THE ISLES OF SCILLY
THEIR STORY THEIR FOLK & THEIR FLOWERS
JESSIE MOTHERSOLE

CROMWELL’S CASTLE, TRESCO

The Isles of Scilly
Their Story their Folk & their Flowers

Painted & Described
by
Jessie Mothersole

SECOND EDITION

London
The Religious Tract Society
4 Bouverie Street & St. Paul’s Churchyard EG

[PREFATORY NOTE TO FIRST EDITION]

IT has been said that all writers may be divided into two classes: those who know enough to write a book, and those who do not know enough not to write one!

In collecting material for these notes on Scilly, I have endeavoured to prepare myself more or less to qualify for the former class; but now that they are complete it is with diffidence that I present them. They are but the impressions of an artist, recorded in colour and in ink, together with so much of the history of the islands and of general description as is necessary to comply with the unwritten law of colour-books.

For my historical facts I am indebted to many writers, ancient and modern. A list of the chief of these appears at the end of the book, so that my readers may refer, if they wish, to the original authorities.

My best thanks are due to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, for permission to quote his description of the kelping, and for other help he has kindly given me; to my friend Miss Emma Gollancz, for seeing my proofs through the press; and also to the many friends in Scilly from whom I have received assistance and information.

October, 1910.

[NOTE TO SECOND EDITION]

This second edition of “The Isles of Scilly” is issued in response to many requests that the book should appear in a cheaper form, the original edition having completely sold out.

A few slight alterations in the letterpress have been necessary, to correspond with changes that have taken place in the islands; but otherwise the contents are identical with those of the original issue.

Pilgrim’s Place House, Hampstead.

March, 1914.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

MAP OF THE SCILLY ISLES George Philip & Son L^td

[I]
INTRODUCTORY

A “COLOUR-BOOK” on Scilly needs no apology, so far as the subject is concerned, for there is no corner of Great Britain which more demands or deserves a tribute to its colour than do these little islands, scattered about in the Atlantic twenty-eight miles from the Land’s End.

For they are all colour; they gleam and glow with it; they shimmer like jewels “set in the silver sea.” No smoke from city, factory, or railway contaminates their pure air, or dims the brilliancy of their sunshine. They are virgin-isles, still unspoiled and inviolate in this prosaic age, when beauty and charm are apt to flee before the path of progress.

And though their compass is but small, the same cannot be said of their attraction, which seems to be almost in inverse proportion to their size. Scilly exerts a spell over her lovers which brings them back and back, again and yet again, across that stretch of the “vasty deep” which separates her from Cornwall. In this case it might almost better be called the “nasty deep,” for very nasty this particular stretch can be, as all Scillonians know!

Nor do the islands lack variety. There are downs covered with the golden glory of the gorse, with the pink of the sea-thrift, with the purple of the heather; there are hills clothed with bracken breast-high in summer, and changing from green-gold to red-gold as the year advances; there are barren rocks on which the sea-birds love to gather; there are lovely beaches of white sand, strewn with many-coloured shells and seaweed; there are clusters of palm-trees growing with Oriental luxuriance, next to fields and pastures where the sheep and cattle feed; there are bare and dreary-looking moors, “the sad sea-sounding wastes of Lyonnesse”; there are stretches of loose sand, some planted with long grass to keep the wind from lifting it, some with a mantle of mesembryanthemum, which here grows wild like a weed;—and all of them seen against a background of that wonderful and ever-changing sea, which is sometimes the pale blue of the turquoise, sometimes the deepest ultramarine, sometimes again shimmering silver or radiant gold. And then in spring there are the famous flower-fields. Let us visit the islands on an April day, and see for ourselves this harvest of gold and silver. For once we will be day-trippers in fancy though we would scorn to be in fact.

Here in Scilly we find land and sea flooded with spring sunshine, while on the “adjacent island” which we have just left every one is lamenting the cold and the rain. The flower-harvest is nearly over, yet still there are wide fields of dazzling white and yellow, and many hundreds of boxes will yet leave the quay for the mainland. The sweet-smelling Ornatus narcissus is now at its best, and its perfume fills the air. Arum-blossoms, thousands of them in a single field, stand stiffly waiting to be cut, while in the more exposed places late daffodils linger, nodding their yellow heads in the breeze that comes in from the sea. Everywhere there are flowers, flowers, flowers—such a wealth of flowers as one never saw before; and every one is either picking flowers, tying flowers, packing flowers, selling flowers, buying flowers, or talking of flowers. Even the tiny children can tell you the difference between a “‘natus” and a “Pheasant Eye”; and will talk wisely in a way to awe the less enlightened visitor of “Cynosures,” “Sir Watkins,” and “Peerless Primroses.”

