Chapter IV: Part 4

There was another remarkable happening at Porth Hellick in 1840. A vessel was found on the rocks, bottom upwards, by some farmers gathering seaweed for manure. One of them thrust his hand into a hole in her side, and was terrified to feel it grasped from within. This capsized vessel had entombed four men for three days and nights! They were crouched close together under the keel, with the water up to their waists. They had tried to cut a hole in the hull for the sake of getting air, but fortunately their knife broke, for the confined air alone prevented the vessel from sinking altogether.

Some pilot-boats had taken her in tow the previous afternoon, and brought her in towards the islands; but having no suspicion that she bore a living freight, they had abandoned her on account of bad weather.

Porth Hellick may be reached from Old Town over Sallakee Downs, following the line of the wild and rocky coast, and then past Giant’s Castle, the ruined remains of one of those ancient “cliff-castles,” such as are common on the Cornish coast.

The beautiful bay with its sandy beach comes upon one with quite a surprise, when first from the top of the downs its shimmering blue waters are seen.

Or it may be approached another way, through the undulating flower-fields of Sallakee Farm, past the whitewashed farm-house and its gnarled pollard elm-trees, and along a narrow lane whose hedges in summer are sweet with honeysuckle and pink with campion. This lane will bring one right out on the low grassy moorland which borders the bay.

Porth Hellick is the mouth of a valley which cuts into the island at this point, and in which lies the pond of the Upper Moors, the largest expanse of fresh water on St. Mary’s, surrounded by marshy ground grown with reeds, and the home of many water-fowl.

Overhanging the bay there is a fine carn of rocks, known as Dick’s Carn, also called “The Loaded Camel,” from its shape.

The rocky ramparts of the isle begin again immediately beyond the bay, with a wild confusion of mighty boulders, trembling on the brink of precipices, or poised upon the grassy slope, as if ready at any moment to crash into the seething waters. Here one may listen to the booming of Nature’s guns, as the sea thuds into the caverns it has hollowed out for itself.

And then, farther to the north, there is Toll’s Island, in Pelistry Bay, at low water joined to the main island, like the Gugh of St. Agnes, by a narrow strip of white sand, which is covered at high tide by the waves. Here, if one is young enough for such employ, one may build on the sand Hugh Towns in miniature, with Toll’s Island to represent Garrison Hill, and then watch the waves creeping, creeping slowly up on either side until they meet and embrace, and mingle and merge into one even flow over the ruins of the sand-houses. Or one may seek for shells on the sandy strip, and small as is the hunting-ground the variety is infinite--deep golden yellow, coral-pink, purple, and blue. There are remains of an old battery on the island, “Pellew’s Redoubt,” so called after the captain who commanded in Scilly during the last French War.

Here, as everywhere, there are flowers. The daffodil-fields run down close to the sea, and the little lane leading to Toll’s Island blazes with gorse on either side, so that the blue waters of the bay are seen set in a frame of gold.

Watermill Bay is another beauty-spot, with no watermill, but only a tiny stream trickling down to the sea, through the midst of bracken and bramble.

I must not try to describe it all, or I would tell of the lovely walk along the west coast of St. Mary’s, where the golf-links are, whence one can look back on Hugh Town, which from here seems to be a slender thread linking Garrison Hill with the main island.

And I would tell you, if I could, of the gorgeous, indescribable sunsets, which turn sea and sky into flaming fire, and cast a magic glow over the land, bewitching and glorifying even commonplace things, and making each little distant island a fairy palace of enchantment, to which one longs to sail.

But long, long before it could be reached the illusion would have faded, the sun would have set, and no enchanted palace would be found, but only a barren rock set in a dangerous sea, with the darkness gathering around.

X

TRESCO

In old days the island of Tresco was singled out from all the others to be the site of a monastery and its accompanying church, and on this account it acquired a reputation differing from, if not greater than, that of the other islands.

Nearly three hundred years after the departure of the monks, Tresco was again singled out from all the others, this time by Mr. Augustus Smith, the Governor, who made his home there, building a house near the ruins of the old abbey church, and planting round it the gardens which have since become famous far and wide.

Two determining factors were probably common to both decisions--the central and sheltered position of the island, and the abundant supply of fresh water in the large “Abbey” Pond and its smaller neighbour.

Of the Abbey of St. Nicholas, built by the Benedictine monks of Tavistock, no signs are to be seen. Only two pointed arches of reddish stone and about 25 feet of granite wall are left to show us where the abbey church once stood; the monastery itself has entirely disappeared. In point of decoration, these arches are so very plain that it is not easy to date them; but, judging from their proportion, we cannot be far wrong in assuming that they were built during the fourteenth century. At that period the abbey must have reached the zenith of its prosperity, declining again to what Leland calls “a poor celle of monks” before the dissolution of the monasteries.

