CÆSAREA—AUGIA—JARSARY—JERESEYE—GERSEY—GERSUI—GEARSEY—=la
deroute=—DEARSI (_Gaelic_)
WE have rounded the south-western point of the islet, and are floating
into the wide bright bay of St. Aubin’s, steering by the western passage
through the narrows between the bold fortress of Elizabeth Castle and
the pier, and we wend at once to our hostelry at St. Helier’s.
This Jersey is an oblong islet, about twelve miles from east to west, by
about seven or eight from north to south, extending from the Points of
Sorell and of Noirmont, and those of Belle Hogue and Du Pas. It is
completely escalloped by bays and coves and ravines, with their
essential rocks and promontories, and _belted_ with myriads of outlying
rocklets of very eccentric forms, composed chiefly of sienite and
porphyry. The five Points on the south coast—Corbière, Moye, Noirmont,
Le Nez, and La Roque, being nearly in the same latitude. To these
natural bulwarks the art of defence has added a circle of martello
towers around the coast, and these are now so completely dismantled as
even to embellish and add interest to the landscape; for they seem to
tell of deeds and people of a feudal age, like the Border peels of the
north. The three great bays of St. Ouen, St. Aubin, and Grouville, form
the flat shores of the islet.
The area of the islet is about 40,000 acres; its population about
37,000. It is divided into twelve parishes—St. Helier’s, St. Lawrence,
St. Peter’s, St. Brelade, St. Ouen, St. John, St. Mary, Trinity, St.
Martin, St. Saviour, St. Clement, Grouville—and subdivided into about
forty vintaines, an area containing twenty houses.
From each of these churches, which were held sacred as a sanctuary,
there was in ancient times a direct road—_Perquages_—to the coast, by
which the criminal might escape unscathed if he kept the direct line.
And these are the chief officers of the islet:—The military
lieutenant-governor, the baillie, and the dean, appointed by the
sovereign; the advocate, selected by the baillie, and the twelve judges,
by the people.
As we step on the quay of St. Helier’s, or “_town_,” we look on quaint
grey houses assuming a Norman aspect; but as we proceed to the interior
we are reminded of an English market-town, with neat shops and new
wine-houses. There are about 1000 houses in the town; its population
being about 30,000.
In the royal square is the court-house, _La Cohue_, of the date of 1647,
around which we meet loungers and gossips, especially during the
sittings, and in the centre is a royal statue.
The public library was erected by Falle, the historian of Jersey, and
contains a very fair batch of literature, and also the drawings of
Capelin, a native artist.
There is a new prison, and a hospital, and a poorhouse.
St. Helier’s is prolific of temples of worship. Amidst French Protestant
and Catholic fanes and conventicles, stands pre-eminent in the royal
square the mother Church, 500 years old, and of pure Norman style,—a
new aisle, in perfect harmony, being lately added. Very grotesque
gargouilles and a profusion of ivy mark it as a very eccentric pile. The
government stall and pulpit are ancient, and there are monuments and
slabs to the memory of Carterets in 1767—Durel, Dauvergues, Gordon, and
Pierson, the defender. The gallery stairs are outside the walls. The
evening is devoted to the French service.
The several market-places, especially on Saturdays, are scenes of very
lively interest. The produce of the Jersey gardens is most prolific, and
sold at a moderate price. The grapes are pre-eminent, and the
Chaumontelle pear has nearly attained the weight of one pound, and is
often sold at five guineas per hundred. In the afternoon the market is a
sort of fashion; but the grouping of the buyers and the loungers is not
picturesque, the costume being chiefly the formal cut of England, or the
sombre colours of Normandy. The colloquial language is a mingling of
French and English: the children are taught both, but, whether in truth
or in courtesy, several assured us that they preferred the English.
The votary of _mere pleasure_ or the excitement of gaiety, must not
sojourn in Jersey: out of the pale of select society St. Helier’s will
be most monotonous; it will be indeed a complete blank, and he will
quietly fly off to scenes more exciting though infinitely less healthful
and happy, leaving beautiful Jersey to us, to those whom the Deity has
endowed with a deeper feeling for the charms of Nature’s loveliness.