It is barely thirty years since these sweet flower-fields first began to cover the islands. The “oldest inhabitant,” a great-grandmother of ninety-six (she died in 1913), would call to mind the kelp-making industry which occupied the people in her young days. “Eh,” she would say, “it was not a nice employ; things are better as they are.” And we can easily believe that she was right; for instead of the fragrance of the flowers the air was then filled with the thick and acrid smoke of the burning seaweed; and it was but a poor living at the best that could be made out of it.

There is now hardly a boatman in the islands who does not add to his income by having a patch of ground planted with the “lilies,” as they call them, and sending his boxes of blooms to market during the season.

But flower-growing is not the only industry of the islands. If you ask your boatman to name others as they affect himself, he will probably answer naïvely, “Fishing and visitors”; and he may also add that sometimes he is employed as a “potter.” Although the dictionary allows no other meaning to this word than “a maker of earthen vessels,” let not your imagination be betrayed into picturing a lump of wet clay and a flying wheel! It is crab and lobster pots that are in question, and quantities of these crustaceans are caught round the islands and sold to French merchants.

THE OLDEST INHABITANT

Then there is the mackerel fishery, which is at its height in May and June, when St. Mary’s Pool is full of the picturesque, brown-sailed fishing-boats from Mount’s Bay.

The other “industry” mentioned by the boatmen, that is to say “visitors,” is carried on intermittently all through the year, but is naturally most active during the spring and summer months.

In the summer there are cheap day-excursions from the mainland, and crowds of trippers arrive at St. Mary’s by steamer to spend a few hours on the islands. Some of them land in such a woebegone condition that they are fit for nothing but to lie about on the benches in the “Park” until the hoot of the steamer rouses them to crawl back to the quay. Others, more courageous in spite of having had a “sick transit,” will only stop to snatch a morsel of food before rushing off to the steam-launch for Tresco, where they will make the round of the famous gardens, walk perhaps to Cromwell’s Castle, and return to St. Mary’s dead-beat, just in time to go on board for the homeward journey. And they call that a day’s holiday! But these are not the visitors to bring grist to the boatman’s mill. The kind he wants are those who come to stay, those who come again year after year, and who delight in sailing about amongst the islands and learning to know and love them well. They do not come looking for “Entertainments,” with a capital E. They are quite content with the magical music of the wind and the waves, and with the natural beauties that surround them on every side.

These visitors are neither so many nor of such a kind as to take away from the peaceful charm of the place. You can always get peace and quiet in Scilly, even in the most “tripperish” season, for the trippers follow a beaten track which it is easy enough to avoid. And the islands are, fortunately, quite unspoilt by any efforts to cater for their supposed wants. Not a single penny-in-the-slot machine flaunts its vermilion and yellow in your face; there are no niggers on the beach, nor brass bands, nor cinematographs; no dancing on the pier; no “marine parades” or “esplanades”; above all, here are no artificial “natural attractions” (most hateful of paradoxes), no manufactured show-places to pander to perverted taste. If you come hoping for these things, you will go away (and the sooner the better for all concerned) disappointed. You would only be an alien in this little Paradise.

There are many who will sympathise with this description of the islands taken from a visitor’s book: “A Paradise surpassing Dante’s ideal, but alas! only to be attained by passing through three and a half hours of Purgatory.” For the voyage from Penzance to Scilly is not one to be treated lightly. Looked upon as a pleasure trip, it may be enjoyable or the reverse, according to the weather and the constitution of the passenger; but considered in the light of a test of “good-sailor”-ship it is, I think, without a rival. Do not be set up because you have travelled unscathed to Australia and back, or crossed to America without turning a hair. This little bit of the Atlantic may yet humble you! There seems to be something in the cross-currents between Scilly and the Land’s End which tries the endurance of even the most hardened sailors. How often does one hear it said in Scilly, “I used to think I was a good sailor, but——”; and that “but” speaks volumes! Even sea-captains, regular old sea-dogs who have spent a lifetime afloat, have been known, to their shame and disgust, to fall victims to Neptune on the Scilly passage. I never made a voyage in which less (or should I say more?) was expected of you. The steward gives you a friendly peep at intervals. “Feeling all right, I hope?” You never felt better in your life, and say so. “Well, please hold out as long as you can; my supply is limited.” And you almost feel that it would be ungenerous to disappoint his evident expectations by “holding out” to the end!

