CHAPTER XL THE SCILLY ISLES: ST. MARY'S, FRENCH CRABBERS, GARDENS, TRESCO, PIPER'S HOLE IT T is well not to visit the Isles of Scilly with any preconceived ideas either of their beauty or of their grandeur. To do so is to invite disappointment. There are many places more beautiful. There are many islands elsewhere grander, for the highest land of the Scillies is only 160 or 200 feet above sea-level. Superlatives of any kind are out of place when talking of these islands. They are not the "most" or the -est" in any respect. But if the tourist desires to visit a set of islands framed in a sapphire sea which will quietly, almost imperceptibly, grow in his affections and take a lasting hold on his imagination—such a traveller may safely be recommended to take the four hours' sea trip from Penzance, and I venture to say he will not be disappointed. 66 I left Penzance at 11.15 a.m. and arrived at Hugh Town, St. Mary's (the largest island), at 3.15. The steamer, called the Lyonnesse, is certainly not the best passenger-boat I have travelled in, for her rolling powers are immense, and sea-sickness on her more prevalent than I have ever observed before even on steamers half her size. If the Scilly Isles desire an influx of visitors they will require another steamer to ply to and from Penzance-but perhaps they do not. At any rate, from what one hears there, the Governor of the islands does not seem to encourage trippers. He is a man that will stand no nonsense, which is exemplified by the notice one reads on the steamer that the birds are strictly protected, and that visitors are only allowed to remain a certain time (an hour I think it is) on the uninhabited islands. This notice, no doubt necessary, has a certain damping effect on anticipatory imagination. After leaving Penzance the steamer hugs the shore close enough to enable good views of Newlyn, Mousehole, St. Clement's Island, Lamorna, the Logan Rock promontory, and Land's End to be seen. The bell-buoy (marking the dangerous reef called the Runnel Stone) will be heard if there be the slightest sea running, and at Land's End the steamer heads straight away for the islands, twenty-five miles distant. Five of the islands are inhabited, namely, St. Mary's, Tresco, St. Martin, St. Agnes, and Bryher, and there are about thirty small ones and rocks, inhabited by swarms of sea-birds. The population is about 2000, of whom 1300 are on St. Mary's, the balance being spread over the other four. It follows that the boat in the Scilly Isles takes the place of cab and omnibus, and those who are not disposed to trust themselves in that form of conveyance had best avoid the archipelago. Everyone can sail a boat here, it is the usual-nay, sole-mode of communication between the islands. Men, women, maidens, and even children are, in the Scilly Isles, boatmen and boatwomen. On the day I crossed the steamer took the southern route round St. Mary's, and running in close to land, we had fine views of the Giants' Castle, the strange Pulpit Rock, the Monk's Cowl, Peninnas Head, and the elaborate fortifications all round the five-sided peninsula which is affixed to the remainder of the island by a flat isthmus on which is Hugh Town. These most expensive fortifications, which I went over later, are now dismantled, and left to become dilapidated in the course of time. Why they were ever built if they were not wanted is one of those mysteries concerning the waste of public money, by the hundreds of thousands of pounds, which are incomprehensible. When I made their acquaintance I saw concrete walls miles in length, platforms for guns, expensive iron railings, massive houses, some sunk at vast cost below the level of the ground, barbed-wire entanglements, and a heap of military preparations all abandoned. Actually, some of the most costly structures had been nearly completed, not quite, and then left to decay! A visit to the Scillies impresses one deeply and painfully with the inefficiency and want of business forethought shown by those at the head of our military spending departments. FRENCH CRABBERS 401 To the mere outsider like myself it seems ridiculous to suppose for one moment that an enemy would allow her ships to pass under fortifications of this kind, when they could just as readily come round the other side of the island. But why should any enemy want to take Hugh Town or St. Mary's? I cannot conceive that the possession of the island would help an enemy of ours to conquer England. I should imagine that a hostile power would naturally land troops where we had no elaborate fortifications and big guns. The unprotected parts of our shores are surely more vulnerable than the protected. Spending money in fixed, local, costly fortifications in these scientific days of 25-knot steamers and aëroplanes is about as absurd a method of defence as were the martello towers. The burglar never attempts to enter the house by the front door, which is religiously bolted top and bottom each night, key turned in lock, and chain put up. He avoids that well-defended and obvious entrance, and instead enters easily at the unobtrusive kitchen window by the simple aid of a putty-knife. Upon turning the corner after