[Illustration: ELIZABETH CASTLE, JERSEY]
The visitation of the ancient and modern works around St. Helier’s is
worth a day even to the superficial gazer. The eye of the archæologist
and the artist is attracted at once by the bold fortress of _Elizabeth
Castle_, isolated at high tide, but approached at low-water on the floor
of the bay. Along a causeway track from the “Black rock,” on the shore,
we wend with market-women at our heels, and meet a company of soldiers
marching on some duty to St. Helier’s. We must not linger in our survey,
as the tide will flow in four or five hours, often to the height of
forty feet.
The castle stands amidst a group of schist rocks, about a mile in
circumference. One of the outermost blocks is crowned by the remnant of
a real _hermitage_, the cell of St. Helier, who was murdered in the
ninth century by a band of Norman pirates.
The access to the stronghold is intricate and well planned for safety
and defence. It was built in the seventeenth century. Amidst a profusion
of modern and debasing architecture, look on the very curious gate-arch,
on the ascent to the keep. Above a _fleur-de-lis_ at the point of the
_ogee_ of the arch is an escutcheon in stone—the royal shield of
Britain, crested by the red and white roses. Over the left feet of the
supporters are the initials, E. R., of the maiden Queen, in whose reign
the first stone was laid. On one of the arches is a circular disc,
displaying daggers and a fret. To this keep Charles II., when Prince of
Wales, fled for refuge, with his brother James and Clarendon, the islet
of Jersey having declared for him, while Guernsey sided with the
Parliament; and here Charles drew a new map of the island, and Clarendon
penned part of his celebrated record of the Rebellion. In gratitude for
its loyalty the King presented them with a gilt mace on the Restoration,
and graced it with a Latin inscription.
Across a deeper water opens the capacious harbour, with its two piers,
Victoria and Albert, which, especially in storm and tempest, is often
crowded with vessels. The basins were now nearly destitute of craft; but
_acephalæ_ are floating around the piers. Crowning the high greenstone
ridge above it, _Mont de la Ville_, is _Fort Regent_, a fortress,
erected at the cost of a million, of stone from the quarry of Medo, on
the northern coast. Its area is about four acres. It is bomb-proof, and
commands completely the bay and the town. The view from its height
compasses the bay of St. Aubin, the government house, the college, a
mansion of modern Gothic, erected in 1846, after the Queen’s visit, and
the south-eastern corner around St. Clement’s and Grouville, the _Banc
des Violets_ displaying a strange group of black blocks among the surf
waves. At low tide the bay is a wide stone basin, carpeted with rock and
weed. As we looked on it at high water, in an autumn sunset, it was a
mirror of liquid amethyst.
On the brows around St. Helier’s many Druidical stones and tumuli have
been discovered. The chief cairn, or _Poquelaye_, very complete, with
its circle and alley, was revealed in 1785. It was removed entire by
General Conway to Park Place at Henley.
And now there are three classes of subjects that are to be admired and
studied in Jersey—the magnificent cliffs, the beautiful bays, and the
fair natural garden of the interior, taking up the archæological relics
in our way as choice _morceaux_ of historic illustration, adding an
interest even to the face of Nature.
In our visitation of the bay and the cliffs we thread the lanes and
valleys, scenes of very contrasted excellence, like the picture of a
fair beauty within a richly-carved frame. The scenic grandeur of Jersey
is between Le Tac and La Coupé, the whole northern coast of the islet,
and at the south-eastern corner, from Noirmont to La Rocca in St.
Ouen’s, all exquisitely rich in rockwork. The coast from St. Helier’s to
Gourey is a mass of button rocks. In the interior St. Peter’s displays
the only Devonian valley. But throughout the islet there are very lovely
spots, like those of Kent and Surrey, for our rambling, amid meadows
enlivened by _tethered_ cows and green hedge-rows, enamelled with
flowers, often rich and rare, on which bees luxuriate and gather their
luscious stores of honey, and dingles (the Val des Vaux is close to
“_Town_”) feathered with _petit_, though very luxuriant foliage; but
there are no gigantic woods of oak or beech frowning from uplands of
chalk or sand. The descent to the caves, however, opens all around us,
often with the heightening charm of unexpectedness, dingles of
surpassing beauty, as wild as we can wish them. And to all this, the
mere holiday folk may be wafted along the military roads of General Don,
and they may be lifted from St. Helier’s to St. Aubin’s and to Gourey in
public coaches. We, who come to _woo_ Nature—for we love her with all
the pure idolatry of a Thomson or a Davy—select the bye-lanes and the
meadow paths. Yet even here we loiter not, although these garden meads
of Jersey are the very choicest spots for the secluded rambles of lovers
and the joyous festa of gipsying, especially when the warm south-west
blows over the Atlantic.