But what matters three and a half hours of Purgatory when once one has attained to Paradise? And the passage weighs as nothing in the scale against the charms of Scilly.

In the “good old days” things were very different from what they are now. You could not then make a return journey in the same day. Sailings were few and far between, and people prepared for going to Scilly as for a long voyage.

In Lieutenant Heath’s time (1744) the passage was seldom made more often than once a month or six weeks in summer, and not so often in winter; and he says that as it was made “in small open fisher-boats amidst the running of several cross-tides, the passengers are forced to venture at the extreme hazard of their lives when necessity or duty calls them.” And these passengers “should be qualified,” he continues, “to endure wetting or the weather like so many Ducks; however, the Boatman undertakes to empty the water with his Hat or what comes to Hand without the least Concern.” Half a century later Troutbeck writes that the inhabitants “want a constant, regular, and even monthly communication with England,” chiefly for the sake of getting food. A strong proof of the uncertainty that attended the journey in those days is that in 1793 the “Prudence and Jane,” coming from Penzance to Scilly with necessaries, was driven by a contrary wind to Cherbourg in France! Nowadays it may happen in very exceptionally stormy or foggy weather that a Scillonian’s Sunday dinner does not arrive till Monday, but at least it never goes to France!

When Woodley wrote in 1822, the crossing was made every week, but even then a “good passage” took eight or nine hours, and sometimes the vessel was delayed at sea for thirty-six to forty-eight hours, without any provision of food for the passengers. There is an old lady now living on St. Mary’s who told us that the first time she visited the mainland the crossing took twenty-four hours, and then they were landed at the Mousehole and had to walk the three miles into Penzance.

It was not until 1859 that the sailing-vessels were replaced by a small steamer.

Now the Royal Mail Steamer “Lyonnesse” makes the return journey every day in the summer; and although she may not be perfection, she is reckoned absolutely safe. The distance from Penzance is generally covered in about three and a half hours; but the proprietors reserve to themselves the right to “tow vessels in distress to any other port or place without being chargeable with any deviation of the voyage, or being liable to make compensation to any Passenger”; so if under these circumstances you were taken to Kamschatka you would have no right to complain!

I know of one passenger who was taken out nearly to the Bishop Lighthouse on account of a vessel in distress. Far from complaining, she enjoyed the excitement of the adventure; but such happenings are rare and need hardly be taken into account.

The notice posted on the quarter-deck of the “Lyonnesse” leaves one in a happy state of doubt as to whether passengers or merchandise are the least acceptable: “This Quarter Deck contains 1,014 square feet and is certified for 112 passengers when not occupied by cattle, animals, cargo, or other encumbrance.”

But that passenger would be churlish indeed who had any fault to find with the way in which he was treated by the officials, whether on sea or land. From the highest to the lowest they are as courteous as one could wish—unless, of course, they are provoked to turn, like the proverbial worm.

There is a stoker on the “Lyonnesse” with a portly and majestic figure; but woe to the ill-bred passenger who tries to raise a laugh at his expense! Once such a passenger saw the stoker looming across his field of vision, and, in spite of being curled up and woebegone with sea-sickness, he aimed at him a feeble joke.

ST. MARY’S POOL

“You’d make a splendid advertisement for Mellin’s Food.”

The stoker stopped, and let his eye travel slowly over the speaker. Then came his retort, with withering scorn.

“Well, and you’d make a first-rate advertisement for Keating’s Powder; for anything more like a dying insect I never did see in all my life.”

Whereupon the “dying insect” looked his part more than ever, and was silent.

The Great Western Railway Company once offered to run a fast service of steamers in connection with their trains on condition that they might build a luxurious hotel on St. Mary’s; but the Governor was too wise to consent. Scilly does not need to be revolutionised and popularised and advertised. She is so very charming as she is.

