duke Cosmo records that the garrison on St. Mary’s was reduced from sixhundred to two hundred men. He mentions also that twenty soldiers were employed to guard Cromwell’s castle (or “the Castle of Bryer,” as he calls it). Later this fortress was allowed to fall into decay, for in 1740, when England was at war with Spain, it had to be “put into a state of good defence,” but apparently no garrison was kept there for long, and it again suffered from neglect.

During this same war with Spain, many batteries were erected on the Hugh of St. Mary’s (now known as Garrison Hill), and a strong entrance gateway to the fortifications was built in 1742.

Since then the military establishment seems to have been gradually reduced. In 1822 it consisted only of a Lieutenant-Governor, a master-gunner with four others under him, and two or three aged sergeants. In 1857 “five invalids” manned the fortifications, and in 1863 the fort was dismantled.

Seeing that the guns removed at that date were chiefly salvage from the wreck of the “Colossus,” lost near the western rocks in 1777, and had been lying under water for fifty-four years before they were placed on the batteries, it is perhaps just as well that they were never required for active service!

Within recent times the Government decided to make of Scilly a naval base, but after spending fiveyears and a quarter of a million of money in constructing new batteries they discovered in 1905 that the firing of the guns would bring down the houses of Hugh Town. So again the fortifications have been abandoned, and the history of Scilly as a centre of warfare appears to have come to an end.

Peace has reigned there since the days of Cromwell, but it has not always been peace with plenty as it is nowadays. The islanders have passed through hard times before arriving at their present state of prosperity; the history of these vicissitudes, however, belongs to another chapter.

FORmany years the condition of the people of Scilly was not an enviable one. Their isolated situation, without any regular communication with the mainland, threw them for long periods upon their own resources, which were very limited. They lived by agriculture, fishing, “kelping,” and piloting, with some admixture of smuggling; but sometimes their services as pilots would not be required for months together; their crops, their kelp, and their fishing would fail, and their smuggling ventures miscarry, and then they would be in a sorry plight, and in danger of famine.

Under these circumstances we cannot wonder at an Order of the Council, issued in 1740, forbidding the exportation of corn; for the islanders used to sell everything they could to passing ships, and not keep enough for themselves.

Another order is more puzzling. It prohibited all masters of ships or boats “to import any stranger to settle here, or to carry any personfrom the islands” under penalty of a fine of ten pounds. It is easy to understand why strangers might not be imported; but since Scilly was supposed to be over-populated at that time, why were the islanders not allowed to leave? This was indeed turning the islands into a prison, and giving a real ground for Heath’s quaint supposition:—

“Here is no prison,” he writes, “for the confinement of offenders, which shows that the people live upright enough not to require any,or that the place is a Confinement of itself.”

Smuggling was a very popular employment. It was so easy to slip over to France and return with a cargo of contraband goods, which could be dropped overboard attached to a buoy if the revenue-officer inconveniently appeared. Even the clergy engaged in the traffic. It is said that Parson Troutbeck, who speaks feelingly of the drunkenness occasioned by smuggling, was himself obliged to leave the islands from fear of the consequences of having taken part in it. The Parsonage on Tresco was originally built in a spot especially convenient for this trade, although not otherwise suitable; and one of its tenants had also to run away because he was mixed up in some smuggling affair.

In 1684 a new industry had come to the aidof the people. Kelping was introduced by a Mr. Nance from Cornwall, and for nearly one hundred and fifty years formed one of their chief employments.

Kelp, as every one knows, is an alkali, of value to glass-makers, soap-makers, and bleachers, and obtained by burning seaweed, or “ore-weed,” as they call it in Scilly.

I am tempted to commit a bold piracy and quote in full the vivid description of the kelping given by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch inMajor Vigoureux, for I could never hope to rival that description in its force and picturesqueness. It occurs in a romance, but all its facts are based on contemporary records, and are strictly true to life.

“All the summer through, day after day, at low water, the islanders would be out upon the beaches cutting the ore-weed, and, as the tide rose, would drag it in sledges up the foreshore, and strew it above high-water mark, to dry in the sun. On sunny days they scattered and turned it; on wet days they banked it into heaps almost as tall as arrish-mows.

“From morning until evening they laboured, and towards midsummer, as the near beaches became denuded, would sail away in twos and threes and whole families, to camp among the off-islands andraid them; until when August came and the kelping season drew to an end, boat after boat would arrive at high water and discharge its burden.