The church is thought to have been burnt down--perhaps by Cromwell’s forces in the Civil War. Towards the end of the eighteenth century a large piece of a bombshell and some charred timber were found amongst some stones and rubbish at the west end of the ruins, by a man who was clearing the ground to make more room for burying the dead; and cannon-balls have been dug up near by in the gardens from time to time.

As late as 1820 the people of Tresco were still burying their dead by the ivy-covered ruins of the old church, with the idea that its great age gave the neighbouring ground a greater sanctity than the churchyard of their parish church. Troutbeck tells us that in his time the earth upon the old flagstones of the floor was sufficient in depth to dig a reasonable grave.

Flowers now run riot round the tombstones--agapanthus, blue and white; hydrangeas bearing pink and blue blossoms on the same bush; and the sweet-smelling lily-of-the-valley: cluster-roses try to bury once more with their petals the already buried dead, or thrust out their branches and tender young shoots to creep beneath the covering slab, forcing it up by slow degrees, as if they would anticipate the general resurrection.

The gardens which surround the old ruins contain all manner of rare tropical plants, shrubs, and trees, which in this warm corner only of the British Isles will consent to grow and flourish out of doors. I cannot attempt by any description to do justice to these marvels of the vegetable world. The botanist who can recognise at sight a podocarpus andina or a pittisporum tobia will here find himself in paradise; but to the uninitiated the homelier and more familiar growths are more attractive--the blazing masses of rhododendrons and azaleas, the sheets of narcissi under shadowing palm-trees, the tall hydrangeas and camellias, fuchsias and myrtles that border the paths.

And what no one can fail to appreciate is the situation of the gardens, which rise in terraces from very little above the sea-level up to the height of 100 feet. As you mount to the upper terraces and look back, you will catch sight of the sea, through and beyond the masses of flower and leaf; and from the very top you will see spread out beneath you the surrounding islands, showing pearly grey-green or with a tender warmth of colour against the sea, and each with its little rim of white sand at low tide, except where the rocks run down to the water’s edge.

We have come to stay on Tresco, and have landed at the pier beneath Carn Near, with almost as large a boat-load of people as the dinghy of the launch will hold. We have to go and look for lodgings, so we soon part company from the rest, who turn off to the right for the Abbey Gardens, while we keep to the left. We have been recommended to stay at the “Canteen,” in other words, the “New Inn,” but it is enough to call it _the_ Inn, for Tresco boasts no other; and this one combines the advantages of a general shop as well.

It is about a mile’s walk to the Inn--a lovely walk by the sea, and one that we know well, but cannot know too well. It takes us first over sandy downs, covered with long grass, and a little farther on with sheets of the mesembryanthemum edule, whose mass of fleshy green spikes will soon be spangled with large pale yellow blossoms. In the autumn the air is full of a sweet and rather sickly smell (something like American apples) given out by the Hottentot fig, which is the sequel to the yellow blossom. As the fruit ripens, the green spikes around it turn to flaming orange and crimson, so that the plant seems almost to have burst again into bloom. The soft and creamy-coloured fruit, which will readily shell out from its enclosing green case, is in shape very like the sycamore fig. It contains a mass of brown seeds, like the seeds of a fig, held in a thick, sweet, transparent juice.

I may say of it, as Mark Twain said of the tamarinds of Honolulu, that only strangers eat it, and they only eat it once! I always like to speak from experience where possible, so I played the stranger’s part and tasted the sticky mess, but I cannot honestly recommend it!

Our path still follows the coast-line; and soon Cromwell’s Castle comes into view in the distance, and plays bo-peep with us round the headlands for the rest of the way. This old fortress in its beautiful setting seems to have the art of always looking its best. Whether it shows up pearly white in the distance against the blue of sea and sky, or grey-brown in the diffused light of a cloudy day; touched with warm glow by the sunset, or stern and gloomy beneath the thunder-cloud; whether one catches sight of it from above or below, from sea or shore, from Tresco or Bryher, from north, south, east, or west, it always has the same indefinable attraction.

