XIBRYHER AND SAMSON

GIMBLE BAY, TRESCO

The northern part of Tresco is wild and rocky and uncultivated, with bare brown downs stretching across from shore to shore.

On the east, where these downs slope more gently towards the sea, there is the beautiful Gimble Bay, facing towards the islands of Menavawr, Round Island, St. Helen’s, and Norwethel; and lying just outside the bay is the long reef known as Golden Ball Bar, over which the waves are ever breaking in flying foam and with the sound of thunder.

On the north the downs end abruptly in a steep and rock-bound coast. Here is a wonderful cavern known as “Piper’s Hole,” which penetrates inland for a distance of above two hundred feet.

To enter it one has first to descend an iron ladder fixed to the rock, and then to clamber, bent double, along a dark passage, over large stone boulders, worn smooth by the action of the waves. At length the passage opens out into a cavern thirty-four feet high—plenty of room to stand upright now! Here there is a large pool of fresh water, on which a boat is kept during the summer, so that one can be ferried across it and land on the smooth beach of white sand at the far end of the cave.

It used to be said that this Piper’s Hole communicatedby a passage under the sea with the small and insignificant cave of the same name on St. Mary’s; that men had entered there and never returned; but that dogs had successfully accomplished the journey, and had reappeared safely at Tresco, at the expense of most of their hair!

There are several other caves along the north coast of Tresco, but none so large as Piper’s Hole.

On the western edge of the downs there are the scanty ruins of Charles’s Castle, which is probably the one described by Leland as “a lytle pyle or fortres.”

As we stand by the ruins and look down we can see below us, on a ledge of rocks jutting out into the sea, our old friend Cromwell’s Castle—a strong little tower, with walls twelve feet thick. The flooring and other woodwork of the interior has mostly disappeared, and what remains is green with damp; but the outer walls are just as strong as ever. The flat bomb-proof roof, once armed with a battery, is now overgrown with grass and brambles.

Beyond the Castle, in the midst of New Grimsby Sound, is a pile of rock known as Hangman’s Island, because the Republican officers hanged a batch of mutinous soldiers there. The path from Cromwell’s Castle southwards to New Grimsby lies close to thesea, parting a tangle of bracken and bramble; and there in the autumn may be found the finest blackberries that grow in the islands.

The sands on the east coast of Tresco, between the Block House and Skirt Point, are famous for their shells, especially for “guinea-moneys”—pretty little shells of the cowry shape, which are much sought after by Scillonians for making into necklaces. They are found in considerable numbers along this shore, but are nowhere so plentiful as not to require a careful search.

BRYHER, with its five hills, is one of the prettiest of the islands. All Scillonians will tell you so, even those (and there are some) who have to confess that they have never been there!

There are about ninety inhabitants, of whom the greater number live in Bryher “town,” as they will tell you it is called, with a half-apologetic smile at the importance of the name.

“You won’t find this like Hugh Town,” says, with a twinkle in his eye, the boatman who has brought me across, as he carries my luggage up the steep little street. “You’ll find it pretty dark when you come home from the theayter at night.”

There are only two houses in which one can stay on Bryher, and they stand side by side at the top of the hill. From their windows there is a fascinating view of the Outer Islands, peaked and jagged barren rocks, standing out of the water, black and threatening; Maiden Bower, Seal Rock, Illiswilgig, Castle Bryher, and the rest.

At the northern end of Bryher is Shipman Head, a huge mass of rock, 100 feet high, the home of many sea-birds, and separated from the main island only by a narrow chasm, through which the sea whirls and eddies with great force. It is possible to jump across this chasm from Bryher on to a rock on Shipman Head at a slightly lower level; but it is not advisable to make the leap unless you do not wish to return, for jumping back again is quite another question!

In this part of the island is Hell Bay, so called from the terrific force of the sea during a high wind, and the many wrecks which have been washed ashore there. Most of these have struck on Scilly Rock, from which the whole group takes its name. This mighty mass of granite lies off to the west, nearly a mile outside Hell Bay. It is divided in two by a narrow channel, through which, in very calm weather, a small boat can be made to shoot.

It was here that the huge Atlantic liner, the “Minnehaha,” of 13,400 tonnage, struck in April, 1910, as already described.

Some years ago two vessels struck there in one night. The first of these was a sailing-ship on her first voyage, carrying a cargo of rice and manned by a black crew, all of whom were saved by boats from Bryher. Being new, she did not quickly breakup, and the light burning on her mast misled another and smaller vessel, and drew her to her destruction. Her cargo consisted of cocoanuts, thousands of which were washed up in Hell Bay and on the shores of Tresco, and were gathered into heaps to be sent to the mainland.

