On the summit of nearly every hill these desolate green barrows are to be seen, reminding us of that far mightier barrow, the “great and shapely mound” to Achilles, “raised on the high headland, so that it might be seen from afar by future generations of men.”

For long the islands have been identified with the Cassiterides, or tin-producing islands, mentioned by ancient writers. But there does not seem to be sufficient evidence to prove this indisputably, and experts are not satisfied that tin was ever worked in Scilly. Not only so, but they go farther, and prophesy that it never will be—in fact, to parody the Spanish proverb, that it would require a gold-mine to work a tin-mine in the islands!

There has been much heated controversy on this subject of late; but then, there were warm discussions concerning the tin trade as far back as the second century B.C., so what can be expected nowadays? When there are many different opinions, put forward by as many different writers, all learned and all firmly convinced that the “other fellow’s a fool,” what course is left for the unlearned multitude, after hearing all that has to be said, but to retain an “open mind” on the subject? To prove my open-mindedness, I will not omit to quote the story about the Cassiterides which has usually been taken to refer to the Islands of Scilly.

Strabo, who lived at the end of b.c. and the beginning of a.d., tells us that the inhabitants of the Cassiterides obtained from their mines tin and lead, which they used to barter for earthen vessels, salt, and instruments of brass; that the Phœnicians found commerce with them so lucrative that they kept it a secret from all the world, but the Romans sent vessels to follow a trader on his voyage. To deceive them, he ran his ship ashore elsewhere, and the whole crew nearly perished. For this public-spirited act he was rewarded from the common treasury, besides receiving the value of his lost ship and cargo.

But, according to Strabo, the Romans found out the trade at last. Publius Crassus (whoever he may have been) sailed across to the islands, ascertained that tin was near the surface, and indicated the route for the benefit of traders, “although the passage was longer than that to Britain.”

If we do not admit the identity of Scilly with the Cassiterides, we have no proof that the Romans had dealings with the islands before their occupation of Britain.

The origin of the name “Scilly” is wrapped about with mystery. Not that there is any lack of suggestions; on the contrary, there is such a plethora of them that one feels no “forrader” after having heard them all.

One learned writer says with confidence, “The islands take their name from the old Silurian inhabitants to whom they served as a last refuge.” Other ideas are that the name is derived from “Sulleh,” a British word meaning “rocks consecrated to the sun,” or from a Cornish word signifying “divided.”

The inhabitants themselves seem to favour most the notion that the conger-eels, locally called “selli,” have given their name to the islands.

There are other suggestions; but as to which of the many is the most probable we must leave antiquarians and topographers to fight it out between them, and when they are all agreed we may conclude we have arrived at a certainty of the truth; and that is, perhaps, only another way of saying that we shall never know!

Most of the names of places in Scilly are Cornish, but the principal islands were named after the saints to whom their churches were dedicated. Tresco was at one time called St. Nicholas, from the Benedictine Abbey which used to be there. The harbours of Old and New Grimsby on Tresco may, like their namesake in England, owe their name to the visits of the Northmen who were here in the tenth century.

The most common Cornish words found in the place-names of Scilly are:—

Bre, a hill, as in Bryher, formerly called Brefar.

Carn, a pile of rocks, as in Carn Friars, Carn Near, etc.

Creeb or Creb, a crest, as in Crebawethan, the Creeb Rocks, etc.

Innis, an island, as in Peninnis, Innisidgen, Iniscaw.

Men or Min, a rock, as in Menawethen, Menavawr, Mincarlo, etc.

Pen, a head, as in Peninnis.

Porth or Per, a bay, as in Porth Cressa, Permellin, Perconger, etc.

Scaw, an alder, as in Tresco, Iniscaw.

Tre, a homestead, as in Tresco, Trenemen.

Vear, great, as in Rosevear, Holvear.

Vean, little, as in Rosevean, Cove Vean.

