THE SCILLY ISLANDS
Geologically, we are still on the mainland when we reach the isles of
Scilly; they belong to the axis of the Cornish peninsula, and are in
what may still be called, comparatively, the narrow seas. The
hundred-fathom line lies far beyond them; these waters, though
thoroughly oceanic in character, are not oceanic in depth. We may
regard the islands as the last upward thrust of the granitic backbone
that runs, at a diminishing gradient, from Dartmoor to Land's End,
while the submarine plateau follows a similar gradient. Structurally,
therefore, these isles are a continuation of Land's End, but the
granite has become less consistent and more friable; it is largely
broken into felspar, quartz, and mica, with schorl, chlorite, and
hornblende. No great elevation is attained--nothing above 160 feet;
the grandeur of the coasts, which certainly does not equal that of
North Cornwall, consists in their rugged wildness and the fantastic
weathering of their crags. Contorted formations, logans and
rock-basins, reveal the decomposition of softer measures that has been
proceeding for ages. The isles lie about 27 miles west of Land's End,
but the journey from Penzance to St. Mary's is about 40 miles, and
the small steamers that make the passage usually take about four
hours. More often than not this passage is an uncomfortable one; the
islands stand in the ocean gateway of the two Channels, and they catch
whatever is going in the way of sea, while of course winds play upon
them with unbroken force. It is rather surprising that their strategic
importance should be neglected by the Government. There was indeed
some talk of forming a naval base here, but the scheme seems to have
been abandoned; yet a station with extensive harbourage could be
planned without vast cost, and would be a dominant factor in
controlling the navigation of the English Channel. During the
Franco-German War, when the navy of Germany was much less powerful
than that of France, Germany made considerable use of the Scillies as
a neutral port for the convenience of vessels making the Channel; and
a time may easily come when a naval base here would be of untold
advantage to Great Britain, as its absence might become a positive
disaster.
[Illustration: SHIPMAN HEAD, SCILLY.
_Photo by Gibson & Sons._]
The archipelago occupies an area of about 30 square miles, the isles,
reckoning many that are mere fragments of rock, numbering about two
hundred; the principal of which range in size from the 1,600 acres of
St. Mary's to the five acres of Little Ganniley. St. Mary's is about
three miles long and two in breadth, with a circumference of nine
miles and a population of about 1,500--about three-quarters of the
entire population. It contains the capital, Hugh Town, which is more
often simply styled St. Mary's, and which stands chiefly on a neck of
land that appears to be rather perilously threatened by the sea. Four
other islands are inhabited--Tresco, St. Martin's, St. Agnes, and
Bryher; they are all considerably smaller. The first to come into
definite view from a vessel making the isles is St. Martin's, with its
day-mark standing at a height of about 160 feet.
It must be confessed that, for their beauty, the islands depend very
largely on sunshine and atmospheric effect; without the sun they can
become very dreary. Meteorologic figures prove that the average summer
temperature is only 58 deg. Fahrenheit and the winter about 45 deg.; so
that there is little oppressive heat, and frost is very rare. But in
spite of these figures the islands can become sultry under a blaze of
sunshine; and in winter the winds are sometimes piercingly keen. No
trees will grow unless protected from this wind; yet the tropical
vegetation that flourishes in the open air conclusively proves the
remarkable equability of the climate; while rainfall, which is seldom
excessive, is quickly absorbed or evaporated. To the lover of history,
legend, and romance the Scillies are a rich mine of treasure, and
their inaccessibility keeps them immune from the spoiling tendencies
of fashion. At one time this inaccessibility was far greater, and only
those came to Scilly who had business there. It is claimed by
tradition that these islets are a portion of the lost land of
Lyonesse, the old-world haunt of Arthur and Tristram--a land of
villages, pastures, smiling vales, now buried beneath the waves.
Persons sometimes apply the name of Lyonesse to the whole of Cornwall,
but this is a mistake; the true Lyonesse of legend was a tract of
country lying to the south-west of Land's End, which we may connect,
racially or otherwise, with the Leon of Brittany. There are many
traces of submerged forest in Mount's Bay and elsewhere along the
southern coast; and the old Cornish name of St. Michael's Mount
represents that rock as having once stood in the centre of woodland.