Yet another time a cotton-ship was wrecked, and Hell Bay was full of iron-bound bales of cotton.

It is a magnificent and awesome sight to watch the waves breaking in Hell Bay during rough weather. They mount with a mighty roar almost to the top of Shipman Head, flinging their spray high into the air, and falling back in foaming cataracts, only to renew their onslaught with still greater force.

This is the wildest and most barren part of Bryher. Farther south the hill-slopes are cultivated, and are sheeted with flowers in the spring, while their summits are crowned with gorse.

Until last year the “oldest inhabitant” of the islands lived on Bryher. She had reached the great age of ninety-six, but she carried well her weight of years. She was known as “Aunt Charlotte,” for on the off-islands they still follow more or less the custom noticed by Heath, of using “Aunt” and “Uncle” as nicknames, on account of thescarcity of surnames. And her son-in-law with whom she lived is “Uncle Sampy,” named after the neighbouring island of Samson.

Aunt Charlotte could well remember the kelping days, but even the mists of seventy years had no power to cast a glamour over them.

There is excitement on Bryher just now, for an itinerant draper’s shop has arrived in a barge, towed by the steam-launch. The draper has spread out his goods in Uncle Sampy’s flower-house, and every one is flocking to take the rare chance of doing some shopping. The glass-house is soon nearly as full (for its size) as a London shop at sale-time; and it is almost as gay as when it was stacked with flowers.

But instead of tiers of narcissi and daffodils, under the vine-leaves and climbing-roses, there are rolls of white calico and scarlet flannel; straw hats of every colour of the rainbow, gay blouses, and a good display of toys for the children. To St. Mary’s, St. Martin’s, and Bryher this floating shop is taken about three times in the year. On rocky little St. Agnes the draper dare not try to land, for fear of the risk of spoiling his goods, and Tresco is forbidden ground.

I shall not soon forget returning from Bryher one very stormy morning in a sailing-boat, sunk almostto the gunwale, for in addition to her load of flower-boxes, she carried a dead bullock, resolved into its component parts ready for sale on St. Mary’s—which resolution had taken place in my landlady’s kitchen the previous evening. As the boat tacked the cargo shifted from side to side, and parts of my fellow-passenger, sewn up in sacking, kept threatening to roll on the top of me. The waves dashed continually over the sides, and in spite of the oilskins with which the sailors covered me, I was drenched before I reached Hugh Town.

I have also vivid remembrances of the toughness of my fellow-passenger when I had a piece of him for dinner that evening.

The island of Samson, with its two conical hills, makes a good mark for seamen. It was formerly inhabited, but by 1855 the late Governor had by degrees removed to St. Martin’s and St. Mary’s the few families whom he found living there. Some of them objected strongly to being moved, and one old man barricaded himself in his cottage, and vowed he would shoot any one who interfered with him. But he had to go in the end.

Various reasons are given for this action on the part of the Governor. It is said that the inhabitants were quarrelling amongst themselves, and were better separated; that the younger men havingleft the island, those who remained were getting too old to manage the boats and make a living; also, that there being no school on Samson, the children could not be properly educated.

ARMOREL’S COTTAGE

To-day the principal inhabitants are black rabbits; but the ruins of several houses may still be seen. One of them is known as “Armorel’s Cottage,” after the heroine of Sir Walter Besant’s novel,Armorel of Lyonnesse. It stands, a mere shell, roofless and crumbling, at the foot of the southern hill. Bracken and bramble have encroached on all sides, within and without, blocking up the doorway and leaving no traces of a floor. An elder and a tamarisk alone show where the cottage-garden used to be.

It is a pretty spot for a home, on the edge of the narrow plain which connects Samson’s two hills, with a full sight of the sea and of the neighbouring islands on the right and on the left. Now the ground is covered with wild violets and the air is heavy with the scent of the gorse; later, when summer comes, tall foxgloves will rise in battalions from the midst of the fresh green bracken, which as yet shows nothing but tiny tender spirals above the dark earth.

It is over twenty years since Besant’s book was written, but still you may see new-comers to Scilly clasping each his copy ofArmorel. The originalof “Peter the boy” is still living on St. Mary’s, and is still known as Peter, though that is not his real name. Still he answers to Besant’s description, looking no older, probably, than twenty years ago. He had a terrible blow on the head from the crane of a steamer, which knocked him insensible, and after that all his hair fell out, and never would grow again. But the accident had one happy result: he had been subject to fits, and this blow on the head worked a complete cure! It is such a simple though drastic remedy, that all doctors and surgeons ought to know of it!