Unfortunately, the islands have no coat-of-arms; but if they had, it ought to be all “or” and “azure”; for those are the “tinctures” that seem to represent them best. An azure sea lying under an azure sky; golden gorse and golden daffodils; rocks turned to gold in the sunlight, bordered with golden sand, or covered with golden lichen. Even the fishermen and farmers put on azure! especially those on St. Agnes, whose blue linen blouses are quite distinctive of the island.

VI
THE ISLAND-FOLK: THEIR WAYS AND CUSTOMS

HERE in Scilly, where so many of the place names are Celtic and there is certainly some Celtic blood, one would expect to find abundant traces of folk-lore and superstition. But these are very few, and any that remain are fast dying out.

The people have been educated out of any old fancies they may have had, for education, as is well known, has a way of killing imagination. If it would but kill only the hurtful superstitions, and leave the wayward play of fancy, and the poetical way of looking at things!

It used to be said that once the fairies danced on Buzza Hill; but if so they must have fled when the windmill was built, for they have never been heard of since. And this is the only vestige of a fairy-tale that clings about the islands.

Just a few old fancies linger amongst the older folk. Thus, a cat lying in front of the fire with its tail turned to the north is said to be a sure sign of a gale of wind.

And there are weatherwise proverbs among the fishermen, such as

and “You may look for six weeks of weather in March” is a hit at the variable character of that month.

A few of the ancient customs also linger. Up to the last century the old feast known as Nikla Thies was still celebrated when the last load of grain was brought in, and they “used to dance and polka till all was blue, to the tune of ‘Buffalo Girls.’” But now hardly any grain is grown in the islands.

At Christmas there used to be the “goose-dancing” (i.e., “guise-dancing”) in masquerade, when “the maidens dressed up for young men, and the young men for maidens, and danced about the streets.” This custom is still kept up in a modified form.

Midsummer night was celebrated by the lighting of bonfires and the letting off of crackers. When the shipbuilding was in full swing there was abundance of material for amusement in this direction. Tar-barrels would be set afire and rolled blazing along the streets, and lighted torches swung round on chains, high above the heads of those who carried them.

The custom of going limpeting on Good Friday still exists, but more for the sake of the fun of securing the limpet before he glues himself tight than for the sake of eating him when cooked, as no amount of boiling could make him palatable.

“Tough and elastic, like a piece of india-rubber, and if you don’t mind, when you’re trying to bite it, it will fly back in your face and give you a black eye.” So limpet-eating was described to me by one who had tried.

The crowning of the May Queen, which takes place every May Day, is a very old custom in Scilly. The May-pole is now set up in the “Park” of Hugh Town, and the children dance round it dressed in white and garlanded with flowers.

There are still people who seem to think that the Scillies are almost desert islands, where it is not easy to obtain good food and lodging. But this is very far from the truth, for in Hugh Town there are two comfortable hotels—Tregarthen’s, with its garden of tropical plants, at the foot of Garrison Hill; and Holgate’s, overlooking St. Mary’s Pool, at the other end of the town. There are besides a number of good boarding-houses, and “apartments to let,” and one can also stay at some of the flower-farms.

G. H. Lewes writes amusingly of his experiences in the matter of food in 1857:—

“Beef is obtainable, by forethought and stratagem, but mutton is a myth. Poultry, too, may be had—at Penzance; and fish—when the weather is calm, which it never is at this season. But market there is none.

“Twice a week a vegetable-cart from ‘the country’ (which means a mile and a half distance) slowly traverses the town, and if you like to gather round it, as the cats and dogs do round the London cat’s-meat man, you may stock yourself with vegetables for three days.”

His landlady appeared to think him most unreasonable because he objected to doing without meat for an entire day.

“Spiritually-minded persons, indifferent to mutton, may disregard this carnal inconvenience, and take refuge in the more ideal elements of picturesqueness, solitude, and simplicity; and I cannot say that the inconvenience weighed heavily in the scale against the charms of Scilly—the more so as an enlarged experience proved the case not to be quite so bad as it seemed at first.”