It is impossible to say when or how the Scillies first became insular,
whether by sudden cataclysm or by gradual erosion; the latter seems
more likely, but tradition has preferred to speak of a sudden
catastrophe, such as that which is supposed to have overwhelmed
Cardigan Bay. There is a story which says that a member of the
Trevilian family was only saved from the inrush of waters by the speed
of his horse, which struggled inland from the pursuing waves, reaching
a rocky cleft on the shore at Perranuthnoe. It is possible that slow
erosion may have paved the way to some such immediate disaster, such
as that caused by a great storm in 1099, when, according to the Saxon
Chronicle, many villages and churches were swept away. It was this
storm, accompanied perhaps by a tidal wave, that converted the estates
of Earl Godwin into the dreaded Goodwin Sands; and it may have caused
tremendous damage, not definitely recorded, in the West. But another
tradition attributes the formation of the islands to magic. It was
said, by those who placed Arthur's last great battle in the West of
England, that, after the fight was over, the triumphant Mordred chased
the King's despairing followers to the extreme limits of Lyonesse,
where they lay "between the devil and the deep sea," like the
Israelites pursued by Pharaoh. The cruel Mordred was close at their
heels, rejoicing in the prospect of exterminating the last remnant of
Arthur's Round Table, when suddenly the wizard Merlin appeared in his
path. The magician raised his hand and summoned the elements to his
aid. The earth began to heave and the rocks to split; waters came
rushing into immense fissures and yawning chasms. Mordred and his men
turned back horror-stricken, attempting to flee from this upheaval of
nature; but the ocean was too quick for them. Where there had been
smiling acres of pasture and tillage, valley and moorland, waves were
now seething and foaming; there was no refuge to the east or to the
west; the breakers overtook them on all sides. But while they were
thus overwhelmed in the ruin of Lyonesse, the followers of Arthur
stood on land that had been spared. This far-west cluster of
hill-summits had been changed into a group of islets; and in this home
of refuge that was miraculously left to them, the fugitives settled
into peaceful residence, building houses and churches. Such, the story
says, is the ancestry of the Scillonians.
All this belongs to the region of romance; history knows nothing of
it. Even the name of Scilly is a puzzle, though perhaps the best
authorities think that it derives from the widespread tribe of the
Silures. Strictly speaking, the name Scilly only attaches to one small
islet lying off Bryher, but somehow it has affixed itself to the whole
group. Many derive it from _silya_ or _selli_, meaning conger-eels, a
favourite Cornish dish; others suggest the Celtic _sulleh_, or
"sun-rocks," denoting the old sun-worship. It is interesting to note
that there is a Sully isle lying off Glamorgan, south of Cardiff, and
there may have been some connection between the two names, for Scilly
was sometimes spelt Sully; there is also a Scilly in Ireland. The
Romans usually called the islands _Sillinae_, but Sulpicius Severus
used the form _Sylinancis_, which Sir John Rhys associates with the
_Silulanus_ of an inscribed stone at Lydney. Another name was
_Silura_; Richard of Cirencester wrote of the _Sygdilles_, "also
denominated the Oestromenides and Cassiterides"; the Danes spoke of
the _Syllingar_; and in French charts the isles are "_les
Sorlingues_." The whole question is very difficult, and this is hardly
the place in which to discuss it. It is almost certain that the isles
cannot have been the Cassiterides, or tin-islands; they present only
slight traces of tin-working, and it is far from likely that the
tin-workers of Cornwall would have shipped their metal to this
isolated spot in order to find a market with foreign traders. It is
more probable that the name of Tin Islands was applied by the ancients
to the British Isles in general, whose number and extent were little
known in those days. Rome seems to have used the isles as a place of
banishment and penal settlement, and in days of early Christianity two
heretical bishops were exiled here. Early in the tenth century
Athelstan made a progress through Cornwall, ostensibly to conquer it
as a part of Wessex; and when he reached the high land near the
present St. Buryan it is said that he sighted these islands in the
distance and was not content till he had visited them. He vowed to
build a church on the spot where he then stood if he returned safely
from the expedition. The church of St. Buryan stands as a memorial of
his fulfilled vow. On the isles themselves he is said to have founded
Tresco Abbey, dedicated to St. Nicholas, which became a wealthy
religious establishment, though now only a few fragments remain. Later
in the same century King Olaf of Norway came hither during one of the
marauding cruises that made him a terror of the British shores. It is
related that a hermit living at St. Mary's gave him timely warning of
a mutiny among his seamen; Olaf crushed the mutiny, but received a
severe wound. He was carried to the monastery at Tresco, and consented
to be baptized; after which he became a saint himself, and churches
were dedicated to him--there is one such at Exeter. Longfellow has
told us of
"His cruisings o'er the seas,
Westward to the Hebrides,
And to Scilly's rocky shore;"
and he was probably not the only Norse Viking whose keel touched here.