The “girl” who is credited with having been the original of Armorel, for the sole reason that she was the last girl to live on Samson, was married and in the North of England long before Besant came to Scilly. With most unreasonable annoyance, she declared she would scratch his eyes out if ever she met him, thus proving that she had no resemblance in character to the Armorel of fiction. As for “Peter,” he was “noways particular,” to use his own expression.

Not far from Armorel’s Cottage there are the ruins of an ancient building, which is supposed to have been a church; but as to when and how it was built, and to whom dedicated, who can tell?

IFyou want to visit the little island of St. Agnes, you had better choose a fairly calm day, for the coast is so rocky that in rough weather it is not easy to land.

There are two ways of getting there from St. Mary’s: either in your own hired sailing-boat, when you can choose your own time; or else you can be “delivered with the mails” by the steam-launch, in which case you must be ready for starting soon after the arrival of the steamer from Penzance. Very energetic people can also go in the launch when she fetches the mails, leaving St. Mary’s at 6.30 in the morning.

The launch is naturally more independent of the weather than the sailing-boats, but even she has been known to come to grief in a high gale, and has been ignominiously towed in by a trawler; and if you do venture out in her when there is a lot of sea on, she may take up or land her mails and yet refuse to run the risk of landingyou. Mailscan be thrown, but you cannot; and her dinghy does not long keep its coat of royal blue paint amongst the rocks around St. Agnes.

The whole past history of this island is one of a series of shipwrecks; and we cannot wonder at this when we see the gaunt and grim monsters that lie in wait for storm-driven or befogged vessels to the west and south-west. The very names of some of them are significant: Hellweathers, Old Wreck Ledge, Tearing Ledge, and the Crim Rocks (I am told that “crim” in Cornish means a creeping, trembling, shuddering feeling, as from fear).

But who would ever expect to be wrecked on islets bearing the innocent names of Daisy and Great and Little Rose? And yet these rocks have also had their toll of human lives; in fact, there is scarcely one but serves as tombstone to some poor fellow—a tombstone which has brought him to the grave it marks.

Heath makes a quaint comment on the frequency of wrecks near this island; “which,” says he, “makes the Inhabitants of it some Amends for their Forlornness of Abode.”

There are stories that in the old days the islanders recognised so keenly the value of this “Amends” that they would drop propitiatory pins down St. Warna’s Well, praying to her to “send a wreckbefore morning.” This Saint, who is said to have come all the way from Ireland in a coracle of wicker and hides, was supposed to be instrumental in sending the wrecks, and generally to preside over and direct the good fortune of the islanders. She seems a much more suitable patron-saint for the stormy little island than the meek St. Agnes with her lamb. But how came this bold, adventurous dame to be accredited with such a weakness for pins?

There are stories still more sinister: of ships lured to their destruction by false lights; of a lantern tied between the horns of a cow to lead mariners astray by its wandering gleam; and of other devices of the devotees of St. Warna, who evidently believed in the maxim of Æschylus, that the gods help those who help themselves. But whatever strange and wild doings there may have been in the past, nowadays none are more ready than the men of St. Agnes to risk their own lives in endeavouring to save others.

They have a life-boat of their own, which is launched from a slip just below the church—a slip which they claim to be the longest in the world!

The lighthouse is much the oldest in the islands, and one of the oldest in the British Isles, having been built in 1680. For more than twocenturies it formed a guiding-star by night, but at first it was lighted merely by a coal-fire, which was sometimes allowed to go out. In 1790 oil-lamps and reflectors were fixed, which supplied a brilliant light. But recently it was found to be in need of much repair, so it has been placed on the “retired list,” and its work of warning and guidance is now given over to the new tower erected on Peninnis.

In past times the inhabitants of St. Agnes were frequently cut off from all communication with the outer world for weeks together, and had to depend very much on their own resources. They had to grind their own corn with round stone hand-mills, or “querns,” and often they ran short of bread altogether, and had to make up with potatoes. They had no fuel but the dried bracken, fetched in boat-loads from the neighbouring isle of Annet unless a chance wreck provided them with firewood; and fish-oil and seal-oil, prepared by themselves, were all they had for artificial light. One old lady still speaks feelingly of the privations of her early days. “I never could abide potatoes for breakfast,” she says, “but there was often nothing else to be had.” The seals’ blubber for candles was boiled down out of doors, for the smell was too abominable to have in the houses. Seals weighing six or seven hundredweight and “nearly as big as bullocks” have been caught round the islands. Nowadays any that are caught are sold to the Governor at 5s. a head, large and small alike.

A FLOWER-HOUSE ON ST. AGNES

Early potatoes are still grown on St. Agnes for export, and now a good deal of business is also done with the flowers.