Nowadays things are very different; but still if you decide to board yourself, “forethought” if not “stratagem” is required for obtaining meat, which in part comes from Penzance, and is exhibited for sale on the ground-floor of the Town Hall—the only “butcher’s shop.” Once in the fishing season I followed a group of Lowestoft fishermen all the way down the street, and could tell from their talk that they were in search of the butcher’s. “Not one in the whole blessed place!” I heard them say in astonishment, which was not lessened when they were presently directed to the Town Hall.

In Woodley’s time the “gentry” used to bespeak the different portions of an animal before it was killed, so that the farmer was insured against risk; just as nowadays in Egypt the would-be purchaser of camel-flesh will chalk out in white his private mark, on neck or thigh or shoulder, of the living beast, to show which is the joint he desires to have when it has become meat.

Fresh fish is to be had when there has been a good catch, and is hawked round in sixpenny strings. Milk and new-laid eggs seem to be obtainable to any extent. Cornish cream, alas! with the advent of the separator, is threatening to disappear.

I must not forget to mention one article of food which shows decided originality—a twopenny loaf of bread, one half of which is brown and the other half white!

In the old days the people lived almost entirely on scads (i.e., horse-mackerel), dried and salted, and potatoes; and this gave rise to the couplet—

There is a story that a pilot was once asked “What is the population of Scilly?” Now this was before the days of compulsory education, and he had not the faintest idea what “population” meant; but he was not going to confess ignorance to a stranger, so he made a random shot at the meaning, and replied, “Scads and tates, sir!”

To this day there are islanders who say they would not exchange a good conger-pie for a round of beef, and who regret that scads are no longer caught. They are rich, oily fish, and used to be caught in great quantities in the Cove of St. Agnes, which was hauled in turn by the inhabitants of St. Mary’s, St. Agnes, and Bryher, while the men of St. Martin’s and Tresco would spread their seines out amongst the eastern islands. Ling and conger were also caught, and dried on the stone hedges, or salted for winter use.

When smuggling was rife in the islands, intemperance was common; but nowadays things are changed for the better. This is in spite of the fact that no licences are required for selling beer and spirits. Anybody who likes may keep an inn, with the permission of the Governor. The same rule applies to the keeping of dogs, carriages, and men-servants, the selling of tobacco, and the carrying of a gun: licence duties do not exist.

No notes on Scilly would be complete if they failed to take account of the character of the people, for their kindness, courtesy, and ready good-humour add much to the attraction of the islands. Tribute has been paid to them by many an old writer, and so far as I can learn, by report and by experience, everything that has been said in their praise is true to this day.

“I doubt not,” writes Heath, “but every stranger that visits the islands will see honour, justice, and every social virtue exercised among the inhabitants ... though there is never a lawyer and but one clergyman in all the islands.”

Troutbeck quotes this sentence fifty years later (but without a word of acknowledgment, as is his way), merely changing “one” clergyman to “two,” to suit the altered times. He says elsewhere, “The present islanders are commonly civil to strangers.” It would be quite as true to say they are uncommonly civil!

Doctor Borlase in 1752 speaks of “the civility natural to these islanders,” and Woodley tells the same story.

Then there is the testimony of G. H. Lewes in 1857: “Not an approach to rudeness or coarseness have I seen anywhere.”

Woodley most unreasonably accuses them of curiosity, but what respect should we have for the members of any small community who did not take a friendly interest in each other’s concerns? I am quite sure that by the time Woodley had finished collecting material for his book of 338 pages he must himself have acquired a terrible character for asking questions!

The desire for local bits of news must have been very much fostered in the islands by the difficulty there used to be in obtaining any from the outside world. It is said that Queen Elizabeth had ascended the throne for several months before the news of the death of Queen Mary arrived in Scilly! Nowadays the telegraph keeps them well in touch with everything that is going on, and acquaints them with the state of the markets for their produce.

I think the most prominent trait in the Scillonian character is a cheerful kindliness of disposition, which makes the visitor feel on his first arrival he is welcome, and soon makes him feel quite at home. This kindliness is shown in many little ways, even when there would be much excuse for contrary behaviour. A visitor and his wife were once trying to scale a stone hedge—with no evil intent, but all the same it was trespassing. An islander who was working in the field, instead of stopping them, offered to take off the top stones of the wall, “to make it easier for the lady,” and to replace them when they were safely over. That is true Scillonian courtesy!