So blessed be the “Lyonnesse,” and long may she continue to reign supreme over that part of the Atlantic—perhaps until the time when we shall be flying across from Penzance, and looking back with horror on the days of sea-passages, even as we now look back to the days of the sailing-vessels.

[II]
HISTORICAL

A WELL-KNOWN writer has spoken of the Scilly Isles as “patches of rock, dignified by historical and political associations”; and one is surprised to find, considering their small size and their isolated situation, how very frequently they do figure in the pages of history.

They were included with the mainland when the Romans took possession of Britain, and possibly their conquerors introduced Christianity here as elsewhere after they themselves had been converted. This is only guesswork. Strangely enough the first Christians whom we actually know by historical records to have landed in Scilly were heretics, sent there into exile by the Emperor Maximus for their unorthodox opinions. These were Bishops Instantius and Tiberianus, who were convicted of the Priscilline heresy in a.d. 384 and sent to “insula Sylina, quæ ultra Britannias est,” as we learn from Sulpicius Severus, who wrote only twenty years after the event.

After the Romans had left Britain (a.d. 410) the islands probably remained, like West Cornwall, independent of the Saxons; and when four centuries later the Northmen came to harry the country, they were joined by Welsh and Cornish Celts, glad of the chance of a blow at their common foe the Saxon. Scilly was then used by the Northmen as a sort of “naval base,” from which expeditions were made against the mainland. King Athelstan sent a fleet to oust them in 927, and left a garrison on the largest island; afterwards, in fulfilment of a vow, he founded a collegiate church at St. Buryan in Cornwall to commemorate his conquest.

It is uncertain at what date the Benedictine monks first came to Scilly. Some say it was in 938.

According to the Saga of King Olaf Tryggwason there was on Tresco in his time “a famous abbot, the head of a great cloister.” The story goes that the young Viking, in about the year 993, came harrying the coasts of England with a fleet of ninety-three ships, and was driven by contrary winds to the Isles of Scilly. Here he heard of a wonderful Christian hermit, who lived in a cell among the granite rocks and was said to possess the power of prophecy.

Olaf was then in the position of a seeker after truth. He was inclined towards the religion of the Christians, but he had never acknowledged himself as one of their number.

He was seized with curiosity to test the powers of the hermit, so he dressed up one of his tallest and handsomest followers in his own armour and bade him go to the cell and pretend he was the King. The disguise was quite useless. “You are no king,” said the hermit, “and I advise you to be faithful to your King.”

On the strength of this proof, Olaf went himself to the cell to make inquiries concerning his own future. The hermit foretold that he should not only become a renowned king and perform many famous deeds, but that (far greater honour!) he should lead many into the true Christian faith. And for a sign he told him that on returning to his fleet he would meet with foes, a battle would be fought, he would be wounded severely and be carried on a shield to his ship, but would recover after seven nights and would soon after be baptized.

Events happened just as had been predicted, and Olaf was so much impressed that as soon as he had recovered from his wound he put himself under the hermit’s instruction, and enrolled himself as a servant of the God of the Christians.

Afterwards he went to Tresco, where was “a famous abbot, the head of a great cloister,” who with his brethren came down to the shore to meet the King and welcome him with all honour. They gave him further instruction in the Christian faith, and finally he and all his company were baptized.

He appears to have spent several years in Scilly; and when he returned to Scandinavia, it was to devote his energies to preaching, in his native land and in Iceland, the Gospel which he had learnt to love in these remote islands.

Such is the story as told by Snorri Sturluson, the Icelandic historian, in 1222. We must not rely on the accuracy of his details; for example, the “great cloister” to which he refers was probably only a cell of two Benedictine monks. But there is little doubt that he followed a trustworthy Scandinavian tradition in placing the conversion of their hero Olaf in such an out-of-the-way and little-known spot as Scilly.

So in these little islands there was lighted a torch which kindled the flame of Christianity in far-distant lands.

The Abbey on the island of Tresco was appropriately dedicated to St. Nicholas, the patron-saint of mariners. By the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) the monks had acquired the tithes of all the islands, and the exclusive ownership of St. Elid’s (St. Helen’s), St. Sampson, St. Teon (Tean), Reutmen, and Nurcho, the two last of which cannot be identified.