passing these scenes of desolation, the steamer at once enters what looks like an enormous landlocked harbour, with low hills all round. In reality this roadstead is bounded on the north by Tresco and Bryher, on the west by Samson, and on the east, to which the ship turns, by St. Mary's. And here let me at once say that the visitor in search of absolute reposeful quietness gets it in the Scillies. He will see no omnibuses or cabs. He will hear no railway whistles or grind of trams. No factories will mar any sense of beauty he may possess; no gasworks offend his olfactory nerves. Close to Hugh Town I saw some fifty or sixty French crabbers, which had put in to get provisions and collect lobsters and crayfish. The latter crustacean is much sought after and relished in France, where it fetches more money than the lobster. According to what one hears on the spot, these French boats are not at all particular about crabbing within the three-mile limit. They not only run in and empty the pots of the local fishermen, but often take away the pots as well as the contents. On the Sunday before I arrived a French crabber had lifted eighteen pots belonging to one man, and on the Monday when the owner visited them he found them rebaited with bait he had not put in. Just before I visited the island one of these French pirates was fined £5, a sum which my informant said was absolutely absurd if the punishment be intended to stop the practice. If an English boat is caught in French waters playing similar tricks, she is usually fined about £100, and has her boat and gear also confiscated. This French crabbing business is a sore point with Scilly islanders. The French crabber-men come ashore, and I saw many of them walking about. They are most orderly and well conducted in every way, and no one has a word to say against them on shore. In the main street I observed that Avis" was actually printed above the "Notice" concerning the obtaining of fresh water by fishermen. This ascendency of French over English shows that, apart from the illicit crabbing business, no feeling of acrimony exists between the two nations at Scilly. French schooners also pay frequent visits to the islands to buy from the local crabbers lobsters and crayfish, which are kept alive in a large tank in the centre of the vessel having free access to the sea, and so taken to France. These vessels are most welcome, as a better price for crayfish is obtained than from the English buyers. To the majority of visitors to the Scilly Isles the gardens there to be seen in perfection are the chief attraction. They are the magnet which draws the majority of the visitors from the mainland. And those who love gardens are in the best of good company. The noblest, sanest, and best of men, all the great poets and gentlewomen in every age have loved the seclusion and delightful privacy of a garden, where the boundless treasures of Nature have been gathered together for their pleasure, delight, and maybe solace. 66 Bacon so loved a garden that he called it “the greatest of humane pleasures"; Cowley was of opinion that nobody possesses" more private happiness" than in a garden; Addison looked upon the pleasure which we take in a Garden, as one of the most innocent delights in human Life"; Cowper just loved to "sit with all the windows and the door wide open to be " regaled with the scent of every flower in a garden as full of flowers as I have known IN PRAISE OF GARDENS 403 how to make it "; Prince de Ligne would "like to inflame the whole world with "his" taste for gardens," which he says it is impossible for an evil doer to share, and then he tells fathers to " instil into your children the garden-mania. They will grow up the better for it, let other arts be only studied to heighten the beauty of the one I advocate"; and to the same purport might be quoted Gibbon, Schiller, Beckford, Rogers, Richter, Charles Lamb, Shelley, and a whole host of more modern writers and thinkers. It may be that among wealthy men, yachts, motors, balloons, and aëroplanes make horticultural tastes and the study of trees and plants sink into insignificance, and even among the less wealthy there is more use for bouquets and garlands than for parks and gardens; but among the rest or the great bulk of mankind the love of gardens is a deeply planted instinct, probably hereditary, and the most powerful of all inclinations. Gardens were, we should remember, before gardeners, and but some hours after the earth. "Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps ; Perennial pleasures plants and wholesome harvest reaps." Children delight in gardens, and though we are estranged from the cultivation of plants by the active duties of life, yet after the turmoil and heat of the day we naturally recur to a garden as to an old and cheerful friend we have for years neglected, but never forgotten. For are not our earliest recollections in childhood associated with the garden? "The Lord God planted a garden In the first white days of the world, "So near to the peace of heaven, The hawk might rest with the wren, "And I dream that these garden-closes, "The kiss of the sun for pardon- One is nearer God's heart in a garden |