THIS exquisite little islet is lying before us, eight miles off; yet we
may often gaze on it with longing eyes, even from the pier in Guernsey,
with boats of all kinds, even the _Lady_ (cutter) _of Sark_ floating
around us, without a hope of landing on its guarded rock.
[Illustration: LE CREUX HAVEN, SERK]
Now this little Serque was the cell of St. Magloire, an Armorican or
Brittany bishop, and here he prayed and fasted himself into fitness for
the conversion of the Channel islets. This cell, in the reign of Edward
III., was still a ruined relic, and the islet was then a nest of
corsairs: it still assumes a sort of wild or neutral aspect. In the
reign of Edward VI. or that of Mary, the Flemings took it by stratagem,
but in 1565 it was securely colonized by Hilary or Helier de Carteret,
Lord of St. Ouen’s, under a grant from Mary and from Elizabeth of _fief
en Hubert_, a guerdon for knight’s service. There are monumental stones
indicating its association with the Britons, and the Romans we believe
were not ignorant of Serque. The _plan_ of this little gem is highly
eccentric: a table-land, four miles long, two miles its greatest
breadth, and five feet! at the narrowest, spread on a majestic pile of
rocks deeply indented with bays and coves and clefts, and fringed by
groups of rocklets and ledges, in all the fantastic fashioning of the
elements. These outposts, by increasing the difficulty of access, impart
a deeper interest to the islet, scarcely alloyed by the slight sense of
peril, for we are confident of being safely wafted, D. V., by the
superior skill of the Serque boatmen, even among breakers and
conflicting currents, into the tiny cove of _Le Creux_. So our _Lady of
Sark_ is safe at her moorings, and we are rowed into this puddle of a
harbour, completely overhung by perpendicular cliffs, 200 feet high, and
richly clothed with velvet mosses and lichens, a complete study for
Salvator or our own Pyne. This is the only point for landing in certain
states of current or surf, although in very calm weather there is an
available cove to eastward, and the daring may be run ashore in the
bays. But even from this beach we have no natural mode of escape. A
tunnel in the cliff opens by an arch, over which is the date 1688, the
year of its construction by the Carterets; and so we walk out and up
between green hills chequered with heath and rock, with triumphant pride
at thus carrying the mighty earthworks which the Gnome and the Triton
have raised around their granite home. And so we seek our hostelry, and
find it in a capital farm-house, and we are soon engaged with Madame
Vaudin in a cosy chat, in which come out, so unexpectedly, records of
our lamented friend, Sir John Franklin, who years ago sojourned in our
very chamber, and slumbered within those green curtains; and all this
while the fish and the ducks and the puddings, bathed in exquisite
cream, are being prepared for our luxurious and most economic feasting.
And then, in the kitchen, we discuss the statistics, the poetry, and the
government of the islet with this ancient, clever dame. Of this it is
enough to record, that there are about forty yeomen, tillers of the
land, in Serque, the magistracy of the isle, quite a Venetian Senate;
one of whom, we believe, may try a cause, subject, however, to an appeal
to the forty, and to the Seigneur or Lord of Serque, who is of course
their president. They are their own law-makers, not subject to the
enactments of our legislature, exchequer, or customs; the only duty paid
to England being a sort of quit-rent of £2 per annum.
Our hostelry is in the pretty village of _Dixcard_, a few scattered
houses forming the ville of _Le Vorsque_, the chief rendezvous of the
Serque islet, nearly in its centre. The dingle runs nearly across the
islet, winding for about a mile between lofty brows down to its bay, and
may form a line for our promenading—the northern and the southern walk.
The beauties of the coast of Serque, however, should be revelled in;
they are worth more than a glance and away, and after a rapid survey of
two days, we may wander away in any direction from our central roost,
and be sure of descending in a score of minutes to some beauty of the
rocks, some cove or block or boutique, the names of which, though sadly
mutilated by the islanders, we will essay to record.
Our first walk is by the church and the scattered ville of Roselle and
the Seigneury to the northern cape. This house of the lord is in the
Tudor style, and boasts a lake, a boat, a bowling-green, a flagstaff,
and a belvidere, and parterres and greenhouses of choice and beautiful
flowers; and it is near the head of a ravine leading down to the most
exquisite cave of the islet.
And here we are on the promontory of _Point le Nez_, the first cape on
our scud from Guernsey. The terminal rocks are insular at high water,
but _Le Bec du Nez_ may be reached on a ledge at ebb of tide. On the
brow the schist blocks, traversed by porphyry, are upheaved in the
wildest confusion, and assume an endless variety of form, more so than
the shore blocks, which are washed and rolled and rounded by the waves.