As the launch draws near the landing-place in Perconger during the flower-season, you may see a long string of carts and barrows following each other down the hill to the sea-shore. These contain the wooden boxes of flowers which are to be loaded on the barge and towed back to St. Mary’s ready for the next day’s steamer.

We found very comfortable quarters on the island with the wife of the pilot’s son who so distinguished himself when the “T. W. Lawson” was wrecked, as described in another chapter. The accompanying illustration shows their little three-year-old girl trying to help her parents in the tying-house.

The very names on St. Agnes seem to be suggestive of the wild and rocky character of the island—names such as Camperdizl Point, Campergurling, and the Carns of Kestillier.

And is not Wingletang Down a picturesque and suggestive name?

A heather-clad stretch of open down, dotted with bushes of “whin,” or gorse, and with a fringe of“tang,” or seaweed, washed up all round it; great boulders of granite strewn over its surface, and bare patches of the living rock showing here and there through the soil—that is Wingletang Down, in the middle of which stands the strange rock called the Giant’s Punch-bowl.

In the sands of the little bay at the edge of the down it is the custom to search for beads, just as one searches for beads in the sands of the Egyptian desert. But these are not mummy-beads! only wreck-salvage from a vessel that was lost over two hundred years ago, and its wreckage was washed up in what has since been called “Beady Pool.”

On Wingletang Down one may, perhaps, see large blocks of granite drilled with rows of holes ready for quarrying. Until recent times the blocks were severed by driving wooden pegs into these holes, and wetting them until their swelling forced the stone asunder—just the same method as was used in ancient Egypt thousands of years ago! Nowadays slips of steel take the place of the wooden pegs.

The bay on the south of St. Agnes is known as Santa Warna Bay, because there, according to tradition, the Saint put in, in her little coracle, on her arrival from Ireland. On its shore is SantaWarna’s Well, now an insignificant little hole almost choked with dead bracken and weeds, and half-covered with a flat stone, but once considered the most important spot in the island. For, formerly, every year on the day after Twelfth Day, the well was cleaned out by the islanders and devotion paid to the Saint. This was still done in Heath’s time, and he says they used “certain superstitious ceremonies in their thanksgiving, which being ended they make a general feasting and rejoicing throughout the island.” It was here that, in the old wild days, the young girls used to come on foggy nights, before going to bed, and drop pins down the well, chanting—

“Good-night, father; good-night, mother;Good-night, friends and foes;God send a ship ashore before morning.”

“Good-night, father; good-night, mother;

Good-night, friends and foes;

God send a ship ashore before morning.”

There is a tradition that the destruction by drowning of the entire population of St. Agnes, as recorded by Leland in the sixteenth century, was a judgment on a long course of wrecking.

The little church of St. Agnes stands by Priglis Bay, which is sometimes called Pericles Bay, and is supposed to be a corruption of Portus Ecclesiæ. Scillonians have a way of softening the sound of words; thus Porth is nearly always reduced to Per;so it is easy to see how Portus Ecclesiæ became Priglis.

Leland says there was a chapel here in his time, from which the island took its name. This is supposed to have been beaten down by the Parliamentary forces. It lay in ruins many years, and then, on the same spot and with the same materials, was built a dwelling-house, which was washed away by a high tide in 1744. People still living in 1794 could remember having seen the chancel arch of the old church standing, built of fine freestone, in the same way as the arches in the ruins of Tresco Abbey church.

Another church was built in 1685, with salvage money received for saving a French vessel. This fell into decay, and was replaced by the present building early in the last century.

Just outside the church wall the men of St. Agnes make and stack their crab-pots. One may sometimes see a mountain of these creels piled up by the life-boat slip, and a group of men hard at work making more; others, perhaps, standing by and looking on with their hands in their pockets; waiting, with the unequalled patience of the fisherman, for some job to turn up.

Whenever there is a fog in the islands, whether by day or night, you will hear every five minutesa loud booming roar, like the report of a gun, sounding across the sea from the south-west. This warning comes from the Bishop Lighthouse, four and a half miles from St. Agnes, and is caused by the explosion of “tonite,” a kind of gun-cotton. It serves to warn off ships when the light is quite hidden in the dense fogs, which sometimes last for days.

Think what it must be for those men in the lighthouse to have this roar sounding close to their ears every five minutes for days together!

The Bishop Lighthouse is the tallest in the world, besides being one of the most exposed in situation. The first attempt to build a tower on this rock was made in 1849, but before the building was complete a heavy sea swept away the wrought-iron rods and columns of which it was formed.

A masonry tower was next built, and finished in 1859. It was 120 feet high, but even at this height the sea would actually be breaking over the lantern for many hours together during a heavy gale; so after a time the tower was encased with additional masonry, and raised to its present height of 167 feet. It sways like a tree in the wind during one of the terrific storms which sometimes beat upon it.