But running water is well-nigh a blank in Jersey. As in all small
islets, the rivulets are quiet little runnels rippling down from springs
on the northern brow, and stealing south straight into the bays; the
gulleys of Grève le Lecq and Boullay creeping northward. Here and there
the runnels turn a little mill-wheel; and then, in our walks, we often
stumble on an old church, and also on a venerable manor-house, of which
there are about half a score in Jersey, St. Ouen’s, Rosell, La Hogue
Boëte, &c. And now to compass the beauty of Jersey. The walks should be
around and across the south-west and south-east corners, from Town to La
Corbière, and to Gourey, the northern coast from Le Tac to St. John’s,
and thence to St. Martin’s. A pony may carry us to any of the northern
villes, from which we may reach the magnificent points of the northern
coast, or a carriage may take us along the Devonian valley of St.
Peter’s to St. Ouen’s, and await us at St. Martin’s, to bring us back to
St. Helier’s, and, in this lovely valley of St. Peter’s, if we are fond
of cryptogamic botany, let us thread the bosky cliffs of the glen, and
on the stems of the wild rose find the finest tufts of the beautiful
golden lichen, _Borrera chrysophthalma_.
High and low water display contrasted aspects, both equally perfect. At
high tide, the full bays and havens, like gigantic mirrors, are
resplendent with the reflection of their beautiful shores.
To the botanist, the geologist, and even the artist, low water is far
more propitious, for the beach, cliffs, and rocks are profuse in weed
and sea-flowers and pebbles and shells, and they thus give up their
treasures for the seeking; the outlines and colours present a perfect
charm for the pencil.
Let us be off in pursuit of these temptations, scramble among the rocks,
creep round the bays, or into the caves; for, like the violet, much of
the more enduring beauty of the creation lies hid in the deep shades of
the earth.
We are about to make the circuit of the islet. It is high water, and we
float over the wide bay to _St. Aubin’s_, or to _Noirmont_. It is low
tide, and we walk round the shore of this marine crescent on the firm
carpet of sand. (At a tiny rill at _Doet de Demigrave_ there is a very
sudden transition from firm to soft.) There a group of girls are
disporting like Nereids among the waves. It is at full tide, and at
evening hour, however, that the bay of St. Aubin’s is perfect to the
eye; the setting sun is flinging the most gorgeous colours on the little
slate rocks and the walls of the fort: the hue is gold, with a shadow of
bronze, while the more distant walls of Elizabeth Castle are bronze with
shadows of deep grey, a scene special for the eccentric brush of Turner.
[Illustration: ST. BRELADE’S BAY]
From the brow over St. Aubin’s the view is splendid, overlooking the now
poor, yet neat and secluded little village town, its petty haven, and
its castle. We are at the entrance of a richly wooded glen, leading up
to the peninsular hill (on which stands a tolmen stone), that dips
southward to _Noirmont_, a ridge formed of sienite, rose feldspar, and
thallite, striated at the point; ay, and we may gather a wallet-full of
ferns—and there is one very rare, if not quite unknown, in England,
_gynogramma leptophylla_. We may creep round the secluded _Portelet_ Bay
(enlivened by the Janerim towers or martello) from _Noirmont_ to _Point
la Frette_, or descend from the brow to the broad bright bay of _St.
Brelade’s_, divided by a red rock ledge into two; the cliffs and rocks
come out in great splendour, and the out-crops of the sienite groups on
the hills are in the finest style. One enormous mass of blocks is a
perfect specimen of Titanic arrangement; it looks primeval,
antediluvian. It is richly covered by grey and yellow lichen, and deeply
festooned with ivy and clematis, amidst the most luxuriant variety of
heath-flowers, pink and deep purple, blended with the bright golden pods
and deep green of the mountain furze. Around it are the green tufts of
the _protonoma_ moss and the _adiantum_, or maiden-hair fern, and
myriads of the dwarf _rose d’amour_ are studding the turf, and amidst
all this floral profusion green lizards are creeping stealthily, their
eyelets sparkling like diamond points amid the leaves—a perfect study
for a Pre-Raphaelite. From the hills we descend to the white _hard-soft_
sand around the crescent bay—it is a luxury to step on it.