“These operations filled the summer days; but it was at nightfall and a little earlier that the real fun began. For then the men, women, and children would gather and build the kilns—pits scooped in the sand, measuring about seven feet across and three feet deep in the centre. While the men finished lining the sides of the kiln with stones, the women and girls would leap into it with armfuls of furze, which they lighted, and so, strewing the dried ore-weed upon it, built little by little into a blazing pile. The great sea-lights which ring the islands now make a brave show and one which the visitor carries away as the most enduring, most characteristic recollection of his sojourn; but (say the older inhabitants) it will not compare with the illuminations of bygone summer nights, when as many as forty kilns would be burning together and island signalling to island with bonfires that flickered across the roadsteads and danced on the wild tide-races. From four to five hours the kilns would be kept burning, and the critical moment came when the mass of kelp began to liquefy, and the word was given to ‘strike.’ Then a dozen or fourteen men wouldleap down with pitchforks and heave the red molten mass from side to side of the kiln, toiling like madmen, while the sweat ran shining down their half-naked bodies; and sometimes—and always on Midsummer Eve, which is Baal-fire night—while they laboured, the women and girls would join hands and dance round the pit. In ten minutes or so all this excitement would die out, the dancers would unlock their hands, the men climb out of the pit, and throw themselves panting on the sand, leaving the kelp to settle, cool, and vitrefy.”

The kelp was ready to be exported as soon as it was cold; and the sooner the better, for it was apt to deteriorate with keeping. A single mass, formed in a kiln of the size above mentioned, would weigh from two and a half to three hundredweight. When the industry first began, the price obtained by the islanders was only eighteen to twenty shillings for every ton. This afterwards rose to forty-four shillings a ton; but for a long time the steward of the islands, who represented the Godolphins, insisted on acting the part of middleman, paying only twenty shillings, and threatening to turn any one out of his holding who sold it elsewhere for a higher price. Later, when the islanders had broken free from this tyranny, they were able to get from the merchants of Bristol and London as much asfive pounds per ton of twenty-one hundredweight. But the amount of labour involved was colossal. It has been estimated that more than three tons of seaweed were required at a burning, in order to produce three hundredweight of kelp. This huge mass of weed had all of it to be cut from the rocks, carried, scattered, dried, and stacked, before it was ready for burning; and many times must the entire operation be repeated during the season.

A GREY EVENING IN SCILLY

Chief amongst summer resorts for the kelp-making families were the Eastern Islands, where, as Woodley tells us, they would reside “during the whole of the kelping season—not forgetting, however, with their characteristic attention to religious duties, to repair to the church of the nearest inhabited island on Sundays!”

Each island had its limits for gathering the ore-weed, and seldom a year passed but some offenders were brought before the Council and punished for encroaching on the territories of other islands. The distant ledges were free to all.

Great skill was required in burning, especially in knowing the exact moment when to “strike,” and in keeping the sand from getting into the kiln and spoiling the kelp.

The smell of the burning weed was peculiarly offensive and very penetrating. Even in the heightof summer doors and windows had to be barred to keep out the smoke, the odour of which would cling to clothes and furniture long after the kelping season was over.

It was never an industry that paid well. In some years it brought into the islands as much as £500 to £700, but each family could seldom by much hard work earn more than £10 in a season. Still, that was better than nothing, and it was a great blow to the islanders when, owing to increased competition, they could no longer find a market for their kelp, especially since only a short time before effective measures had been taken to put a stop to smuggling.

In 1819 the distress was very great, and in order to alleviate it £13,000 was collected on the mainland for the purpose of starting a mackerel and pilchard fishery. Fish-cellars were built on Tresco, and boats and nets were provided; but the success of the enterprise was only short-lived, owing to the want of capital to fall back upon.

At last, when matters were so bad that it seemed as if they could get no worse, a new means of earning a livelihood was discovered by some enterprising Scillonians. They found that by exporting to the shores of the Mediterranean their surplus produce (which consisted chiefly of potatoes), inships of their own building, and bringing back cargoes of fruit to England, they could get a good return for their outlay.

This discovery gave a great impetus to agriculture and to shipbuilding, and many a trim schooner was turned out from Scillonian shipyards. At that time there was a duty levied on all vessels of 60 tons and over, so the shipwrights strictly limited the tonnage of their vessels to fifty-nine and a fraction.

And now, while this industry was still young, a great change befell the islands. In 1831 the lease of the Duke of Leeds, who was then the representative of the Godolphin family, expired, and he declined to renew it. For a few years the islands remained in the hands of William IV., and some attempts were made during that time to improve their condition. But what they really wanted was a thorough reorganisation. They had been too long under the management of stewards, who had been either unwilling or unable to make the necessary changes, and who had on some occasions used their power for purposes of extortion. Moreover, there had been very little encouragement to the people to make improvements on their land, for short leases had been the rule.

