[Illustration: CORBIERE LIGHTHOUSE, JERSEY.]
From the harbor of Portland we will make a steamer-excursion almost
across the English Channel, going about one hundred and fifteen miles to
the Channel Islands, off the north-western coast of France and within a
few miles of the shores of Normandy and Brittany. They are Jersey,
Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark, standing in a picturesque situation, with
a mild climate and fertile soil, and devoted mainly to dairying and to
fishing. These islands were known to the Romans, and their strategic
position is so valuable that England, while getting but $100,000 revenue
from them, has expended two or three millions annually in maintaining
their fortifications. It was upon the dangerous cluster of rocks west of
Alderney, and known as the Caskets, that Henry I.'s only son, Prince
William, perished in the twelfth century, and here the man-of-war
Victory was lost with eleven hundred men in 1744. Jersey is the most
remarkable of these islands for its castles and forts, and has seen many
fierce attacks. Both Henry VII. and Charles II. when in exile found
refuge in Jersey. In approaching this island the fantastic outline of
the Corbiere Promontory on the western side is striking. When first seen
through the morning haze it resembles a huge elephant supporting an
embattled tower, but the apparition vanishes on closer approach. A
lighthouse crowns the rock, and the bay of St. Aubin spreads a grand
crescent of smiling shores, in the centre of which is Elizabeth Castle,
standing on a lofty insulated rock whose jagged pinnacles are reared in
grotesque array around the battlements. Within the bay is a safe harbor,
with the villages of St. Helier and St. Aubin on the shores. Here is the
hermitage once occupied by Jersey's patron saint Elericus, and an abbey
dedicated to him anciently occupied the site of the castle. The
impregnable works of the great Regent Fort are upon a precipitous hill
commanding the harbor and castle. Upon the eastern side of the island is
another huge fortress, called the castle of Mont Orgueil, upon a lofty
conical rock forming the northern headland of Grouville Bay. The apex of
the mountain shoots up in the centre of the fortifications as high as
the flagstaff which is planted upon them. Here lived Charles II. when in
exile, and this is the most interesting part of Jersey, historically. A
part of the fortifications is said to date from Caesar's incursion into
Gaul, and the Romans in honor of their leader called the island Caesarea,
describing it at that time as a stronghold of the Druids, of whose
worship many monuments remain. It was first attached to the British
Crown at the Norman Conquest, and, though the French in the many wars
since then have sent frequent expeditions against the island, they have
never been able to hold it. The Channel Islands altogether cover about
seventy-five square miles. Alderney, which is within seven miles of the
French coast, now has an extensive harbor of refuge. Guernsey contains
the remains of two Norman castles--one almost entirely gone, and the
other called Ivy Castle, from its ruins being mantled with shrubbery.
Its great defensive work, Fort George, built in the last century, stands
in a commanding position and is of enormous strength. Upon a rocky islet
off St. Peter's Port is the chief defensive fort of that harbor, located
about a mile to seaward--Castle Cornet, a work of venerable antiquity,
parts of which were built by the Romans. In 1672, Viscount Christopher
Hatton was governor of Guernsey, and was blown up with his family in
Castle Cornet, the powder-magazine being struck by lightning at
midnight. He was in bed, was blown out of the window, and lay for some
time on the ramparts unhurt. Most of the family and attendants perished,
but his infant daughter Anne was found next day alive, and sleeping in
her cradle under a beam in the ruins, uninjured by the explosion. She
lived to marry the Earl of Winchelsea and have thirty children, of whom
thirteen survived her.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE DEVIL'S HOLE, NEAR CORBIERE, JERSEY.]