[Illustration: ST. BRELADE’S CHURCH]
The gem of St. Brelade’s is its very quaint little church, the parish
fane of St. Aubin’s. It is perched on the edge of the Rock cliff,
overwashed by the waves at spring tide, and surrounded by tombs and
slabs on the velvet turf, and spotted with cypress. It is of the æra of
Henry I., 1111, one of the twenty-five erected at that period, and its
history bears a very romantic legend. It was to have been built eastward
of the bay, but the fairies of the sward removed from their realm the
work and tools of the masons for three successive nights, and dropped
them at St. Brelade’s; and at length the people, in a panic, yet warned
and directed by this deposit, erected their church on the spot which the
fairies had thus selected. On the walls of an antique chapel the form of
Herod and the angel Gabriel are rudely figured, and on a scroll from the
mouth of the Tetrarch is inscribed, “_Herod le Roy_,” and before him is
the Saviour, bearing his cross.
On the brow of _La Maye_ is the signal-post, and off the cove of
_Beauport_ lie the _Aiguillons_ rocks, and off the south-west point the
rock of _La Corbière_, its apex painted white for a sea-mark. From the
downs the views are complete.
An extensive district of this south-west corner, _Les Quenvais_, is a
record of the devastation of the hurricane in the fifteenth century. In
_St. Ouen’s_ Bay, as in Loughneagh, in Ireland, it is believed that
ruins of houses and walls are visible at low ebb. The village was
overwhelmed, and all the people drowned, for decoying, by false beacons,
some Spanish argosies that then foundered on the rocks. The wreckers
plundered and plunged them into the deep. As they were by Bacchanalian
orgies celebrating the anniversary of the wreck, the sea rolled in and
overwhelmed the sinners and their ville beneath its waves.
And there spreads out its arc of nearly three miles the flat bay of St.
Ouen, from the rock of _La Corbière_ to that of _Le Tac_, or _La
Crevasse_. The bay shore consists almost entirely of round hillocks of
mica-quartz sand (the relics be sure of the _avenging_ elements),
profusely covered by long marine grasses, to the fine stems of which
myriads of tiny univalves are adhering. The sea holly, eryngo, is in the
most brilliant flowering; its blossom, of the purest cerulean blue, may
rival in Jersey the brightest exotic of the greenhouse. The Great and
Little Sandbanks lie off the bay, and nearer are the fine group of _La
Rocca_, and the _Gorden_ tower in the bight.
The quaint ancient church of St. Ouen is on the brow and close by the
venerable manor-house, and there is a fresh-water marsh lake, _La Mara_.
And here Sir Philip de Carteret was fishing in the olden time, when he
was attacked by a French troop; but he escaped by leaping his horse over
a chasm near La Val de la Charriere, the animal falling dead as he
reached his home. A giant rock stands alone at Le Tac and _La Pinnacle_,
100 feet high at the extreme point, both very fine studies. A recluse
may lodge at Le Tac, almost out of the world.
The road abruptly winds from the beach over the hill, and on the downs
we are at the hamlets of _Grosnez_ and _Vincelez_. Cape Grosnez, “_the
great nose_,” points half a mile to the left, the boldest cliff of the
islet. The rocks are of magnificent proportions, 300 feet deep, and
almost perpendicular. The gate arch of the very ancient castle of
Grosnez, its origin believed to be Roman, and the home of Le Carteret,
in the æra of the Plantagenets, stands alone on its green platform. From
it the whole group of islets to the north-west forms an exquisite little
picture.
From the “_Stone Plank_,” lying across a deep rock ravine, a youth fell,
and was washed to sea, in sight of his friends assembled at a pic-nic.
A flash, a peal—ay, all in keeping with the scene—the growl of thunder
completely around and above us, and the lurid gleam flings a sort of
spectral halo over the heavens. There are two intensely black clouds
sailing in contrary currents towards each other, like destroying
spirits. The flash from the Guernsey cloud charged highly electric
streams over to that from Sark. Guernsey comes out in bright light for a
moment, and then is lost. Sark is overshadowed, and looms out like a
great purple wall, the chiselling of its cliffs and rocks, that a minute
since showed like huge bastions and gables, is totally obscured. An
awful position, if we linger here, and yet the _mise en scène_ is most
magnificent—sublime. The storm instantly bursts on Grosnez, and we
brave its wild fury, to look forth on a glory from which Salvator,
Loutherbourg, and Turner might have drunk in ideas of elemental majesty.