Altogether there are seven sea-lights to be seengleaming out round the islands after night has fallen. There is this of the Bishop, away among the western rocks; the new light on Peninnis; the ruby glow from Round Island; the light-ship moored by the Seven Stones; the “Wolf” Lighthouse, half-way between Scilly and the mainland; and the lights of Longships and Pendeen, off the Cornish coast.

NOWHEREdo the flowers bloom so early as on the sunny southern slopes of St. Martin’s Isle; and as one draws near from St. Mary’s one may see the varied colours of the flower-patches, from palest lemon through all the shades of yellow down to deep orange, clothing the face of the hills.

It is a great advantage to St. Martin’s, this long series of slopes on the south, facing towards the roadstead, warm and sunny and sheltered. At one time the drifting sand from the flats had so covered the soil as to make much of it barren, but it seems fertile enough now. The sand-flats extend for a mile in the direction of St. Mary’s, and at very low water of a spring-tide it is possible to walk across them, and to wade through the remaining mile of separating sea.

The Eastern Islands are well seen from the flowery slopes. They run in pairs of “Great” and “Little”—Ganilly, Ganinick, Arthur, and Innisvouls—there is a Great and a Little of each. Hanjague,the “sugar-loaf” island, away to the very east, stands quite alone—in name, and character, and situation. I remember being asked by a boatman soon after I first came to Scilly whether I knew “Ann Jigg.” I knew the sugar-loaf well by sight and its name on paper, but the orthodox pronunciation was strange to me, and I replied with puzzlement that I had never met the lady!

The northern slopes of St. Martin’s, exposed to all the fury of the Atlantic gales, are almost uncultivated, possessing one little flower-farm only, at Pernagie. On this coast, “at the back of St. Martin’s,” there are caves which were formerly thought to be old tin-workings.

It is a wild and beautiful and lonely coast, with rounded bays, shut in by rocky headlands, and slopes clad with heather and gorse between the patches of bare grey granite. The bold mass of St. Martin’s Head is nearly the highest point of the islands, and from it what old Leland calls “the very westeste point of Cornwalle” can often be clearly seen. The Cornish hills are plainly visible on a very clear day, even from an open boat in the roads.

On the summit of St. Martin’s Head is the “Day-mark,” built in 1683 by Thomas Ekins, the first steward of the Godolphins to reside onthe islands. It is a round tower with a conical top, painted all the way up with alternate bands of white and Indian red, and it is quite the most hideous object to be seen in Scilly! But we must forgive its ugliness, for no doubt it has done good service to seamen in times past; and though the neighbouring lighthouse on Round Island has made it less necessary, still it is a “land-mark,” and as such it must remain. It was used as a signal-station in the last French War, a century ago; near by are ruins of the houses occupied by the soldiers.

These downs around St. Martin’s Head are beautiful in their autumn garb of purple; they are no less beautiful in the spring, when the heather forms a carpet of velvety-brown, here slightly greenish, there again rich as burnt-sienna in colour, with bushes of gorse scattered about upon it; and around them always lies the blue and emerald circle of the sea.

St. Martin’s men are great potters, and divide their time between this work and farming. Piloting used to occupy them a great deal; and still standing all along the shore, but fast falling into ruin, are the rows of sheds where the pilot-boats were kept.

White Island, the most northerly of the Scillies and a wild, weird spot, can be reached on foot from St. Martin’s at low tide. It contains yet athird “Piper’s Hole,” better known as “Underland Girt,” a dark and gloomy chasm, frequented by sea-birds.

There are three little rocks off the south coast of St. Martin’s, which bear the sinister name of “The Three Damned Sinners.” One can fancy that the name goes back to the time when superstition was rife in the islands, and when it was thought that the spirits of the shipwrecked who had done evil in this life would never rest; and the shrieking and skirling of birds around these rocks would have been attributed to the yelling of restless spirits, till the rocks themselves came to be called after them.

I do not know why it is, but St. Martin’s seems to be less visited than the other islands. It certainly is not less attractive, and those who go there soon find that it has a charm of its own. Its inhabitants are very proud of their island, and very willing to give a welcome to strangers.

There is at least one man on St. Martin’s who has never been to the mainland, and to whom motor-cars and trains would be a great novelty. For motor-cars are never seen in Scilly except in the form of wreck-salvage! And trains are, of course, unknown. But perhaps he would as resolutely refuse to be surprised as the sturdyScillonian who, on his first visit to England, would only say, “Everything is very like Scilly, only bigger, and more of ’em.”