Other saints have left their mark on Scilly: Samson of Glamorgan came
hither, about the middle of the sixth century, after founding a church
near Fowey; he is the same Samson that we find at Guernsey, who
afterwards became Bishop of Dol. The island that bears his name,
rendered familiar to many delighted readers by Besant's _Armorel of
Lyonesse_, is no longer inhabited, but bears many marks of its former
population. Traces of old habitation abound; there are many barrows
and one perfect kistvaen. Among other saints, Teilo seems to have been
at St. Helen's. St. Agnes, like the parish so named on the mainland,
is almost certainly a dedication to the Celtic Ann. It was natural
that Tresco should become the ecclesiastical centre of Scilly. The
abbey and all the churches of the islands were granted by Henry I. to
the monks of Tavistock; at the Dissolution the abbey reverted to the
Crown, and passed to the Godolphins, whose name survives at Dolphin
Town. It is likely that the private history of the isles was romantic
and exciting enough, but there is little to record until the days of
the Civil War, when they became a last refuge of the fugitive Charles
II. before his escape to France. In the meantime the Governor, Sir
John Grenville, had fortified the isles and held them for the King;
they became a centre of active privateering. The Royalist garrison did
not limit themselves to attacking Parliamentary vessels; they molested
Dutch shipping as well; so that the Admiral, Van Tromp, made an attack
on them, but without result. It is said that he parleyed with
Grenville, trying to induce that gallant soldier to yield Scilly into
Dutch hands; but Grenville was too loyal an Englishman for such
treachery--he would rather the Parliament took the isles than that
they should become Dutch. It was with no disgrace that he was forced
to yield, at last, to such worthy opponents as Blake and Sir George
Ascue. In the days of our French wars, a century since, the islands
were garrisoned, and became a port of supply for British ships, as
well as a rendezvous for vessels waiting convoy. A great deal of
smuggling was done here, and it has been said some wrecking; but, here
as elsewhere in Cornwall, the lights that were thought to be exposed
with such wicked intent were often merely meant as signals to those
who were watching for an opportunity to run a cargo. There was little
need indeed at Scilly for any artificial increase of wrecks; Nature
did her part far too well in this particular, from the disaster to Sir
Cloudesley Shovel to that of the _Minnehaha_ in the present year. A
small detachment of Royal Artillery and some engineers are stationed
here. Beyond this, the islands are practically defenceless, except for
the protection of their rough seas, fierce inter-channel currents, and
the off-lying deadly fangs of rock.