The advent of a new Governor changed all this. In 1835 Mr. Augustus Smith, having taken upthe lease from the Crown, arrived in Scilly to inspect his new property, and before long the islanders discovered what it was to have an energetic and far-seeing Governor resident amongst them, instead of an inapproachable and preoccupied absentee landlord.

At first his acts were considered arbitrary; the ne’er-do-weels were dispatched to the mainland; sons were not allowed to remain at home on the farm if there was not sufficient work for them; schools were opened, and education made compulsory long before it was so in England. The people covertly resented what they considered to be the loss of their freedom, but the islands are still reaping the benefits of this autocratic rule.

Under it the shipbuilding grew into an important industry, and only declined with the introduction of steam.

In those days the services of pilots were still much in request. The “Road” was often full of merchantmen, who had put in for repairs or supplies, or to wait for orders; and since every harbour in Scilly has its reef of rocks at the entrance, and around the islands the sea hides many a sunken ledge, a pilot was always signalled for at the earliest opportunity. A busy trade also was done in supplying these vessels with food, and executingnecessary repairs. During the Franco-German War (1870-71) the frequent presence of German vessels in the harbour brought quite a little fortune into Scillonian pockets.

An old lady of my acquaintance well recalls putting into Scilly in those days, on her way back from Australia. She remembers how the islanders boarded the vessel with supplies of vegetables, fowls, and eggs, and what fine and handsome men they were; and she has never forgotten the taste of the eggs, with their fine flavour of oranges! An orange-ship had been wrecked off the islands a short time before, and the hens had evidently failed to hand over the salvage to the Receiver of Wreck.

With the advent of steam all these various employments have vanished; and the building, piloting, provisioning, and repairing of ships no longer form part of the daily routine of Scilly.

Instead there has arisen the flower industry, which was started about thirty years ago. Improved communication with the mainland gives to Scillonians a ready market for their flowers during the first quarter of the year, and the exporting of early potatoes follows close on the heels of the flower-season.

With these sources of revenue, and with relays of visitors who are beginning to appreciate theclimate and the many charms of Scilly, the islands are now more prosperous than at any former time.

On the death of Mr. Augustus Smith in 1872 they passed into the hands of his nephew, Mr. T. A. Dorrien-Smith, who still carries on the traditions of his predecessor, and takes a keen interest in all that concerns the welfare of the people.

ITis barely thirty years since first the sweet flower-fields began to cover the islands; but it is possibly nearly a thousand years since the original bulbs were introduced.

There are several reasons why it is thought likely that Scilly owes her semi-wild narcissus to the Benedictine monks, who brought some with them, so it is supposed, from the South of France, and planted them on this alien soil to which they have taken so kindly.

For although several varieties of the polyanthus narcissus have been found growing wild, it is in or near the gardens and orchards that they have always been most plentiful. A narcissus similar to the Scilly White has grown round St. Michael’s Mount from time immemorial; and it has been noticed that elsewhere also they have seemed to spring up in the footsteps of the old monks.

The Scilly White bears a very close resemblance to the Chinese joss-flower, which is held as sacred; and it would be a strange coincidence if here in England we have cause to associate it with consecrated ground.

It was long before Scillonians discovered what a gold-mine lay hidden for them in these simple flowers. On the other hand, it may be that they found the gold-mine as soon as it existed, for it is only comparatively recently that flowers have become as remunerative and as popular as they are to-day.

The pioneers of the flower industry were Mr. William Trevellick of Rocky Hill and Mr. Mumford of Holy Vale, who sent two boxes of flowers, gathered from the gardens and orchards, to Covent Garden Market, and received for them a sum of money far exceeding their expectations.

From that time onward they began to grow flowers systematically for the market, and, encouraged by their success, others soon followed their example.

In 1883 the Governor made a special journey through Holland, Belgium, and the Channel Islands for the purpose of making observations on the flower industry. He saw that Scilly was well able to forestall the Continental supplies, and accordinglyhe made extensive purchases of bulbs, and has ever since been one of the largest growers.

A FIELD OF ARUMS

At first only those kinds that were already well known in the islands were cultivated—Scilly Whites, Soleil d’Ors, Grand Monarques, Pheasant Eyes, and the Yellow Daffodil; but now many of the newest and most valuable varieties may be seen.