Scilly is not mentioned in Domesday Book; but we find King Henry I. granting to the Abbot of Tavistock “all the churches of Sully with their appurtenances.” Later, Reginald Earl of Cornwall confirms this grant, with all wrecks “except whale and a whole ship.”

In another grant all the tithes of Scilly (and particularly of rabbits!) are given to the monks by Richard De Wich “for his soul, and the souls of his parents, and of Reginald Earl of Cornwall his lord.” There is something pitifully ludicrous in this special inclusion of tithes of rabbits in the price paid for the salvation of human souls.

The right of the Abbots of Tavistock to the shipwrecks was challenged by King Edward I. in 1302, and upon inquiry the jury found that the Abbot and all his predecessors had “enjoyed” from time immemorial all the wrecks that happened in Scilly, except gold, whale, scarlet cloth, and fir or masts, which were reserved to the King.

An author of the last century says, with a cheerful belief in human nature: “Perhaps the right of wreck was given to the convent for the purpose of attaching an increased degree of merit to their prayers in favour of ships likely to be dashed against those rocks.” But surely, from another point of view, it was putting rather an unnecessary strain upon their virtue!

Of the secular government of Scilly, there are from time to time fragmentary records.

In 1248 Henry III. sent a Governor, Drew de Barrentine, with command to deliver every year seven quarters of wheat to the King or his agent.

King Edward I. in 1306 granted the Castle of Ennor in Scilly to Ranulph de Blankminster, in return for his finding and maintaining twelve armed men at all times for keeping the peace in those parts. This Castle of Ennor is identified with Old Town Castle on St. Mary’s, of which only the smallest vestiges remain.

Ranulph de Blankminster also held the islands for the King, paying yearly at Michaelmas three hundred puffins, or six shillings and eightpence. Puffins must have been cheap in those days! In 1440 we find the rent is still six and eightpence, but fifty instead of three hundred puffins are reckoned the equivalent. Poor puffins! had their numbers really dwindled so much in 134 years by their constant contribution to the rent-roll that they were six times more difficult to obtain? I hope it was only that they had become more wary and expert in the art of being “not at home” when the rent-collector called.

In this same reign, Edward I., the monks of Tresco Priory made an appeal to the King representing their need of proper defence from the attacks of foes. The King granted them letters of protection, which were particularly addressed to “the Constable of the Castle in the isle of Ennor,” who seems, therefore, to have been the chief secular authority in the islands at the time.

Ranulph de Blankminster appears to have fulfilled but ill his half of the compact with the King, for only two years after it was made we find William Le Peor, Coroner of St. Mary’s, making complaint of him that instead of keeping the peace he entertained rogues, thieves, and felons, and with their help committed many abuses. The King appointed a commission to inquire into the matter; but we do not learn that anything was done. The practical result of the complaint was that William Le Peor was thrown into prison by Blankminster at Le Val (supposed to be Holy Vale on St. Mary’s), and made to pay one hundred marks. So it is to be feared that he had plenty of leisure to regret his interference in the cause of justice. Judgment was rough and ready in those days. An old record of the twelfth year of Edward I. tells of the drastic treatment of felons. “John de Allet and Isabella his wife hold the Isle of Scilly, and hold there all kind of pleas of the Crown, throughout their jurisdiction, and make indictments of felonies. When any one is attainted of any felony he ought to be taken to a certain rock in the sea and with two barley loaves and one pitcher of water upon the same rock they leave the same felon, until by the flowing of the sea he is swallowed up.”

At the height of the French Wars of Edward III., the two monks of Tavistock who lived on Tresco must have found their position uncongenial, for they sought and obtained from the King permission to hand over their duties to two secular chaplains, who should perform Divine service daily and celebrate the Mass, while they themselves retired to the more peaceful cloisters of Tavistock.

More than a century later, we get another proof that the islands were not always an “eligible situation.” Richard III. ordered an inquisition of them to be taken in 1484, when it was shown that they were worth 40s. a year in peaceable times, and in times of war nothing!