It is a fine wild range to begin with. The turf down invites us even to
an Olympic race, for the pure air elevates both the will and the power
of our frame. We feel our muscular energy almost grow upon us, and when
we have revelled on the turf, then down among the white, smooth rocks
that lie scattered around in chaotic rudeness, like the thrones of
Titanic nobles. But prolific nature has gemmed these blocks for a more
charming study than mythological fancies; there is a garden of lichens
strewn for our special admiration on their surface; there are the golden
studs of _squammaria_, and the grey and purple bosses of _parmelia_; and
if we peep between these stone giants, we shall light on many a lovely
flower and rich green plant, blooming and luxuriating within little
nooks, and nursed by their genial shelter. The _scolopendrium_ and
_hart’s tongue_ are long and broad in leaf, and the _grammitis_ expands
its fronds in profusion; and here we breasted one of the most violent
gales of the Channel, not without some peril, for it was often difficult
to _hang on_; but the wind _blew into us_ such a joyous and refreshing
energy and power that this clinging to the rocks was no labour. Our
sketch-book was not so fortunate, it was whirled from our grasp in a
moment, and dashed against a towering block. We rushed wildly to save
our treasure, but four or five of our favourite sketches were wafted in
a few seconds high up among the clouds, imparting a deeper value to the
_salvage_.
[Illustration: LES AUTELETS]
Ascending the ledge to the eastern side of the _Corbie du Nez_ or
_Grin_, we come abruptly on a yawning cleft that nearly isolates the
cape itself. Its aspect is formidable but its descent is easy, and it
leads down to the mouth or funnel of the largest cave in the islet, _La
Boutique, par excellence_. To reach an inner cave a barrier must be
mounted. At high water, the billows, after dashing on the shore cliff,
rush in with a thundering sound at two chasms on the north and west. At
low water the inner boutique may be entered with a light; it is lofty,
and on its surface there are a few stalactitic droppings and a
sprinkling of ferns. There are smaller caverns in the cliffs. We come
out on the broad bay of Banquette, and in the little cave to southward
stand out in the most fantastic beauty the finest outlying rocks in the
islet, _Les Autelets_—little altars: in complete contrast, however, one
being a stupendous cube of _Grauwacke_ on a very narrow base, the other
a huge pyramid, on the ledges of which a flight of choughs and shags
settle and roost in the evening. The overhanging cliffs are nearly
perpendicular, and along their base lie around in heaps the most
gigantic blocks of very variegated stones, black, red and grey; and
unlike the _angular_ blocks on the hills they are mathematically rounded
off by the attrition of the waves. Among these rocks are deep pools of
water, in which we may discover small crustacea, and rich varieties of
the _daisy actinia_, the _nereis_, and _holothuria_, and other
_anthozoa_. There is one flaunting in bright orange, and yonder crawls
the _hermit crab_ that seems to have _perforated_ an actinia within a
shell, the tissue of the anemone forming a ring round the crab. Many of
the blocks are richly clothed with _fucus spiralis_ (_bladdervraich_)
and _crithmum_ (_samphire_) in all their splendour of gold and bronze.
We must be wary, however, in paddling over these slippery carpets, a
fall from them is not a trifle. _Chondrus membranifolius_, and pink and
green _polysyphonia_ and _dasya_ are hanging on the cliffs, and the
_ulva_ and _porphyra_, oyster-green, and purple _laver_ on the deeper
rocks. The blocks are studded with minute univalves, and the _patella_
shells of the limpet show like bosses on a shield.
Through a splendid arch of dark reddish sienite, marked by horizontal
lines of schist, standing nobly out from the cliff, we pass into the
next bay, the most magnificent in Serque, _Porte Meullin_. It is a deep
wide cave, overfrowned by cliffs of clay shale 300 feet high, that come
down perpendicularly on the beach. On their sides and brow _zigzags_ are
cut, by which the summit is gained, and from it we look down on the most
splendid grouping of the islet. A cleft on the south side of Port
Meullin sets off an isolated rock of very quaint form, and leads to
another fine cave with chaotic blocks and pools, a lofty pinnacle
towering above the cleft, and a wide cavern yawning in the islet rock.
These rocks are bronzed by masses of golden gelatine, _laminaria
bulbosa_, and _fucus canaliculatus_.
Among these ferruginous blocks, _talc_ and _asbestos_ and _agate
chalcedony_, green, red, and yellow _jasper_ may be discovered, and
veins of _lapis ollaris_ running across the islet.