St. Helen’s Island lies off to the north-west of St. Martin’s; but St. Helen has by rights neither part nor lot in this island which bears her name. It appears to have been originally dedicated to St. Elidius, who, as William of Worcester tells us, was buried in Scilly, and very likely on this island.

In Leland’s time the name had been shortened to St. Lide’s, and the sex of the Saint was already forgotten, for he speaks of “Saynct Lides Isle, wher yn tymes past athersepulchre was gret superstition.”

St. Elidius was Bishop of Llandaff in the sixth century, and during the yellow plague he went to stay in Brittany with his friend St. Sampson, the Bishop of Dol, to whom the neighbouring island of Samson is dedicated. He was in his old age called Elios, “for that his doctrine shone like the sun.” This name, St. Elios, appears to have become, by different stages, St. Teilo, St. Dillo, and St. Dellan, whence it easily passed into St. Helen.

Dr. Borlase mentions a church on St. Helen’s as the most ancient Christian building in Scilly. He thus describes it as it stood in 1756:—

“It consists of a South Isle, 31 feet 6 incheslong, by 14 feet 3 inches wide, from which two arches, low and of uncouth style, open into a North Isle, 12 feet wide by 19 feet 6 inches long. There are two windows in each Isle; near the Eastern window in the North Isle projects a flat stone, to support, I suppose, the image of the saint.”

Little but the foundations of the church can now be traced, which is all the more to be regretted, since it probably dated back to the eighth century, or earlier. Many of the stones were taken away early in the last century, to build a garden wall for a naval officer stationed in the island.

St. Helen’s Pool was appointed the quarantine station in 1756. The Council of Scilly had appealed two years before that it might be made so, in the stead of New Grimsby Sound, where the presence of infected persons was a great source of danger to the inhabitants of Tresco and Bryher. The Pesthouse on St. Helen’s, standing deep in bracken, is now in a state of ruin, and it is hardly safe to enter on account of the falling of slates through holes in the roof. It seems a gruesome sort of place to have been used by picnic-parties, but in its better days, we are told, they often boiled their kettles in the hospital ward!

Rats abound on St. Helen’s, as a foolish pair of honeymooners discovered when they went to spend the night there a short time ago. In the morning they found their basket of provisions had been quite emptied by the rats, “and it’s a wonder the rats had not eaten them up too,” said she who told the tale.

ROUND ISLAND, FROM ST. HELEN’S

Not far from the Pest-house there is a deep well of water; and the surface of the island is scattered thick with limpet-shells—two facts which may seem to have little connection, but which I have reason to associate.

We had come to St. Helen’s by sailing-boat, and I was preparing to sketch Round Island from the northern shore when I found my water-bottle was empty. This was a great damper, for the water in the old well was much too far down to be reached without a rope. But we happened to notice the limpet-shells. There had been a heavy shower in the night, and every little shell was brimful of rain-water, so by collecting a number of them and straining out the dead ants, my wants were easily supplied.

We wondered whether modern scientists might not consider this decoction of ants a likely cure for rheumatism, on account of the formic acid it must have contained!

There are fine views of Round Island and Menavawr from St. Helen’s, the best that can behad, unless one went quite close in a boat, and this is only possible in very calm weather.

Menavawr, with its three jagged peaks, is one of the grandest of the barren rocks, and towers up to a height of 140 feet, on one side almost sheer from the sea. It is cleft with two channels, the wider of which, like that which divides the Scilly Rock, can be navigated, with great care, after a long spell of calm weather.

The name means simply “Great rock,” from the Celtic “men,” a rock, and “vawr,” great; but it has been corrupted to “Man-o’-War,” from a fancied resemblance to a ship in full sail, and this is the only pronunciation one ever hears.

It is but a barren rock, but it is wondrously beautiful. It is seamed and scored and weatherworn with thousands of lines and markings, and touched with many tints of colour, which make it look in the sunshine like a mighty precious stone with the light gleaming on its facets.

And round this opalescent jewel the sea-birds are ever whirling and skirling, and flying in and out of its crannied sides; and round it, too, the sea is ever dashing and foaming, as the waves chase each other through the channels that divide it.

Round Island, less than a century ago, was described as “utterly inaccessible,” and “trulyappalling”; but now, with a turn of Fortune’s wheel, its character is quite different. For more than twenty years it has had a claim to be reckoned as one of the inhabited islands, since two men are always living on its rocky summit. They are the keepers of the lighthouse, which flashes forth its ruby light as soon as darkness begins to fall.

Scarcely a blade of grass will grow on this barren rock; and it is said that the few rabbits which exist there have learnt to gnaw bones like a dog, on account of the scarcity of other food.