A black and murky cloud settles round yon point of _Pleinmont_, a bold,
caverned rock of sharp sienite, shaking with its thunder the old fort
and drawbridge, and driving its flood across the bay of _Grève au
Laucheon_, and far into its caves of gloom, 400 feet deep. One of those
sudden transitions of electric storm brings out the brightest sunbeams,
and we look across yonder rocky dingle two miles away on the beautiful
cove of _Grève la Lecq_, with its barrack and hostelry. The sea is
rolling gloriously at high water over the rocks of _Les Deniers_, its
mountains of milk-white foam breaking on a floor of sand as white as
they, and thundering on the deep umber rocks, embossed on the surface,
and then rolling with a deeper roar into that yawning cavern on the
western cliff. Towering over the shore of the bay hang stupendous
cliffs, some 400 feet high. From the eastern mound over the _Crab
Caves_, _Catel de Lecq_, we look up the two dingles which come down,
rich in woodland, to the bay, just about an old grey martello: then by a
mere turn on the heel we are directly on the verge of a magnificent
cave, closed in by cliffs nearly 500 feet high, huge granite blocks
strewed around their bases, and more seaward a belt of white sand and a
beach of black pebbles. The scene is wild and rude as the Hebrides, and
where the rolling surge on the beach meets the transient flood of a
storm-cloud, it displays a picture almost as majestic as a sea-loch in
Skye.
[Illustration: CLIFFS NEAR GRÈVE LA LECQ]
On the face of the cliff yawn two deep and dark caverns, to reach which
at low water a ledge of rudest steps has been cut diagonally on the
perpendicular face of the rock. The descent by this rock-ladder is no
puerile feat. We are halfway down, and are checked by a block having
fallen from the ledge. There was no turning, so there we lay on the side
looking down over the perpendicular 200 feet on the black rocks in the
cave. To fall or not to fall, that was the question: if we condescended
to drop, that is, to descend rapidly, in obedience to the primal law of
gravitation, a fracture of limb or neck was a certainty, and yet we
deemed an ascent an impossibility; so as a _dernier ressort_, or rather
a forlorn hope, we turned on the back, worked upwards half on and half
off the cliff, when happily a wider ledge _by six inches_ enabled us to
turn, and then we stood erect in proud triumph, crowing like a bantam at
our really _narrow_ escape, and looked gratefully down on the frowning
rocks thus cheated of “an awful catastrophe.” There is a grey kite, too,
hovering noiselessly over our head. We wave him off majestically—we are
not to be the prey of gleds and corbies be sure on’t.
Silence reigns around, a calm between the storms, save when the sea-bird
flutters screaming along, or the beetle wheels around us his droning
flight. But, hark! again—thunder is growling like a jealous gnome at
our escape and our exalted enjoyment. Twice, indeed, we essayed to leave
this accomplished spot, and lingered until the broad evening shadows
began to deepen even the gloom of the storm-cloud, and we descend by two
dismantled forts, their guns lying rusted on the turf. _Les Pierres du
lacq_—_the Paternosters_—high above water on our ascent, are now lost
in the deep.
The tempest was raging as we were driving down a wooded dingle. A flash
and a crash in quick succession—the lightning has struck the rock: a
huge block, several tons in weight, rolls thundering down the precipice,
crushing trees to atoms in its downward course.
The driver of our carriage is scared from under the boughs and dashes
down the valley like a madman. Poor fellow, he was neither a Franklin
nor a Faraday; and not reflecting that the storm-cloud travels swiftly,
he did not know that this very dingle was now the safest place in
Jersey.
The villes of St. Mary and St. John are near us; their churches of the
fourteenth and thirteenth centuries.
In St. John’s, on its saint’s eve, was once celebrated in all its
degraded perfection of orchard-robbing, cow-milking, &c., the wild
marauding game of _Faire brave les Poeles_, a stain on the sporting
annals of Jersey. It is now, we hope and believe, nearly obsolete.