During the western gales—and we now encountered one of the most
determined violence—the waves roll into Port Meullin a profusion of the
most magnificent algæ or weeds that we have beheld. In a few minutes we
selected and displayed on the pebbles half a score of splendid
specimens, a complete museum of sea treasure. There was a gigantic flag,
six yards long, of rich sienna brown with a fringe of pink, covered with
white spots, _laminaria saccharina_, or _sea hanger_. There were the
fleshy fans of _nitrophyllum_; long brown ribbon slips six or eight in a
bunch, _asperococcus_ and _rhodomenia_; bunches of golden pods or
bladders at the end of narrow leaves, _fucus spiralis_; huge bunches of
broad reddish leaves, like those of the oak, _delesseria sanguinea_;
eight or ten ribbon thongs, six feet long, on a thick brown stem,
_laminaria digitata_ (they might be a cat-o’-nine-tails for the backs of
the Nereids); filigree weeds of the purest pink and white,
_polysyphonia_ and _dasya_; very long, tough, gelatinous brown thongs in
a bow, _chorda filum_, sea whip-lash, and the purple _iridea_. The heath
brows over this lane are clothed in corresponding luxuriance. There were
at least three species of _erica_, a profusion of _spurges_, _aspidia_,
and _asplenia_ ferns; _ophioglossum_, adder’s-tongue, and an _adiantum_,
maiden-hair fern, and dwarf _polypodium_ were springing from the stunted
stems, and little tufts, like _codium bursæ_, green purse-moss, and all
these among clumps of _thrift_ and _chicory_, and dwarf thistles, and
wild _sage_ and _spinach_, and _vaccinia_. We could not light on the
_stramonium_, _wormwood_, or _canna indica_, which we were told now grew
wild in the islet.
_Couleur de rose_ will ever gild our memory of Port Meullin. It was the
scene of our first grand impression of the extreme beauty of Serque; but
it was gilded by a sentiment somewhat beyond mere admiration. From
another point, a very courteous gentleman left his islet villa, and his
lady and his luncheon, and guided us to the descent, where a bevy of
fair girls, in all the romance of elegant deshabille, were gathering
weed and pebbles among the rocks. Charming! Look across from Port
Meullin to Havre Gosselin; there is a green fissure in the cliff 200
feet in height, as if the rocks had quarrelled and fallen away from each
other—it is the _Moie du Mouton_, and along it sheep are lifted to
browse on the green down above.
[Illustration: LA COUPÉ]
And there on the right stretches the bold isolated rock, _Brechou_, or
L’Isle de Merchant, a table of rich mould on a belt of flat rock. On its
southern side yawns a very lofty chasm. We longed to pore into it; but
the currents daunted even the boatmen of Serque. Round the point of
Lionee opens the wide bay of Le Grand Grève, divided from the opposite
bay by that most eccentric wall of rock 200 feet high and 6 feet thick
on its ridge. This _coupée_, thus pared down for safety and for traffic,
is chiefly of sienite or hornblende granite, traversed by a vein of
porcelain clay, and it divides the islet into Great and Little Serk.
This, perhaps prudent cutting down, has, however, shorn the guide-books
of the high-flown epithets of “awe” and “terror,” which they affirm must
strike the adventurer from Great to Little Serk. This peninsula,
_presq’île du petit Serque_—wears a dreary aspect on its face; yet
parterres of the most splendid ericas here and there adorn its soil—a
little nest of cots and some scattered ruins of miners’ huts display a
curious contrast of vitality and desertion. The southern point is the
mining district; and though they have quite abandoned the search for
ore, the superficial barrenness is perfectly consistent with mineral
impregnation below. Our research for mollusca was more fertile in the
pools about the southern point than elsewhere. As we round the point we
come on a little bay, the avant courier of a splendid succession of
coves and clefts on the eastern coast, and lying off this southern point
peers up the bold rock _L’Etat du Serq_. Every brow on this deeply
indented shore should be rounded and scaled and descended, as far as the
worn or stony path can be traced, and then we look directly on the face
of the cliff and _into_ the caverns. There is one cave especially,
called, we believe, _Le Pot_, as fine as can be imagined—the boldest
feature of Little Serk, and on these rock-brows the lichens are in
beautiful profusion, and the grey and yellow cetraria, and the fleshy
_sycophorus deformis_.