The event of chief moment to modern Scilly was certainly the arrival
of Mr. Augustus Smith in 1834. The isles at that time were in a bad
way; the kelp industry had failed, fishing was poor and precarious,
smuggling could not longer be depended on for a living. Previous
"lords of the isles" had been absentees, taking little interest in the
welfare of the inhabitants; and the population had become too large to
support itself. But when Mr. Smith, a Hertfordshire gentleman, became
landlord by purchase, he came to live on his little kingdom, and to
rule as a benevolent autocrat. Just such a rule was needed, for
matters demanded a firm hand. There was some resistance, some kicking,
some difference of opinion between himself and his people; but the
strong will and the firm hand conquered in the end and a better time
dawned for Scilly. The squire sent the boys off to sea and the girls
to service on the mainland; he made new roads, improved the quay, and
even enforced a system of compulsory education. He resided at Tresco
Abbey, where the few remains of the old monastic establishment added
picturesqueness to a modern manor-house, and where he brought the
gardens into very much the state in which we still find them. It was
his wish that their character should be maintained. Tresco, in its
special style, is indeed beautiful. "The Cape geranium, the common
fuchsia, the sweet-scented verbena, and various kinds of myrtles and
veronicas, are grown as hedges to protect the crops. Looking across
Crow Sound from St. Mary's, these hedges are one blaze of colour, and
the air is heavy with their perfume. The Abbey stands in a rocky
valley looking south. The grounds are laid out in a succession of
terraces, and from every nook and crevice rare specimens of cacti,
sedums, and mesembryanthemums with their orange and purple bloom
sprawl over the rocks and run riot among the borders. In the gardens
South American aloes throw up their flowering stalks heavy with
aromatic fragrance, 20 feet high, and giant dracaenas wave their
feathery heads in the balmy breeze. Exotic palms, the bamboo, the
sugar-cane, and the cotton plant grow in the open, and tropical mosses
and orchids hang from the trees. Outside on the breezy downs one may
drink in pure ozone from the Atlantic, and revel in an atmosphere
untainted by microbes or bacilli. Wild duck, woodcock, and plover,
resting in their migratory flight, crowd the marshes, ponds, and
lagoons, and the sea is alive with fish." Such was the Tresco that Mr.
Augustus Smith made his home; such it is still in the hands of Mr.
Dorrien-Smith. It is certain that when Mr. Smith died in 1872, and was
buried at St. Buryan, he left the islands in a far better condition
than that in which he had found them; and his memory fully deserves
the striking monument of unhewn granite that has been raised to his
honour in his island-home.
[Illustration: A SCILLY FLOWER GARDEN.
_Photo by Alex. Old._]
Industrially, we chiefly think of Scilly in connection with flowers.
At one time there was some active ship-building, and Scilly-made boats
had an excellent reputation; but steam navigation put an end to this.
There was also a very lively business in potatoes, at first almost
without competition; but this trade has been hit very hard by the
Channel Islands, by foreign imports, and by the crushing cost of
freights. Vegetable cargoes cost less from the shores of the
Mediterranean than they do from Scilly; the foreigner is given every
advantage in his efforts to undersell the Briton, and the Briton,
though fighting at home, fights with one hand tied behind. Fishing at
Scilly was long in a precarious state, but is now a little better,
owing to the use of steam-drifters. The isles are too far from the
markets, but by catching the boat to Penzance the fishermen can now
get their fish away in most cases before it has had time to spoil.
With mackerel, the most profitable catch, this is very important, as
the mackerel so speedily deteriorates; but a good deal of the fishery
that takes place off the Scillies is not in the hands of
Scillonians--Cornishmen, East Anglians, foreigners, all compete. With
regard to flowers Scilly seems more happily placed, though to some
extent the same difficulties apply--the distance, the cost of
carriage, the competition of the untaxed foreigner. The story has been
often told--how, rather more than thirty years since, W. Trevellick,
of Rocky Hill, St. Mary's, sent a few bunches of narcissi in a hamper
to Covent Garden as a venture, and was astonished at the return they
brought him. These were simply "Scilly Whites," which had been growing
wild about the cottages without any one hitherto dreaming of their
financial possibilities.
The knowledge of a demand soon roused the supply; new species were
cultivated, everything was done to ensure early flowering, the more
sensitive kinds were protected by wattle-fences and hedges of
escalonia or veronica; and from January till May every steamer to the
mainland carries tons of blooms. A ton of flowers is something rather
spacious; and in the height of the season as many as thirty tons are
taken in one boatload. The more severe the weather on the mainland,
the better is the demand. The bulbs are set in narrow fields, to
secure their shelter from the winds by thick hedges. As many as two
hundred kinds of narcissus, daffodil, and lily are now cultivated.