It is no sinecure to be a flower-farmer nowadays. The heaviest work is, of course, during the harvest; but transplanting the bulbs, clearing the ground, and trimming the shelters keep the farmers very busy during the summer; and those who force bulbs in glass-houses have hard work to get everything done before the winter sets in.

The bulbs increase very rapidly in the ground, and are now exported as well as blossoms. Some sorts need to be transplanted and divided every few years; but Scilly Whites may be left in the same place for twenty years without, apparently, taking any harm.

The dead leaves of the bulbs are raked off in summer when they are dry and sere, and are used as fodder for the cattle instead of hay. They were originally used for litter, to supply the scarcity of straw; but it was noticed that the cattle ate their bedding with great gusto, and seemed to flourish on it, although the green growing leaves are poisonto them. So now ricks of lily-leaves may be seen side by side with the hay-ricks.

Every one who has a yard of ground to spare grows flowers. The harvest sometimes begins as early as the middle of December, and is not over until June, but the real press of the work is during February and March. Then every “steamer-morning,” that is to say every other week-day, from six o’clock to half-past nine you may hear a continuous rattle and rumble of carts, barrows, and trucks, laden with wooden boxes of flowers, making their way to St. Mary’s Quay. They come from all parts; from the large fields by Old Town, from the sheltered valleys “back of the country,” from the sunny slopes of Porth Hellick, from the little gardens on Garrison Hill. The off-islands also send their share; Tresco, St. Agnes, and St. Martin’s in flat-bottomed barges towed by the steam-launch that brings their mails, while heavily laden sailing-boats put in from Bryher, until one wonders how it is possible that all these contributions can ever be stowed away in the hold of the “Lyonnesse.”

The children of St. Mary’s have three weeks’ or a month’s holiday from school during the busy season, the boys for picking flowers and the girls for tying. Sometimes the girls will beg for leaveto go into the fields for a change; but it is backaching work, and wet work too, very often. The men and boys usually wear leggings to protect themselves from the long, dripping wet leaves.

As soon as they are picked the flowers are put in water in the glass-houses. The bunching and tying is chiefly done by the women and children, and is paid for at the rate of threepence for a hundred bunches. A quick worker can make fifteen to twenty shillings a week. Some of them tie them in their own homes, and you may see cartloads and barrowloads of flowers, in boxes or baskets, being delivered at the cottage-doors loose, and fetched again later on, neatly tied, twelve in a bunch, and ready for packing. The flower-houses on the day before the steamer leaves are a sight to behold—banks of daffodils and narcissi, wallflowers and anemone fulgens, tier upon tier. Afterwards they are packed in shallow wooden boxes, each containing three, five, or six dozen bunches; and at busy times the lights of the houses burn far into the night, showing that packing for next day’s steamer is still going on within. And the tap, tap of the hammer of the box-maker is constantly heard at all hours throughout the flower-season.

The weather is of course a very important factor in the success or failure of the flower crop. A wetsummer may prevent the bulbs from ripening; a strong gale in early spring may ruin thousands of flowers. The salt spray in a storm is swept right across the islands, spotting and blackening the blossoms so that they are unfit for the market; and although at a little distance a field may look delightful, it may prove on examination to be worthless, full of damaged flowers. So it is easy to understand why the growers prefer to pick the buds half-blown than to run the risk of their destruction.

There is a great difference between year and year in the abundance of the harvest. To give two examples: In the season 1908-9 there was no great show of flowers, but picking began about the middle of December, and went on continuously for four or five months. Prices kept up particularly well, owing to late frosts in the Riviera, and Scillonians were well content. They were proud to boast of having supplied the Battle of Flowers at Nice when the French gardens were under snow, in spite of the heavy protective duty that has to be paid. The following season, 1909-10, was quite a contrast. It was a record year for quantities, but the harvest began much later. The flowers came on with a rush in February, and all kinds seemed to be in bloom at the same time, and to bloom as they hadnever bloomed before. They were, in fact, too plentiful. “There’s a boolk o’ flowers,” as one man put it, “but they ain’t fetching no such tremendous price.” It was thought that the floods in Paris also helped to bring down the prices, for people were in no mood for buying flowers there, and the surplus supplies were shipped to England.

Every one in Scilly was kept hard at work from morning to night, and even so it was impossible to keep pace with the flowers. Usually, as I have said, they are picked in bud to save them from sudden storms, and put in water in the glass-houses, where they will open under better protection and more quickly than out of doors. But this month of March they opened faster than they could be picked. It was a race between the animal kingdom and the vegetable; and the vegetable won! Wallflowers also were coming on apace, and had to be neglected until the masses of daffodils and narcissi had been attended to.