Presently we see before us the harbour of New Grimsby, with houses built round the bay, on the shores of which the Parliamentary forces encamped in 1665. The large fresh-water pond a little farther inland is known as the Abbey Pond. Those old monks might always be trusted to settle near a good supply of water, and the eels and tench it contained would not be despised by them. The reeds which grow round this pond are used by Tresconians for making very high fences to protect their flower-fields from the wind--very like the fences of African villages, so that one could almost imagine Kaffir kraals instead of flowers to be hidden behind them.

The skeleton of an old derelict still hangs together on the shore of the bay. She was a coal-schooner, carrying a cargo of furnace-coal, and was dismasted outside the islands one New Year’s Day about eighteen years ago. The crew were at breakfast when she came to grief, but they hurriedly left their tinned meat and coffee (left also, I regret to say, their dog, which was found on the wreck), took to their small boat, and were picked up by a passing vessel. The derelict was found by men of Bryher, and was afterwards towed into New Grimsby Harbour. Thither came her captain to examine her, but he found her not worth repairing, and sold her as she stood to the Governor. Now her cargo has been used up, and she herself has contributed to the making of fences, etc., and is pretty nearly used up too.

But we are a long time getting to our inn; and when we do at last arrive it is only to find that every room is occupied. Until yesterday they were without visitors, but a recent influx of two ladies has been sufficient to fill all their available space! So we are fain to seek elsewhere.

And it requires some search, for the flower-season is not the best time for getting rooms on the off-islands. Space, as well as time, is much occupied with the flowers; and sometimes every downstairs room is stocked with pots and basins, jars and bottles, full of daffodils and narcissi, while the ordinary furniture is pushed just anywhere to get it out of the way.

We are beginning to lose hope. Every one is very kind, but “no space,” “no time,” or “no food” is always the difficulty. (Provisions, as a rule, are obtained weekly from Penzance.)

Must we retrace our steps to the little post-office, and ignominiously wire to the launch to come and fetch us and our baggage back again to St. Mary’s? But no; at last, in a little four-roomed thatched cottage at the farthest extremity from the beginning of our search, we find a refuge.

We are now on the east side of Tresco, on the shores of “Old Grimsby,” which is almost opposite the harbour of New Grimsby on the west side. From the windows of the little cottage there is a lovely view across the bay. On the headland which shuts it in on the south there are the ruins of an old fortress, called by Troutbeck “The Block-house”; in the distance is St. Martin’s Isle, with other smaller islets--mere barren rocks--dotting the intervening sea. I know not when the view is lovelier--when the fortress stands out dark against a rosy dawn, or when it glows red in the shafts of the setting sun.

All round this part of Tresco, on the waste lands, and at the edges of the sea, grow great bushes of the tree-mallow, or lavatera arborea, covered in summer with purple and mauve blossoms. (Is it as bad to talk of a “mauve mallow” as of a “pink pink” or a “violet violet”?)

When the seed-vessels are formed the rats will run up the woody stems, and eat the green “cheeses,” as we used to call them as children. It is a pity all their tastes are not as innocent, for they are a menace to the young chickens, besides stealing eggs and robbing potato-sacks when they can. But I do not think there are any rats nowadays so voracious as those that Leland describes on Rat Island--rats that would think nothing of eating a live horse!

Here also are fringes of tamarisk, and other low trees, along the shore. St. Martin’s men come over in boats and cut off the branches for making crab and lobster-pots--“trimming our trees for us,” as the Tresconians put it.

Of course every cottager has his patch of flowers. One may see the cut blossoms, in pots and bottles, set outside the cottage doors, or in the windows, to open in the sunshine, before being sent to “England.”

The Tresco flower-fields are, perhaps, on the whole, less picturesque than those on the other islands, on account of the careful way in which they are protected from winds and storms; but you may find many a cluster of narcissi of Nature’s own planting, wayward ones that have preferred to choose their own shelter in the lee of a pile of grey rocks jutting out into the sea, or hidden in a little copse of trees by the shore--trees slender of girth and small of stature, and destined, like Peter Pan, never to grow up.

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 communicated by 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 the sea, 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.

XI

BRYHER AND SAMSON

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 break up, 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 the scarcity 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 almost to 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 having left 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.

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 of _Armorel_. The original of “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?

XII

ST. AGNES

If you 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 landing _you_. Mails can 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 wreck before 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 two centuries 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.

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 Santa Warna’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.”

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 minutes a 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 seen gleaming 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.

XIII

ST. MARTIN’S AND ITS NEIGHBOURS

Nowhere do 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 on the 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 a third “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 sturdy Scillonian 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 at _her_ sepulchre 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 inches long, 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.

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 be had, 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 “truly appalling”; 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.

XIV

CONCLUSION

To-morrow we 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 comparison so 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.