I have seen a tourist rush with his camera through a field of daffodils, crying to the owner and his men, “Please keep on picking and take no notice of me!” And they have done it, when anywhere else he would have been requested, either politely or forcibly, to keep to the footpath.

Another characteristic is the delightful Celtic leisureliness. One kindly housewife only voiced the general feeling when she said, “Where’s the need of hurry? What is not done to-day will be done to-morrow.” We had sought shelter in her cottage from the torrents of rain and were terribly interrupting her spring-cleaning; yet she not only insisted on drying our clothes, but came and entertained us in her best parlour with stories of the wrecks, and soothed our scruples with the words I have quoted.

An American girl-visitor once noticed this trait. “You haven’t learnt to hustle here,” said she to her boatman. “If the islands belonged to us we’d soon make things spin.”

“Could you hustle the tide in and out?” was the quietly humorous retort. “Or could you hustle the fish into the nets, and the lobsters into the pots?” And what a blessing it is that Nature cannot be hustled, but will take her own time over her own work, however much money-grubbing man may try to hurry her up: it is but little he can do, with all his forcing-houses and schemes for premature development!

Scillonians have no lack of humour—that saving sense of humour which helps one over the roughnesses of life, little and big, and turns each tumble on life’s journey into an occasion for a smile at one’s own expense.

There are no “yokels” or “boors” in Scilly, such as one meets in parts of rural England, who are rude or tongue-tied if one asks them a simple question. They have a delightful way here of saying “Please?” with a special intonation, if you say something to them which they do not quite hear or understand. It sounds very pretty from the little children.

The children, on the whole, are quite charming and very friendly without being rude or troublesome. They used to crowd round sometimes when I was painting, but they never got in the way. Occasionally they would plant themselves in the middle distance under the impression that my eye was like a photographic lens, and that so long as they came within the field of vision they must infallibly appear in the picture!

In the spring they make chains and garlands of daffodils and narcissi, with which they deck themselves: for to them these are the commonest of common flowers, and on a par with buttercups and daisies.

Honesty may almost be taken for granted in the islands. Heath’s statement is still true: “There are no robbers, housebreakers, or highwaymen.” For there is no real poverty, and no one who has not got a character to lose. Once when visiting St. Agnes we were advised to leave our luggage by a lonely road-side while we went round to look for rooms. “We are all honest people on St. Agnes,” they told us, “so it will be quite safe.” And so it was.

They have been accused by one or two writers of being grasping and exorbitant in their charges, and altogether too fond of money; but I can only say that I have never seen the slightest sign of this, and I have had strong evidence to the contrary. But I have been told that if you rub them up very much the wrong way they will take it out of you by raising their charges.

“Neatness of dress,” says Woodley, “particularly on the Sabbath day, is in many instances carried to an extreme, especially amongst the younger females.” And he describes how those who on one day have been scrambling, shoeless and stockingless, over the rocks, gathering and drying ore-weed for kelp, may be seen on the next day dressed in white, with straw hats and flying ribbons. I have always thought that neatness of dress had no extreme, but represented the Aristotelian mean between slovenliness and excess of finery! So in my eyes this statement is one of unmixed praise. A local wag once made a hit at this excessive love of “neatness” by parodying the lines I have quoted above. He chalked up on the pier:—

The days of scads and tates and scrambling for seaweed have now been long past; but prosperity does not seem to have spoilt the islanders any more than adversity. They keep their simplicity, and kindliness, and freedom from vulgar display.

There is a delightful spirit of toleration in the little islands amongst the members of the different religious denominations. Those represented are Church of England, Wesleyan, and Bible Christian, with a sprinkling of Plymouth Brethren. But all those who profess and call themselves Christians seem to have learnt better than their fellows on the mainland the art of sinking their religious differences.

A simple and kindly soul, whose acquaintance I made, gave homely expression to the feeling which seems to be general; and I will repeat the words as nearly as possible as I heard them:—

“This is the way I looks at it. Heaven is like that Castle on the hill; there’s a many ways of getting there, and no two of us will ever go quite the same way. Why, to begin with, we don’t start from the same point.