This exceptional crop was attributed to the warm, dry summer of the year before, which had ripened the bulbs to perfection, and made the fields thus bring forth “an hundredfold.” Bad weather kept back or spoilt the earlier flowers, and so complicated matters by concentrating the bulk of the work for the season more than ever into two short months.

Three times a week at the height of the harvest, fifty tons of flowers were leaving St. Mary’s Quay for Penzance, en route for London, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, and other of our large cities. Fifty tons! That means, roughly speaking, three and a half million blossoms; and so we may reckon that at least one and a half million of flowers were being picked in Scilly every day!

And yet the islands did not look despoiled. Far from it. The fields were a glorious sight, sheets and waves of silver and gold, representing to their owners the silver and gold of hard cash.

But such a wealth and abundance of flowers is of less advantage to the grower than to the purchaser. So many tons poured into the market in the course of a single week bring down prices with a run. “More than double the usual crop and less than half the usual price” is not a satisfactory state of affairs, for there are all the expenses of picking, tying, and carriage to be considered; and the cost of sending to London is no trifle—something like £6 a ton. An additional charge is the 10s. per ton which is paid to the Governor on all flowers that leave the islands, to recoup him for the lengthening of the pier twenty years ago. Prices were so reduced that the narcissus Soleil d’Or would only fetch 2s. for 36 bunches, when the year before they had been 5s. 6d., and Princeps had fallen to the same price from 4s. 6d.

A COTTAGE FLOWER-GROWER, TRESCO

But what a year it was for seeing the fields! I must say it again even if you are tired of hearing it. You must not imagine squares of flowers, flat as pancakes, prim and orderly and uninviting such as you see in Holland. In Scilly no two fields are alike, and it is difficult to find one that is flat and uninteresting. They cover the slopes facing to the west and south; very often they run down almost to the edge of the sea, with only a low stone hedge to divide them from the shore. What would Wordsworth have felt, I wonder, to see these waves of dancing daffodils? Perhaps he would have preferred the scattered groups and clusters that spring up of themselves in the hedges by the wayside, or even on the beach itself.

For the wise Scillonian soon discovers which of his bulbs are the best and most profitable; and, weeding out from his fields those that promise least, he “heaves them to cliff,” where, if they light on any sort of soil, and out of reach of the waves, they will blossom even at the water’s edge, till some unusually high tide washes them away. In the meantime they delight the eye of the passer-by with unexpected splashes of gold, drops from the gorgeous seas that cover the island-flanks.

So lovely are the flowers that one would like to imagine the industry as “roses, roses all the way”; but of course that cannot be the case. Besides the drawbacks I have mentioned already—damage to crops from sudden storms, and gluts in the market from excess of supply—there are other risks to run. It has happened that in rough or foggy weather the off-islanders have sent quantities of flowers to St. Mary’s by the launch, and they have been duly stowed away in the hold of the “Lyonnesse.” The weather has got worse and worse, and it has been considered unsafe to make the journey to Penzance. But the flower-boxes are in the hold, and there they have to stay; and eventually they reach their destination on the mainland. By that time their contents are dead and worthless, and so the grower has lost his flowers, his time, and his trouble, and yet he must pay the carriage, and for the return of the empty boxes if he wants them.

To any one who has paid a visit to Scilly during the flower-season, the always-welcome sight in the London streets of the first daffodils of the season will be more than ever welcome; for these children of the spring will recall the blue seas and sunny skies of the flower-islands where they were reared.

HOWmany islands are there? That is a difficult question to answer until we know how big a rock must be in order to be dignified with the name of island. One writer tells us there are over 300, another says nearly 200, a third has counted 140 on which grass will grow, and a fourth makes his estimate (how, I know not) as low as 17. Three hundred must include a great many “blynd rokkettes,” as the old chronicler Leland delightfully calls the little barren rocks.

One point at least is certain, that nowadays there are only five islands which are inhabited: St. Mary’s, Tresco, Bryher, St. Agnes, and St. Martin. Sixty years ago there were six, but Samson has since been vacated.

There is reason to suppose that some of the islands were formerly joined together, and that they have been separated by the encroachment of the sea. Even now at low water of a spring-tide it is possible to walk from Samson to Bryher, from Bryher toTresco, and from Tresco to St. Martin’s, across the sand-flats, if one does not mind the risk of getting wet; and to wade across Crow Bar between St. Martin’s and St. Mary’s. Ruins of houses and stone walls have been found six feet under the sand, the walls descending from the hills of Bryher and Samson, and running many feet under the level of the sea towards Tresco; and it is said that there was once a causeway from the abbey church at Tresco across the downs to the church on St. Helen’s Isle.