"The beds are renewed every third year. This is necessary to retain
the vigour of the plant, as if allowed to remain too long without
lifting, the bulbs crowd each other and send up barren and feeble
shoots. When the bulbs are lifted they are divided, and any surplus
stock either sold or replanted in fresh ground. The beds require very
little attention further than being kept free from weeds, and having a
top-dressing of stable litter or freshly gathered seaweed. Bulbs will
not stand forcing, and are always sturdier when grown in the open."
Men, women, and children find employment in the flower-fields, and in
the busy time are often engaged from early morning till long after
sunset. Picking must be done with great care, the blooms being
gathered before they are fully opened or they will not bear carriage.
A number are now sent by Parcel Post, as well as in more wholesale
method. Within twenty-four hours of being plucked they are exposed in
the London markets, or being offered for sale in the streets of large
towns by the flower-hawkers. Some even go as far as Scotland. During
1907 as many as 1,000 tons were despatched from St. Mary's Quay, the
cost of freight being L6 10s. per ton. Besides paying this heavy
charge, the Scillonians have to compete with growers in the south of
Cornwall, and even as far eastward as Dorset; while Continental
florists can pour their produce into England at a rate that further
hampers the home trade.
Things are very different now from what they were when the mail
arrived irregularly from Penzance, and letters were distributed from
the window of the one small post-office in St. Mary's. Each of the
inhabited isles has now its own postal and telegraph office; and they
are also connected with the mainland by telephone, for coastguard
purposes. To be at Scilly is no longer to be quite out of the world.
There was a spice of romance about the manner in which the first cable
to Scilly was laid--or, perhaps we should say, was not laid. By the
Act that came into force in 1870 the Government had agreed to buy over
on favourable terms all telegraphs that at that time were found in
actual existence as working concerns. With a view to large profits,
companies sprang into being, hoping to get their wires into working
order, so as to be bought over on the appointed day. One such company
took the Scilly Isles into its charge--not from any benevolent
motives; Scilly had long been praying for telegraphic connection. A
cable of the supposed right length was procured and brought to Land's
End, where its shore end was fixed, and the vessel bearing it made
towards Scilly. Somehow or other the conveyors found themselves five
miles south of the Isles with every inch of their cable paid out. Time
was precious; it would never do to buoy the end and wait for a fresh
supply, and the present poor cable would not bear the strain of
picking up. But there was a clever man on board. He cut the cable a
few fathoms from the ship, carried its fag-end to St. Mary's, and
attached it to an old Morse instrument. Outwardly, things looked all
right; there was the cable attached at Land's End, and here was its
other end at Scilly. The difficulty was how to get messages through
in time to prove that an established telegraph was working. The
operator was equal to the occasion. Shutting himself in the little
instrument-room, he manipulated the current and produced messages. Mr.
Uren, the late Postmaster of Penzance, says, "I can testify that I saw
signals which purported to have passed over the cable, printed in
plain characters on the Morse slip; and on the faith of these signals
the contractors issued their certificate, and the Company took over
the cable. Needless to say, the whole thing was a ruse. The ruptured
cable lay dead and idle at the bottom of the Channel--lost past all
recovery." It was easy to explain afterwards that the fracture took
place naturally; and a new cable was soon laid to the island. Such
being one sample of the proceedings at the time, we may imagine that
the public paid very dearly when Government took over these
telegraphs, which have never yet shown a profit.