The coast is still bold, and there are tiny cascades on the runnels
close by, and a ruined mill somewhat picturesque. It is on this northern
coast that the scenic contrasts of the islet are so exquisitely
displayed. Not far from the verge of a cliff 300 feet high, we are in a
leafy dingle, and look over the waters unconscious of our height.
Yonder, a mile off, are the _Pierres du lacq_ at low water; the front of
Guernsey looming on the left, and Serk rearing its majestic wall of
sienite on the right.
[Illustration: GUERNSEY AND SERK, FROM JERSEY]
The granite quarries of _Mount Mado_ are above the coast, and near the
point of Belle Hogue there is a little _twin_ spring of water that is
believed to cure blindness, age, and dumbness—and this is the legend of
the wells. These little founts were the tears of two fairies—for fays
feel like ordinary mortals.—Well, _Arna_ and _Aruna_ were wont to
gambol and to chant around the rocks of _Belle Hogue_. They were at
length sanctified, and wafted to heaven by an angel; but the love of
their Channel home was still warm in their little bosoms, and once,
musing in melancholy mood on the delights of their Belle Hogue, and
fluttering with longing hearts directly over the enchanting spot, each
dropped a tear of regret on the earth, and from them two little
fountains were instantly playing up the sparkle of their crystal drops.
From _Belle Hogue_ to the bold round block of _La Coupé_, the cliffs are
of breccia, or pudding-stone; the rest is chiefly schist, with veins of
porphyry, especially about St. Martin’s and Roselle.
_Trinity_ lies about a mile from the shore. In the old manor house, the
home of the Carterets, are still preserved the goblet, table, and
gloves, presented by Charles II. The lord of this manor presents two
drakes before the sovereign who may be dining in Jersey.
Descending along a fine dingle, we open the wide bold bay of _Boullay_,
the landing-place of Strozzi, the invader, in 1549. The panorama,
enlivened by its beacon and its pier, is almost as beautiful as that of
St. Brelade’s, and it is belted by very splendid cliffs and rocks of
thallite, greenstone, and porphyry.
Near _Le Nez du Guet_ are the Roman mound works of _La Petite Cæsare_.
And now opens the little bay, _Havre de Roselle_, a beautiful rocky
basin, bounded by Le Nez du Guet and _Le Couperose_, and spotted with
three rocklets, and possessing a barrack. A fine rocky dingle, between
lofty cliffs and fringed with wood, runs up into the land towards a
Druidical _Poquelaye_ above Le Couperose and _La Coupé_ and the bay of
_Fliquet_, with its tower. The road from Roselle to Gourey is scooped in
the shore rock. Round the point of _Verclut_ opens the bay of _St.
Catherine_ with its insular horns of rock, and one crowned by the tower
of _Archirondel_. Then there is _St. Geoffrey’s rock_, from which in the
olden time criminals were thrown into the sea. Roselle Manor and the
ville of St. Martin’s lie on the high ground.
[Illustration: CROMLECH]
Approaching _Gourey_, we stumbled on two most interesting bits of
antiquity. On the hill near the coast is a very fine _Poquelaye_ in a
rough field near the warren. An oval of twenty-one stones—fourteen
within, in two rows, supporting three large horizontals, one fifteen
feet long and ten and a half broad, and weighing eighty tons. Near the
Parc de la belle Fontaine a very quaint old house stands in an orchard.
Its turret staircase, _La Tourelle_, is especially curious, but we
cannot find it described.
[Illustration: MOUNT ORGUEIL CASTLE]
And here below us on a shallow bay is the quaint little town of Gourey,
the third ville of importance; its church perched on the brow—large
dark blocks lying around its little haven—one, l’Ecquiercriere,
standing out the most eastern point of the islet. Above all, the
magnificent, though now dismantled fortress of _Mount Orgueil_ is
towering aloft on its rock, fully illustrating its proud title. It is a
perfect subject for the pencil, and is replete with historical
associations. It was an especial object with King John. In the reigns of
Henry VI. and Edward IV. the Count de Maulevrier seized Mount Orgueil
and half Jersey for Henry, while Carteret of Grosnez, Seigneur of St.