There is a tradition that long ago the islands were all connected with the mainland, and that they are the only remnant of a tract of land called Lyonnesse, which contained 140 churches, but over which the Atlantic now rolls. On the spot where now the water swirls round the dangerous “Seven Stones,” there is said to have stood a city called the City of Lions, and that region is even to-day known to fishermen as Tregva—the “town” or “dwelling.”

The story goes that when King Arthur, of glorious renown, had fought his last fight and lay dead on the field of battle, his followers fled in confusion, pursued by Mordred, the rebel knight; and the course they took brought them to the extreme west of Cornwall.

“Back to the sunset-bound of Lyonnesse—A land of old upheaven from the abyssBy fire, to sink into the abyss again;Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,And the long mountains ended in a coastOf ever-shifting sand, and far awayThe phantom circle of a moaning sea.”

“Back to the sunset-bound of Lyonnesse—

A land of old upheaven from the abyss

By fire, to sink into the abyss again;

Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,

And the long mountains ended in a coast

Of ever-shifting sand, and far away

The phantom circle of a moaning sea.”

Pursuers and pursued were still pressing on when suddenly there arose a mighty tempest. The earth rocked, heaved, and was rent; and in between the two bands of warriors burst an angry flood of surging waters, swallowing up Mordred and his men before they had time to escape. But Arthur’s followers were marvellously preserved; the sea did not overtake them. Like the Israelites of old, they saw the destruction of their enemies while they themselves stood in safety on dry ground. And that ground was Scilly, all that is left of the lost land of Lyonnesse, over which the sea still swirls and eddies with unabating violence.

In the names of two of the eastern islands of Scilly, Great and Little Arthur, are found a reminiscence of the followers of the “Flower of Kings,” who are said to have lived and died on the islands where they had been so strangely (and mercifully) cut off from the rest of their kind.

So runs the legend, which sober, unromantic people spend their efforts and waste their breathin trying to disprove. They prefer to think that the sea between Scilly and Cornwall is called in Cornish Lethowsow (i.e., lioness) on account of its violence and turbulence, and that King Arthur’s followers escaped by boat—or not at all!

There is a tradition of the house of Trevilian that one of their ancestors had great possessions in Lyonnesse, and saved himself at the time of the inundation by swimming to shore on a white horse; in memory whereof the crest of the family is still a white horse.

Whether or not these stories have a foundation of truth, no one can say; but there is certainly a general resemblance in character and formation between Scilly and the Land’s End.

The whole of the islands are composed of granite, which is seen cropping up everywhere through the soil. Huge blocks and boulders of it lie scattered all along the coast, many of them of weird and fantastic shapes. The strangest have been given special names, more or less appropriate. On the peninsula of Peninnis, St. Mary’s Island, there is the “Tooth,” a slender conical rock 30 feet high; also the “Pulpit,” with its flat sounding-board, a fine specimen of horizontal decomposition.

Then there is the remarkable “Giant’s Punchbowl” on St. Agnes, consisting of two large massesof rock—the “Bowl” itself, and the base on which it stands. The base is over 10 feet high, the Bowl more than 8 feet, and the entire height of the top of the Bowl from the ground is nearly 20 feet. The Giant could have indulged in a hogshead of punch at a time, for that is the capacity of the natural basin. In former days the Bowl was a “logan-stone,” and could easily be rocked by two or three men with a pole, but now it rests on its base at two points.

Another strangely shaped rock on St. Agnes is known as the “Nag’s Head”; but there certainly never was on sea or land ahorsewith a head of that shape, whatever other strange beast it may resemble. It is thought to have been worshipped in ancient times, for there is a circle of stones round it.

It is not a hard rock, this island granite, and is easily worn away by the action of the wind and water. At many points the sea has eaten out large caves in the cliffs, and bellows in them, with the sound of thunder, in rough weather.

The wildness and grandeur of the coast scenery form a great contrast to the peaceful farms lying but a short distance away. The flowers are sheltered from the boisterous winds where necessary by high hedges of euonymus, veronica, and escallonia. Evergreen shrubs are naturally chosen, for at the timewhen they are most needed no others are in leaf. The escallonia and veronica grow with great luxuriance, and send forth a glow of bright pink bells and purple spikes against the dark background of their glossy leaves. Of trees the islands can make but little boast; they are too much exposed to the violence of storms. The only really large trees are at Holy Vale and Newford on St. Mary’s, and there are no others of any size, except in the gardens.