The next important record of the islands comes from John Leland, library keeper to King Henry VIII., and the greatest antiquarian of his time; also the greatest “tourist,” for he was empowered by the King to search for objects of antiquity in the archives and libraries of all cathedrals, abbeys, and priories; and he spent six years travelling the country to this end: his “Itinerary” began in 1533. His notes on Scilly are so interesting that I cannot refrain from quoting them in full:—

“There be countid a 140 islettes of Scylley that bere gresse, exceding good pasture for catail.

“St. Mary Isle is a five miles or more in cumpace; in it is a poor town, and a meately strong pile; but the roves of the buildings in it be sore defacid and woren.

“The ground of this isle berith exceeding corn; insomuch that if a man do but cast corn wher hogges have rotid, it wyl cum up.

“Iniscaw longid to Tavestoke, and ther was a poor celle of monkes of Tavestoke. Sum caulle this Trescaw; it is the biggest of the islettes, in cumpace a 6 miles or more.

“S. Martines Isle.

“S. Agnes Isle, so caullid of a chapel theryn.

“The Isle of S. Agnes was desolatid by this chaunce in recenti hominum memoria. The hole numbre of v. housoldes that were yn this isle cam to a mariage or a fest in S. Mary Isle, and going homewarde were al drownid.

“Ratte Island.

“Saynct Lides Isle wher yn tymes past at her sepulchre was gret superstition.

“There appere tokens in diverse [of] the islettes of habitations [now] clene doun.

“Guiles and puffinnes be t[aken in] diverse of these islettes.

“And plenty of conyes be in diverse of these islettes.

“Diverse of [these] islettes berith wyld garlyk.

“Few men be glad to inhabite these islettes, for al the plenty, for robbers by the sea that take their catail by force. The robbers be Frenchmen and Spaniardes.

“One Davers a gentilman of Wilshir whos chief house at Daundesey, and Whitington, a gentilman of Glocestreshire, be owners of Scylley; but they have scant 40 marks by yere of rentes and commodities of it.

“Scylley is a kenning, that is to say about xx. miles from the very westeste pointe of Cornwalle.”

The following additional notes on Scilly are also found amongst Leland’s papers:—

“Ther be of the Isles of Scylley cxlvii. that bere gresse (besyde blynd rokkettes) and they be by estimation a xxx. myles from the west part of Cornewale.

“In the biggest isle (cawled S. Nicholas Isle) of the Scylleys ys a lytle pyle or fortres, and a paroch chyrche that a monke of Tavestoke yn peace doth serve as a membre to Tavestoke Abbay. Ther be yn that paroch about a lx. howseholdes.

“Ther is one isle of the Scylleys cawled Rat Isle, yn which be so many rattes that yf horse, or any other lyving best be browght thyther they devore hym. Ther is a nother cawled Bovy Isle.

“Ther is a nother cawled Inisschawe, that ys to say the Isle of Elder, by cawse yt berith stynkkyng elders. Ther be wild bores or swyne.”

Leland appears to have jotted down his notes as the information was given him on the spot; and the fact that his informants were not always agreed would account for some discrepancies and repetitions. He did not live long enough to arrange his notes. A very short time after his visit the “poore celle of monkes” ceased to exist. With the dissolution of monasteries in 1539, the Abbey of Tavistock fell, and its lands in Scilly passed to the Crown.

Another ten years, and we find the islands being used as a pawn in the game of a man of high ambitions. Lord Admiral Seymour, the brother of the Lord Protector, was accused, in a bill of attainder brought against him in 1549, of having entered into relations with the pirates of the Channel, forged cannon, collected money and munitions of war, and “gotten into his hands the strong and dangerous isles of Scilly.” On these and other charges he was put to death.

THE GARRISON GATEWAY, ST. MARY’S

In the same year, 1549, the name of Godolphin occurs for the first time in the annals of the islands, as that of the captain of the group; and in 1571, Queen Elizabeth leased the islands to Frances Godolphin at a yearly rent of £10, “with power and jurisdiction to hear and finally to determine all plaints, suits, matters, actions, controversies, contentions, and demands whatever, which shall happen to be depending between party and party within any of the said isles,” heresies, treasons, matters of life and limb and land, and Admiralty questions alone being excepted. At the same time he was ordered and encouraged to keep the islands in a proper state of defence. To this end many batteries were erected on St. Mary’s, and Star Castle was built on the summit of the “Hugh” in 1593.