We now come round to the eastern cliff of Coupée Bay, its extraordinary
wall lifting up its causeway almost in the clouds. Beyond, the next
headland opens on us the fine bay of _Baleine_, or _Dixcard_, the
holiday spot of the islet. It is carpeted by white sand, on which small
boats may be pushed in calm weather; it is the bathing-place of the
visitors, whose half-mile walk from the hotel is chiefly on the
greensward, and there is an arched cave in a pinnacle for our disrobing.
Every step on this bold shore displays a fresh picture.
[Illustration: POINT VIGNETTE]
_Le Creux_ cavern, a great hole 100 feet deep, and opening above on the
hill, yawns on the beach. At high-water a boat can be pushed into this
cauldron, which is a perfect miniature of the famed Buller of Buchan
in Scotland. _Point Vignette_, _La Terrible_, or _La Conchée_, lifts
its proud pinnacles beyond this. _Les Burons_ and _La Moie_ lie
off the cliffs. Then comes a black ridge, looking like porphyry,
termed, we believe, _La Chateau_. It bounds the only little cave,
L’Eperquerie—Paregorois—Port Gourey, in which boats may be sheltered
and moored. Into this caverned cave of green velvet it was our fortune
to descend during one of the severest gales, the rolling foam
beautifully contrasting with the black-green rocks. The small boats were
dancing high on the liquid mountain, and even the cutters and a lugger
were rocking and dipping their bows in the water, and yet at the time
the water in this cave, and in _Creux_ also, was the calmest around the
islet. The group of fishermen below us on a rock-ledge were seemingly in
dilemma for ourselves. It was a most perilous footing; so boisterous was
the blast around the rocks, that we were compelled to cling to the
rocks, and several of our hapless sketches were wafted aloft in a
moment. The sailors seemed to think us wild, and to wonder how and
whence we came, and, indeed, why we came at all; and yet this was what
we hoped to see—a calm would have tamed the scene down to
insignificance. Close to the landing-place and the off-lying rock it is
all perfect studies. We have _La Chapel de Meuve_, a square block of
pendant granite, as if momentarily about to fall. The range of rocks on
the eastern coast consist chiefly of sienite. We have now well-nigh
rounded the islet of Serk, a complete _embarras de richesse_; one
glimpse of these rocks taken at random were worth a day’s journey.
Hark! amid the howling of the wind there is the scrape of a
fiddle—shade of Straduarius, a cremona in Serk! A band of wandering
minstrels are wind-bound in the islet, and in sympathy they are about to
invoke Terpsichore in a stable-loft, approached by a narrow mud path,
beneath a dripping hedge and a muck-heap! And there is the fair, the
fairest maid in Serk, Fanny, of whom it is the fashion to talk, flirting
in very accomplished style, raising flames of jealousy among the
juveniles who resort to Mrs. Hizzlehurst’s hotel. It was a very fair bit
of romantic burlesque, and _took_.
We are in Serk four days more than we had contemplated; the pressure
of harvest binds us in the islet; all hands to the sickle and the
sheaf. Boreas, however, had the credit of our imprisonment; yet we
regret it not—almost every waking hour was passed in contemplation
of some fresh beauty. The bracing breeze of health, the complete
retirement—_solitude_, if you will—the absence of all mere holiday
intrusion, the instant transition from our hostelry into the midst of
romantic beauty, to be admired or studied as the fit may work, and,
withal, the order of domestic economy, all mark this little islet as the
perfect home of the student who is reading or writing—of the romantic
wanderer—of the artist—of the geologist—of all, indeed, who love to
revel in wild and unspoliated nature.
Adieu! beautiful Sark, we shall not soon forget your perfection; adieu!
for yonder lies the “Lady” of the islet, in whose bosom we are to be
wafted off to Guernsey with the market-people who wend to St. Peter’s
Port to replenish the exhausted stores of the islet. Romance itself must
be fed, it cannot live on flowers: and so, at five in the morning, in
bright moonlight, amid a bevy of visitors and a group of Serquois
peasants, we have passed the portal of the rocks, and wait on the beach
to be rowed to the cutter in the cove—wind, tide, and currents dead
against us; so, to gain an offing, we make the tour of the island, and
by a long tack of three miles run up the Great Russell and round Castle
Cornet into the haven of Sarnia.
And now, still further southward, we are nearing the fairest islet of
the Channel, and after the circuitous struggles of our voyage from
Serque, with all the charm of contrast, we overcome time and space with
almost a certainty of progression. We chuckle at this triumph of vapour
over the gales, yet with time to spare, and with wind and tide and
current in our favour—a very rare coincidence in the Channel seas—we
would yet prefer to hoist our canvas, and skim leisurely over the
glittering waves to Jersey.
[Illustration: JERSEY]