Dracæna palms flourish particularly well, and when one sees a group of them against the deep blue of the sea it is difficult to believe that one is still in the British Isles, and not on the shores of the Mediterranean.

Duke Cosmo III. of Tuscany says that the only trees he saw growing in 1669 were apple and cherry-trees, planted by the then Governor, but that thick stumps of oak were found in many places in digging the ground. So it seems that the islands were once better wooded than they are now. The tradition of an Abbey Wood on Tresco confirms this supposition.

Apple and other fruit-trees are often seen growing in the midst of the flower-fields; or, to put it the other way round, the orchards are often thick with daffodils.

THE GIANT’S PUNCH-BOWL, ST. AGNES

Geraniums and fuchsias reach a great height, climbing to the eaves of the houses, and sometimes blossoming all the year round. It is said that an islander once replied with indignation to a stranger’s tactless comment on the scarcity of wood, “Indeed,wecan heat our ovens with our geranium-faggots!” Any one who knows the Scillonians and their sense of humour will guess there was a twinkle in his eye as he said it.

Marguerite-daisies also grow into large woody shrubs, in perpetual bloom, and are often seen bordering the fields of daffodils.

In hisObservations on the Ancient and Present State of the Isles of Scilly, published in 1756, Dr. Borlase strongly recommends the planting of “shelters of Elder, Dutch elm, Sycamore, and the like, in clumps and hedgerows,” for he notices that everything which rises not above the hedges does very well; “but to tell you the truth,” he continues, “the true spirit of planting either has never reached here, or has been forced to give way to more necessary calls.”

It may be that the fine trees at Holy Vale owe their origin to this advice, and certainly it has been followed so far as the hedges are concerned.

The highest hill in the islands is little more than 160 feet above the sea-level; but when, as in thecase of St. Martin’s Head, the hill rises to this height straight from the sea instead of by gradual degrees, there is no lack of grandeur and impressiveness, especially from the seaward side.

Scilly has not a single river; and no wonder, for where would there be room? But neither does it abound in brooks and rivulets. I can only recall one tiny stream. The islanders depend for their water on wells, and on the rainfall, and only in very exceptional seasons do they run short. There are fresh-water ponds on St. Mary’s, Tresco, Bryher, and St. Agnes, but most of them are near enough to the sea to have been spoiled occasionally in times past by the entrance of the waves and spray during storms. In the summer of 1909 the ponds on Bryher and St. Agnes dried up for the first time within the memory of man.

The inhabitants of St. Mary’s are wont to say that though they have no rivers they have two bridges! One of these spans the fosse of Star Castle, and the other is thrown across a corner of the beach to make a short cut to the lifeboat-house.

In spite of the scarcity of trees and the absence of streams and rivers, I cannot agree with Parson Troutbeck, who writes: “Here, upon the whole, the poet would have a bad time of it, and mightsigh alike for the purling stream and the shady grove.” I fear I should feel but scant respect for any poet who found cause for sighs and regrets in Scilly.

And this is a paradise without even a serpent, for the islands are as destitute of snakes and vipers as is the blessed isle of Saint Patrick. Hence arose an old saying that when the Almighty had finished creating Ireland there were a few handfuls of mud (sic!) left, which, being cast into the sea, became the Scilly Isles. I think this saying must have originated with an Irishman—and that is the only excuse I can find for it!

Rats there are, whose ancestors are said to have all arrived in a ship from Shields. And in Troutbeck’s time there were cockroaches—such cockroaches! His very description of them makes one shudder! “A large sort of flies, sometimes several inches long, but not so large here as in some other places; esteemed great curiosities and scarce known in any other part of the world.”

Fortunately these “curiosities” seem not to be so much in evidence now.

The Scillonians are a mixed race. They are thought to be descended partly from the ancient Iberians, that small and swarthy people, of whom so little is known and so much conjectured. Nodoubt they have also much Celtic blood in their veins, but they have never had any distinctive language, like others of the “Celtic fringe,” and the English that they speak is remarkably pure. Their descent has likewise been traced from the Scandinavians who once frequented the islands; and doubtless other strains as well have mingled with their blood.

There is a tradition that a ship of the Armada was wrecked off the coast of St. Agnes (at how many points of the British coast is there such a tradition!), and it is said that some of the Spaniards who escaped with their lives made that little island their home. According to the old chronicler Leland, St. Agnes was entirely depopulated somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century, the five families who lived there being all drowned on their way back from a marriage feast at St. Mary’s; so it is possible that if the Spaniards landed here they found a free field.