The next grant of Scilly was to Sir William Godolphin, for fifty years from 1609 to 1659; he was to pay £20 a year and to receive one last of gunpowder every year for their defence, with the condition that he should not “give or bequeath any of the said isles unto any of his daughters,” because they were considered incapable of defending them. Later on the possession of an able-bodied husband seems to have been sufficient to qualify a daughter to inherit.

In the struggle between King and Parliament, Scilly more than once afforded a refuge for the Cavaliers, and was finally their last retreat.

In March, 1646, when General Fairfax had defeated the King’s forces in Cornwall, Prince Charles fled from the Castle of Pendennis to Scilly, and was lodged in Star Castle. The chair on which he sat there may still be seen in Holy Vale, to which place it has been removed.

Two days after his landing he sent Lord Colepepper to France to acquaint the Queen “with the wants and incommodities of the place,” and to desire “a supply of men and moneys.”

We get a glimpse into the “incommodities of the place” from the Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe, whose husband was in attendance on the Prince. She was set on shore almost dead after having been robbed by the seamen with whom they sailed from the Land’s End.

She writes: “When we had got to our quarters near the Castle where the Prince lay, I went immediately to bed, which was so vile that my footman ever lay in a better, and we had but three in the whole house, which consisted of four rooms, or rather partitions, two low rooms and two little lofts, with a ladder to go up: in one of these they kept dried fish, which was his trade, and in this my husband’s two clerks lay, one there was for my sister, and one for myself, and one amongst the rest of the servants. But when I waked in the morning I was so cold I knew not what to do, but the daylight discovered that my bed was near swimming with the sea, which the owner told us afterwards it never did so but at spring-tide.”

Poor comfort to be told this when it happens to be the season for the highest spring-tides! Nor was this all that the poor lady had to suffer, for she goes on to say: “With this, we were destitute of clothes; and meat and fuel for half the Court, to serve them for a month, was not to be had in the whole island; and truly we begged our daily bread of God, for we thought every meal our last. The Council sent for provisions to France, which served us, but they were bad, and a little of them.”

These privations had to be endured for six weeks, at the end of which time the Prince, despairing of receiving reinforcements, embarked for Jersey and thence to France.

The islands were left under the governorship of Sir John Granville, who held them in the King’s name till 1651, harassing the merchant-shipping, and capturing English and Dutch vessels that passed that way.

With the avowed object of demanding satisfaction for acts of piracy, the Dutch Admiral, Van Tromp, descended on Scilly with twelve men-of-war; but he had private orders to treat with the Governor for the handing over of the islands to the Dutch. Sir John was too loyal to listen to these proposals, whereupon Van Tromp tried to disguise the real nature of his overtures by pretending he had only wanted to get possession of the islands in order to restore Charles II. to his rights.

At length in 1651, after frequent complaints of the “pirates” of Scilly had been laid before Parliament, a fleet was sent under the command of Admiral Blake and Sir George Ayscue (Ascue, Ayscough, or Askew, I have never seen it spelt twice alike) to bring the islands into subjection. After the fleet had arrived within the roadstead, a day was lost through the treachery of a pilot called Nance, who, although “the most knowing pilot” of the place, led them to Norwithel, “affirming on his life” it was Tresco. Surprised, and exposed to the enemy’s fire, the Parliament men retreated to Tean, effecting a landing on Tresco the following day.

CROMWELL’S CASTLE FROM CHARLES’S CASTLE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[III]
FORMER INDUSTRIES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A GREY EVENING IN SCILLY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[IV]
THE FLOWER INDUSTRY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A FIELD OF ARUMS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is a great difference between year and year in the abundance of the harvest. To give two examples: In the season 1908-9 there was no great show of flowers, but picking began about the middle of December, and went on continuously for four or five months. Prices kept up particularly well, owing to late frosts in the Riviera, and Scillonians were well content. They were proud to boast of having supplied the Battle of Flowers at Nice when the French gardens were under snow, in spite of the heavy protective duty that has to be paid. The following season, 1909-10, was quite a contrast. It was a record year for quantities, but the harvest began much later. The flowers came on with a rush in February, and all kinds seemed to be in bloom at the same time, and to bloom as they had never bloomed before. They were, in fact, too plentiful. “There’s a boolk o’ flowers,” as one man put it, “but they ain’t fetching no such tremendous price.” It was thought that the floods in Paris also helped to bring down the prices, for people were in no mood for buying flowers there, and the surplus supplies were shipped to England.