One hundred and sixty rough-hewn steps lead up to the top of the island, but even with this artificial aid it is not an easy ascent.

Compared with the Bishop, this is a paradise to live upon; for the men have plenty of room to walk about on the rock, instead of being always confined in a slender tower, and the storms do not assail them with such terrifying violence.

TO-MORROWwe leave for the mainland, and how shall we spend this our last day, precious as last things nearly always are?

It is a lovely day, with a clear, pure sky, and just enough breeze to ruffle the sea into crisp little waves, and make it wear its many-twinkling smile. Just the day for sailing in and out amongst the islands for the last time; but not one upon which we may venture beyond the roads; for round the outer rocks we can see the foam surging high, and making broken white lines along the surface of the sea.

So we will go sailing within the roadstead, and take a last look at the islands from this sheltered inner side.

How sorry we are to take leave of them all! Of St. Mary’s, which with every visit has come to feel more home-like, where nearly every face we meet now seems to look familiar and friendly, and where the bustle and stir of life seem in comparisonso very great when we return to it from one of the off-islands!

For there is always some small excitement going on at Hugh Town.

One day it is a French fisherman who has been seized by the “Argus,” the little man-of-war that lies in wait for poachers. He has been found fishing within the three-mile limit, and is punished, perhaps, by a fine and the confiscation of his fish.

Another time it is the arrival of a vessel from Scandinavia, laden with wood for flower-boxes. She is an antique Dutch scow, in shape like a flatiron, and with a hold like the bottomless pit, out of which are emptied two hundred tons of wood, all ready cut into tops and bottoms and sides, and needing only to be nailed together. She comes waddling in one Sunday morning long after she was expected, having been delayed by bad weather; and there is a fine row with the captain, who has left too much of his cargo at the Channel Islands en route, and now wants to receive full pay in Scilly for a deficient supply. But Scillonians know better! Or there is the arrival of the crew of a steam-drifter, which has struck on Gorregan in a fog. The men, fifteen in number, and natives of Brittany, got off in their small boat, and when daylight dawnedwere rescued by St. Agnes islanders. They are thoroughly enjoying themselves now that their painful experience is over. Clothes were lent to them temporarily on St. Agnes, but now they must be reclothed by the agents of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society, and it is amusing to see them being trotted round in a body to be outfitted. There are not enough coats and waistcoats to go round, but this does not matter at all. They revel in exhibiting their gorgeous embroidered braces, and their feet, encased in bran-new leather boots, probably for the first time in their lives.

These are just typical everyday happenings; but now and then there is some big event, which stirs the islands to their depths.

So who could ever find the islands dull?

Who indeed could be dull, with such a sea on which to sail, with such free and lonely downs on which to roam, and such a wealth of islands to explore! Only those, I think, who pack their dullness in their portmanteaus and carry it with them wherever they go.

And now we must say goodbye to it all. First we will sail to Tresco and take leave of the few friends we have made there. One of them gives us as a parting gift a bunch of Cynosures—“Shiny-shores,”shecalls them; and surely a more poeticalname for this lovely golden narcissus than the one it really bears—“dog’s tail,” if we carry it back to its original meaning.

OFF TO ST. MARTIN’S

To Bryher next, just to gather a few early buds of sea-pink from the downs by Hell Bay, and to wave farewell to those we know who live in Bryher Town.

It is as we are flying merrily along to St. Martin’s that I remember I have made no sketch of this sailing-boat on which we have spent so many happy hours. And yet she is a thing of beauty, and well deserves recording. Perhaps even now it is not too late.

Did you ever try to make a sketch of a sailing-boat in full sail from the very doubtful vantage-ground of the dinghy attached behind—with the painter let out to its fullest extent to give you sufficient distance? If you ever do anything so foolish (I admit it was foolish), I would advise you to persuade all your weightiest friends to accompany you; for so your cockleshell would gain a little in steadiness, and dance a little less lightly on the waves. And then, perhaps, your brush-strokes would not so often be made half an inch or more from where you meant them to be! In my case the forepart of the boat rose high out of the water, at intervals bobbing down with a splash, and I hadthe opportunity of trying the effect of a mixture of salt water with my paints.

I have heard a story of a lady who said, in describing a certain painting made on the Mississippi, “I know itmustbe like the place, for the man who painted it had made his colours out of the earths from the very river-banks he was painting.” On this principle sea-watermustbe the proper medium for painting the sea!

We must not stop long at St. Martin’s, for time is going fast, so we will content ourselves with climbing to the top of Cruther’s Hill above the pier, and letting our eyes, instead of our feet, roam over the island once more.

And now to St. Agnes, which has a special corner in our hearts. So we will sail all round it, for the wind has slightly dropped, and get a glimpse of every part before we land in Perconger.