The present inhabitants of St. Agnes are a fine race, but quite distinct in character from the rest of the islanders; and I have heard it said that when they get excited or angry “you can see the old Moor coming out as plainly as anything.”

St. Martin’s men are tall and fair and handsome, and seem to show signs of Scandinavian descent.

That a purer English is spoken on the islands than on the mainland has been explained by the fact that a Bedfordshire company of soldiers was left behind in garrison here during the Commonwealth, and in time was completely forgotten. The soldiers intermarried with the island women when they had given up all idea of being recalled. I do not think that any one who has ever heard the true Bedfordshire twang could credit this story as an explanation!

But there is little doubt that fresh blood has been introduced into the islands by such intermarriages. Duke Cosmo III. of Tuscany was driven by contrary winds to put into St. Mary’s Harbour in 1669, and he reports that “corn of late began to be scarce, in consequence of the increase of the population produced by marriages of the soldiers of the garrison with the islanders, but this has been remedied for some years past by forbidding them to marry!”

The isolation of the islanders led in past times to intermarriage between the same families again and again, but the results do not appear to have been as unfortunate as might have been expected.

There is this result, on the off-islands especially, that the same surname is repeated over and over again, so that nicknames have to be resorted to,to distinguish one man from another. On St. Agnes every man is a Hicks, unless he is a Legge. On Tresco, Bryher, and St. Martin’s, Jenkins, Pender, Ashford, and Ellis are the typical names.

It happened once on St. Agnes at the signing of the parish books that the names of the four signatories (the churchwarden, the two overseers, and the auditor from London) were all the same—Hicks!

There are traces of prehistoric man in nearly all the islands—kitchen-middens, with heaps of limpet-shells and other refuse, and great numbers of sepulchral barrows of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages.

At the foot of Hellingy Downs on St. Mary’s the remains of a primitive village have been discovered, with the foundations of many circular huts, some of which have now been washed away by the sea. There was a kitchen-midden close by; and an ancient stone hand-mill, about four thousand years old, and some very crude pottery of the same period, were unearthed from among the foundations.

When digging near Garrison Hill, St. Mary’s, some of the islanders have come across layers of limpet-shells four feet in depth; and on the desolate island of Annet, now sacred to sea-birds, there hasrecently been found a midden with quantities of the peculiarly shaped and unmistakable pharyngeal bone of the wrasse, as well as the inevitable limpet-shells, showing that in this case prehistoric man had endeavoured to vary his diet. Dr. Borlase, the antiquarian, thus describes the barrows:—

“The outer ring is composed of large stones pitched on end, and the heap within consists of smaller stones, clay, and earth, mixed together. They have generally a cavity of stonework in the middle, covered with flat stones; but the barrows are of various dimensions, and the cavities, which, being low and covered with rubble, are scarce apparent in some, consist of such large materials in others that they make the principal figure in the monument.”

These funeral mounds were formerly called “Giants’ Graves,” and it was believed that terrific storms would follow their disturbance. Dr. Borlase got into some trouble with the people because his investigations were followed by a storm which ruined their crops. And yet, unfortunately, many of the stones have been removed by the inhabitants from time to time for building purposes. The present pier on St. Mary’s is said to be partly built with stones from these old sepulchres.

Dr. Borlase found “no bones, or urns, but somestrong unctuous earth which smelt cadaverous.” Other searchers have been more fortunate. On the Gugh of St. Agnes barrows have since been opened, containing coarse earthen pots with cinders and ashes inside, sepulchres no doubt of the Bronze Age when cremation was the usual practice. In recent times Mr. Bonsor opened another, of very great interest, on the same peninsula. Inside were urns and skeletons in layers, one above the other, the same grave having been used apparently by two different peoples, those who cremated their dead and those who followed the later custom of inhumation. The later generations seem often to have turned out the earlier.

One of the most perfect kistvaens or cists in Cornwall was found by Mr. Augustus Smith in a tumulus on the northern hill of Samson in 1862. It contained the lower and upper jaw of a man, and the remains of human teeth, all of which had been subjected to the action of fire.

On the top of the hill above the Clapper Rocks, on the east coast of St. Mary’s, is a barrow which was opened by Mr. Bonsor in 1903, and in his opinion it is the finest specimen in the West of England. Altogether in Scilly there must be nearly a hundred examples, and no doubt many have been destroyed. The built graves lined with stones are thought to be of earlier date than those formed of only one large block. Very often there is a double circle of stones round the mound, an inner and an outer, the covering slabs being in some cases eight or nine feet long.

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