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

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

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

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

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

A COTTAGE FLOWER-GROWER, TRESCO

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

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

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

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

[V]
DESCRIPTIVE AND ARCHÆOLOGICAL

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

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

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

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

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

“Back to the sunset-bound of Lyonnesse—

A land of old upheaven from the abyss

By fire, to sink into the abyss again;

Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,

And the long mountains ended in a coast

Of ever-shifting sand, and far away

The phantom circle of a moaning sea.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE GIANT’S PUNCH-BOWL, ST. AGNES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Scillonians are a mixed race. They are thought to be descended partly from the ancient Iberians, that small and swarthy people, of whom so little is known and so much conjectured. No doubt they have also much Celtic blood in their veins, but they have never had any distinctive language, like others of the “Celtic fringe,” and the English that they speak is remarkably pure. Their descent has likewise been traced from the Scandinavians who once frequented the islands; and doubtless other strains as well have mingled with their blood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ST. MARTIN’S PIER

On the summit of nearly every hill these desolate green barrows are to be seen, reminding us of that far mightier barrow, the “great and shapely mound” to Achilles, “raised on the high headland, so that it might be seen from afar by future generations of men.”

For long the islands have been identified with the Cassiterides, or tin-producing islands, mentioned by ancient writers. But there does not seem to be sufficient evidence to prove this indisputably, and experts are not satisfied that tin was ever worked in Scilly. Not only so, but they go farther, and prophesy that it never will be—in fact, to parody the Spanish proverb, that it would require a gold-mine to work a tin-mine in the islands!

There has been much heated controversy on this subject of late; but then, there were warm discussions concerning the tin trade as far back as the second century B.C., so what can be expected nowadays? When there are many different opinions, put forward by as many different writers, all learned and all firmly convinced that the “other fellow’s a fool,” what course is left for the unlearned multitude, after hearing all that has to be said, but to retain an “open mind” on the subject? To prove my open-mindedness, I will not omit to quote the story about the Cassiterides which has usually been taken to refer to the Islands of Scilly.

Strabo, who lived at the end of b.c. and the beginning of a.d., tells us that the inhabitants of the Cassiterides obtained from their mines tin and lead, which they used to barter for earthen vessels, salt, and instruments of brass; that the Phœnicians found commerce with them so lucrative that they kept it a secret from all the world, but the Romans sent vessels to follow a trader on his voyage. To deceive them, he ran his ship ashore elsewhere, and the whole crew nearly perished. For this public-spirited act he was rewarded from the common treasury, besides receiving the value of his lost ship and cargo.

But, according to Strabo, the Romans found out the trade at last. Publius Crassus (whoever he may have been) sailed across to the islands, ascertained that tin was near the surface, and indicated the route for the benefit of traders, “although the passage was longer than that to Britain.”

If we do not admit the identity of Scilly with the Cassiterides, we have no proof that the Romans had dealings with the islands before their occupation of Britain.

CRAB-POT-MAKING BY ST. AGNES CHURCH

The origin of the name “Scilly” is wrapped about with mystery. Not that there is any lack of suggestions; on the contrary, there is such a plethora of them that one feels no “forrader” after having heard them all.

One learned writer says with confidence, “The islands take their name from the old Silurian inhabitants to whom they served as a last refuge.” Other ideas are that the name is derived from “Sulleh,” a British word meaning “rocks consecrated to the sun,” or from a Cornish word signifying “divided.”

The inhabitants themselves seem to favour most the notion that the conger-eels, locally called “selli,” have given their name to the islands.

There are other suggestions; but as to which of the many is the most probable we must leave antiquarians and topographers to fight it out between them, and when they are all agreed we may conclude we have arrived at a certainty of the truth; and that is, perhaps, only another way of saying that we shall never know!

Most of the names of places in Scilly are Cornish, but the principal islands were named after the saints to whom their churches were dedicated. Tresco was at one time called St. Nicholas, from the Benedictine Abbey which used to be there. The harbours of Old and New Grimsby on Tresco may, like their namesake in England, owe their name to the visits of the Northmen who were here in the tenth century.

The most common Cornish words found in the place-names of Scilly are:—