AURENÊ—AURIGMA—AURIMA—ARENO—ABRENO—AURNE—ORIGNI—AURINÆ
INSULA—ISLE OF THE CAPE—ISLAND OF ST. ANNE.
THIS lies nearest to the shore of Albion, within its belt of shoals, and
difficult of access in stormy weather, even in its new haven of Braye la
Ville, or Brayer. The access was still more perilous in Crab Bay, or in
the more ancient port of Longy. We are landed. How quiet the people, how
social and primitive, how wedded to old customs. It is probable,
however, that in a few years the harbour of Braye will display a busier
scene, much of the sterile land of the Giffoine be fertilized, the petty
farms multiplied, and the treasures of its fisheries realized: but
Alderney will never be admired, for dulness reigns around, and the sea
spray seems to excite cutaneous maladies, and the salt and fish diet to
induce dyspepsia. There is, however, with its sterile aspect and its
dearth of foliage, a prominent and novel character in Alderney. About
its elevated centre is the quaint old ville of St. Anne, possessing a
new church (the ancient fane being despoiled), a new court house, the
Government house, the gaol, the female school, and chapels of dissent.
Of the ancient town on the south-eastern coast, of which the oblong
granite blocks of Les Rochers, near the cemetery, are believed to be the
debris, very solemn legends are recorded. Its destruction is referred to
the judgment of the Deity on the crimes of a gang of wreckers, who
plundered and murdered the crew of a Spanish vessel wrecked on the
coast. This infliction, according to the record, had its parallel in
Jersey.
The _Court_ consists of judge, jurats, attorney and solicitor-general,
greffier, sheriff, and his depute and serjeant.
The ecclesiastical history is not without interest, and there are
seriously romantic legends of the mission of Geunal, Vignalor, or St.
Vignalis, the patron saint of Aurigny. He was a scion of a noble family
in Bretagne, a proselyte of St. Magloire, and he resigned his abbacy of
Landenec, and became a missionary to Sark. From thence he wended to
Alderney, and converted the catchers of fish and the tillers of ground,
before this the most desperate _wreckers_ in the Channel.
From the outlying rocks on the eastern height stands the ruined castle
(_La Chatte_) of Essex, built, it is said, by Robert Devereux, for the
detention of his queen. Below it, on the lower shore of Longis is a
Roman _cist_, noted by Holinshed; and _Castrum Longini_. _Les murs des
bas_, or the _Nunnery_, is a very antique square, with corner towers,
constructed with the Roman tiles of the dilapidated ville. Here and also
at _Corbelets_ were discovered antique vessels and coins and relics, and
monumental stones of porphyry and sienite.
On the coast heights there are batteries and watchtowers and beacons,
and a telegraph for Guernsey, all dismantled in time of peace.
[Illustration: LA PENDENTE, ALDERNEY]
The coast is one of the wildest belts of cliffs and rocklets; those
eastward of a line from _Braye_ to _L’Etat_ are of ruddy grit, those
westward of porphyry or hornstone. The eastern group, more exposed to
disintegrating forces, assumes the columnar form, or that of hanging
blocks, as at _Pendente_; but the porphyry of the west is of the wildest
fashion. Between these strata is a narrow black belt of hornblende and
quartz, running north and south across the islet. On the south-west
point is _La Nashe Fourchie_, the cones of _Les Rochers des Sœurs_, and
the secluded _Chaise de l’Emauve_, the _Lovers Chair_, a record of the
passion of Jacquine Le Mesurier for one far lower than herself in rank.
Of this romance the story and catastrophe are just as interesting as the
common run of these love tales. Below the ridge of the _Giffoine_ there
is the bold _Tête de Jugemaine_, and the fine bays of _La Platte Saline_
and _La Clanque_. On its outlying rock is still celebrated on the first
Sunday in Lent, by youths and maidens, the ancient festa of Les
Brandons, the wild gambols being peculiar to the islet. After dancing in
the ring and kisses round, the corps de ballet return to Braye in
procession, waving aloft their blazing firebrands, displaying all the
wild gambols of Comus. The islet is most exposed; it is therefore
_bracing_, yet the Cape _Alctris_ and other exotics thrive in the open
air. About Longis and La Clanque a profusion of _fuci_ and _algæ_ is
thrown on the shore. The _Haliotis_ and _Trochus shells_ lie on the
beach, and myriads of the _strombiformis_ on the sterile ground.
[Illustration: ALDERNEY, FROM BERHOU]
In her course from England, whether in the open channel or in the Ortac,
the boat closes on the _Caskets_. From the Weymouth course these lie off
eastward. The water is twenty and thirty fathoms deep around these white
sand rocks, which are about a mile in circuit, and have two
landing-places, with steps in the rock, accessible in calm weather. The
approach is perilous in a storm; and it was off the Caskets that in 1120
Prince William, the only son of Henry I., was drowned. The platform is
walled and surrounded by three light-towers at triangular points. The
sea block of _Ortac_ and the rocklet of _Berhou_ lie between the Caskets
and Alderney, the latter rock being the resort of the Stormy Petrel, the
Barbalot, and the burrowing bee, one of the most interesting little
things in entomology. From this rock the peep at Alderney is
picturesque.
We are nearing the little Russell Channel, and surrounded by blocklets:
another of the sister islets is looming in the distance.
[Illustration: GUERNSEY]