It is frequently stated, as a reason for its equable climate, that
Scilly lies right in the course of the Gulf Stream. Of course this is
a mistake. The true Gulf Stream does not come within a thousand miles
of Britain. There is, however, a surface-current of warm water carried
north-eastward from hot latitudes, and this materially affects not
only Scilly, but the entire western coast. Although so mild, the
climate is dry and bracing; there are no unwholesome damps. Longevity
is the rule on the islands, and the single doctor has little to do
beyond assisting sturdy young Scillonians on their entrance into the
world. At the capital, St. Mary's, there are shops, banks, and hotels,
with a public hall, a modern church, and of course a fair supply of
the chapels that are so dear to these fervent Nonconformists. On
Garrison Hill is a fine promenade, close to Star Castle, which was
erected by Francis Godolphin, Lord-Lieutenant of Cornwall in the reign
of Queen Elizabeth. The naval importance of Scilly was fully realised
in those days. There is a Cromwellian fort at Tresco, on a narrow rock
jutting into the sea. Prehistoric relics are too numerous to be
mentioned here in detail, and equally numerous are traces of
shipwreck. In Tresco Gardens there is one terrace devoted entirely to
the figure-heads of vessels that have been cast on these shores.
Almost every yard of the isles has its own tale of wreck; and in spite
of the lighthouses (the Bishop, the Round Island, St. Agnes, and St.
Mary's) navigators have still a lively dread of the Scillies,
especially in times of fog. Two lifeboats are maintained here, manned
by a dauntless crew; but it is very rarely that they can be of any
use; the area to be covered is far too large. The story of the wrecks
has been admirably told in the _Homeland Handbook_ to the Scillies, a
little work that also contains much excellent detail about their
natural history. There is one thing that the tale of wrecks should
strongly impress on the visitor. Unless he knows the locality
perfectly, even a skilled boatman should be wary of rowing or sailing
in and out among the isles, or of navigating around them. They are a
network of sunken crags, reefs, and currents; even in calm weather
there is usually more swell than appears, and the smoothest-looking
water may be racing with deadly velocity. The force of an immense
ocean is behind these waves. The Scillonians themselves are wonderful
sailors and pilots; under their guidance and in fitting seasons most
of the outlying rocks can safely be visited. Perhaps the best view of
the entire archipelago may be gained from the summit of Menavawr (the
"great rock"), though its position is by no means central; its height
is about 147 feet. It is a grand spot for seabirds--razor-bills,
puffins, guillemots, shags, and gulls. Annet, one of the largest of
the uninhabited isles, is positively honeycombed with birds' nests,
and at times it is ablaze with colour of the sea-pink and thrift. At
Rosevear gulls chiefly predominate, and at Rosevean the cormorants;
Gorregan is perhaps the best spot for seeing kittiwakes, while shags
often colonise numerously at Maledgan. In the clear water below these
crags fish are so plentiful that whoever takes the trouble to cast is
likely to reap a rich reward.
But he who would fall in love with the Scillies before seeing them had
better read the first half of Besant's _Armorel of Lyonesse_. The
novelist was at his best when he wrote these pages. There is also good
literary use of the islands in Mr. Mason's _Watchers_. It is possible
that the first arrival will disappoint; it should not be expected that
Scilly can compare with the magnificent coast scenery of the mainland,
or with the verdant luxuriance of richer soils. But the spot has its
own special charm of effect and atmosphere, which it may not surrender
at once to its casual guest. The visitor must wait till he has seen it
in ruddy dawns and purple or golden sunsets, under chequered skies, or
wreathed in mysteries of sea-fog. He may then come to believe that
when saints of old legend touched on Islands of the Blest, situate
somewhere westward of Europe, they may really have simply drifted on
Scilly, and have found its loveliness like that of the "island-valley
of Avilion." Some small concession must be made to actuality. Large
portions of the isles are treeless down, salt-marshes, sand-hills; we
must not look for the wondrous native vegetation of an English
country-side. Sub-tropic plants cannot wholly compensate for such a
lack. But if trees are scarce, plants like the fuchsia grow to
tree-like luxuriance; there is a rich abundance of ferns, while both
the land and the marine flora are very rich. There is much to come
for, and those who come must be willing to brave a passage that may be
exceedingly unpleasant. When Dr. Benson, then Bishop of Truro, and
afterwards Archbishop, paid his single visit to the Scillies, his
episcopal dignity was entirely overwhelmed by the direst woes of
sea-sickness. On landing, he is reported to have said that before he
started he feared he would be drowned; when half-way across he prayed
that he might be; and now his one thought was how in the world should
he get back again.