Ouen, held the rest for Edward. In its dungeon were imprisoned by De
Carteret the two Bandinels; one, in trying to escape, was killed on the
rocks; the other went mad. It was the prison of Prynne, who here wrote
his thoughts and Rhymes on the castle, which he dedicated to—
“Sweet Mistress Douce, fair Margaret,
Prime flower of the house of Carteret.”
As we mount the immense flight of steps, we come on the door through
which Charles II. passed to the cliffs where the boat was moored that
wafted him to France. He had fled hither to Jersey from St. Mary’s in
Scilly, as more remotely secure. Near this is the crypt—one of the most
eccentric bits of antique masonry which we have seen—and opposite is
the court in which was discovered the effigy of the Virgin Mary; and
onwards yawns the tower dungeon deep and dark. There are Roman bits of
masonry still in the walls. Near the gate are stone benches, once the
seat of judges, and close by beams for the suspension of those whom they
condemned. From the keep the Cathedral of Coutances is distinct in a
clear atmosphere.
On the rocky beach of _Grouville_ bay, a profusion of vraich is often
deposited. The sand hillocks are covered by long grass, and the eryngo
here blooms beautifully. The oyster bank, for which Gourey is famous, is
spread two miles off the bay. The rocky ledge of sienite which underlies
the schist of all this south-east point fringes the whole south-eastern
angle, and is defended by a formal range of martellos—_La Roque_ at the
point, and _Seymour_ tower stands in the midst of the waves.
And near _La Roque_, or _Rocbert_, is the _Rock of the Hag_, and this is
the legend of the rock:—
There was a very beautiful Madeleine and there was a young fisher named
Hubert, who loved her; but he was inveigled by the witches, and charmed
into aversion to her. The heroine in despair, with a cross in her hand,
incurred the perils of storm and billows to save him from these spells,
and as a memento of her happy success, there is the _Point du Pas_, the
“footstep of the virgin,” to this day.
Then there is another large rock, once a stumbling-block of contention
between St. Magloire and the Druids. The priests engaged the Devil to
roll a block from the shore to proselyte the people; but when they tried
to roll it back again, St. Magloire laid his holy book on it and it was
immovable; he then set the cross on the rock, and the demon fled, the
Druids succumbed, and the immortal safety of the people was insured.
And these rocks may be discovered if one will, and pebbles and shells
may be gathered, and we may bathe at the favourite dipping-place of
_Portague_, or we may ramble to the nice little church of Grouville,
dated 1312.
[Illustration: LA TOUR D'AUVERGNE]
But we must not overlook the bit of antiquity about midway between
Gourey and St. Helier’s—the Prince’s Tower, _La Tour d’Auvergne_, or
_La Hogue bie_—Hogue, mound, or monument—that crowns a mount on the
most elevated brow in the islet. It was built on the site of an ancient
chapel, on the model of the Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and was enlarged by
Mabon, Dean of Jersey, about 1750, who, it is said, worked miracles
under the Virgin. One of its lords was the Prince de Bouillon, an
English admiral; but the legend of De Hambie, as deep as it is obscure,
is the illustrative charm of La Hogue. This is the tale in brief:—The
servant of this De Hambie murdered his master and married the widow,
who, stung by remorse, erected this tower, visible from her _chateau_ at
Coutances, to the memory of her dishonoured lord. Another record refers
the death of De Hambie to the poisonous breath of a dragon which he
slew; but as even the Livre Noir of Coutances leaves the matter
undecided, we presume not to fathom the secret.
A blind boy is our guide, who from habit points out correctly the very
richly-wooded panorama from the summit. The islet resembles one expanded
grove, spire and turret peeping up just where the imagination of a
consummate artist would have placed it.
And so we may wander back to St. Helier’s by the elegant ville of St.
Saviour’s, the living of the Dean of Jersey, and the largest church in
the islet; among richly cultivated grounds and gardens teeming with
myrtles and verbenas and fuchsias and amarillidæ, or we may wander yet
further afield amidst yet more beautiful nature—lanes fringed with
blushing hedges, and knolls of woody luxuriance, and banks and meadows
gemmed with floral wildings, and here and there a blossom most rare in
England; and we may perchance meet little groups of juveniles on their
way to drink warm milk at a dairy farm, and all this at an equable
temperature between 50° and 60°, purified by the occasional sprinkling
of a genial summer shower.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in punctuation and the use of hyphenated words have been
maintained.
Some illustrations moved to facilitate page layout.