A flying visit to the lighthouse top, to look down once more on the fields and gardens, rocks and headlands of the little isle; a scamper over Wingletang Down, with the fresh sea-breeze in our faces; and a last peep at the little lonely church by the shore. That is all there is time for, if we wish to reach St. Mary’s before dark. And packing still to be done!

As we sail homeward, looking back we can discernon the Gugh that strange and fearful-looking rock, the Kittern, also called the Turk’s Head; fearful-looking, I say, because its shape recalls to me so strongly Watts’ dreadful Minotaur, crushing the life out of the innocent, as he overlooks the sea.

How can I end on such a note as that! It is but a strange and idle fancy that has come into my head; and there is nothing gloomy about the islands to justify it.

Here is something which is much more typical of them, our boatman’s two small—very small—sons, who have come down to the quay to “help” anchor the boat. Their bright faces are full of light and life and sparkle, like the islands bathed in noonday sunshine, and encircled with “the innumerable laughter of the sea.”

They are true children of their island-home; their joyous freedom finds an echo in the joyous freedom of the Life around them; in the spirit of the wild sea-birds; in the leaping, restless, shimmering waves; in the fresh sweet breezes that blow across the downs; and not least in those dancing myriads of flowers, flowers, flowers; those “hosts in the sunshine,” sent, as God’s messengers, “to set our hearts free.”

Saga of King Olaf Tryggwason, by Snorri Sturluson, 1222.Itinerary of William of Worcester, 1478.Itinerary of John Leland, written 1533-9; first published 1710.The Survey of Cornwall, by Richard Carew, 1602.Voyage of Duke Cosmo III of Tuscany, 1669.Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe, 1676.A Natural and Historical Account of the Islands of Scilly, by Robert Heath, 1750.Observations on the Ancient and Present State of the Islands of Scilly, by Dr. William Borlase, 1756.A Survey of the Ancient and Present State of the Scilly Islands, by the Rev. John Troutbeck, 1794.History of Cornwall, by the Rev. R. Polwhele, with Supplement by Whitaker, 1804.A View of the Present State of the Scilly Islands, by the Rev. George Woodley, 1822.A Week in the Isles of Scilly, by the Rev. I. W. North, 1850.Scilly and its Legends, by the Rev. H. J. Whitfeld, 1852.A Londoner’s Walk to the Land’s End, by Walter White, 1855.Sea-side Studies, by G. H. Lewes, 1857.Rambles in Western Cornwall, by J. C. Halliwell, 1861.Rambles beyond Railways, by Wilkie Collins, 1861.Cornwall and its Coasts, by Alphonse Esquiros, 1865.The Age of the Saints; a Monograph of Early Christianity in Cornwall, by W. Copeland Borlase, 1893.Book of the West, by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, 1899.Cassiterides and Ictis—where were they? by Thurstan Peter, 1909.Armorel of Lyonnesse, by Walter Besant.Major Vigoureux, by A. T. Quiller-Couch.

Saga of King Olaf Tryggwason, by Snorri Sturluson, 1222.

Itinerary of William of Worcester, 1478.

Itinerary of John Leland, written 1533-9; first published 1710.

The Survey of Cornwall, by Richard Carew, 1602.

Voyage of Duke Cosmo III of Tuscany, 1669.

Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe, 1676.

A Natural and Historical Account of the Islands of Scilly, by Robert Heath, 1750.

Observations on the Ancient and Present State of the Islands of Scilly, by Dr. William Borlase, 1756.

A Survey of the Ancient and Present State of the Scilly Islands, by the Rev. John Troutbeck, 1794.

History of Cornwall, by the Rev. R. Polwhele, with Supplement by Whitaker, 1804.

A View of the Present State of the Scilly Islands, by the Rev. George Woodley, 1822.

A Week in the Isles of Scilly, by the Rev. I. W. North, 1850.

Scilly and its Legends, by the Rev. H. J. Whitfeld, 1852.

A Londoner’s Walk to the Land’s End, by Walter White, 1855.

Sea-side Studies, by G. H. Lewes, 1857.

Rambles in Western Cornwall, by J. C. Halliwell, 1861.

Rambles beyond Railways, by Wilkie Collins, 1861.

Cornwall and its Coasts, by Alphonse Esquiros, 1865.

The Age of the Saints; a Monograph of Early Christianity in Cornwall, by W. Copeland Borlase, 1893.

Book of the West, by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, 1899.

Cassiterides and Ictis—where were they? by Thurstan Peter, 1909.

Armorel of Lyonnesse, by Walter Besant.

Major Vigoureux, by A. T. Quiller-Couch.

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