“But this much I do know: you won’t get there any sooner by throwing brick-bats at your neighbour who’s coming along another road; and if you begin to do that, you may be pretty certain you’re off the track yourself.

“If only we’d all take hold on Christ and follow close to Him, we shouldn’t go far wrong then; and we’d be so busy loving our neighbour we’d quite forget he didn’t think just the same as us.

“I’m a Church-body myself; I was born a Church-body, and I mean to remain one till I die; but I don’t see that’s any reason for thinking hard things of the chapel-folk just because they likes to go to heaven another way.”

A crude confession of faith, do I hear you say? But you will admit that through it breathes a spirit of love and kindliness. And more—that it embodies, in homely words, a great spiritual truth; for is it not only by many different ways, and yet by the one Way, that we can all arrive at our goal?

The islands were for many years, as we have seen, under the abbots of Tavistock, who held spiritual jurisdiction under the bishops of Exeter. But not a single bishop ever set foot on them until 1831!

In a letter written by John Grandison, Bishop of Exeter, to the Pope, in the reign of Edward III., he says that no bishops in person ever visited these islands, but were wont to depute friars for that purpose.

Bishop Phillpotts of Exeter came in 1831, and again in 1838 to consecrate the new church on St. Mary’s. The islands since then have come under the diocese of Truro.

Troutbeck, writing of St. Mary’s in 1794, says: “The clergyman who officiates has neither institution nor induction to this benefice, nor visitation nor a licence from the Bishop of Exeter, but holds his preferment at the will of his patron, the Lord-proprietor. Formerly he was the only clergyman upon the islands; and children were brought from the off-islands to be baptized, often at the risk of their lives; but as the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has sent an assistant minister who resides at Tresco, and visits all the off-islands occasionally in fine weather, the inhabitants are not only benefited by his instructions and exemplary conversation, but freed from the inconveniences under which they formerly laboured.”

The other off-island churches were only supplied by native fishermen, who were appointed by the agent to read prayers and sermons agreeable to the doctrines of the Church of England.

Bryher is now the only inhabited island on which there is no resident clergyman; but a service is held every Sunday afternoon, and one evening during the week by the clergyman from Tresco. On Sunday mornings and evenings there is a service in the chapel, conducted by one of the fishermen-farmers, at which, I was told, Spurgeon’s sermons are read. “We’ve been having them forty years, and we aren’t tired of them yet.”

I inquired whether the attendance was greater at the church or at the chapel.

“Well, you see, it’s like this: the people as goes to church is the people as goes to chapel; and the people as don’t go to both don’t go anywhere at all. Church and chapel aren’t ever open at the same time, so there’s no rivalry.”

We once told a little girl on St. Agnes we were going to see the church. “Oh, but you must go and see the chapel too,” said she. I fear she would think it mere blind prejudice on my part that I have included views of two churches in this series, and not a single chapel!

Woodley writes that in his day the people would repair to the meeting-house in the morning, to church in the forenoon and afternoon, and again to the meeting in the evening.

Tresco is the only inhabited island on which there is no chapel. For many years the chapel-meetings were held every Sunday afternoon in the Church-room, with the approval of the Bishop of Truro, as well as of Mr. Augustus Smith, the Governor, who gave his consent willingly on condition that those who attended should be regular at Church in the morning and evening. The Plymouth Brethren now meet there in each other’s cottages.

John Wesley visited the islands in 1743. His followers have a large chapel and a resident minister at Hugh Town, and meeting-houses at Old Town and Holy Vale.

The Bible Christians have chapels on St. Mary’s, St. Martin’s, and St. Agnes, and three ministers, who do duty on each island in turn.

VII
STORIES OF THE WRECKS

SCILLONIANS revel in a wreck, just as the soldier loves a battle and the fireman loves a fire. But theirs is a happier case than the soldier’s, for their duty calls them to save life instead of to destroy it.

I remember hearing of a girl near the Land’s End who had been describing a wreck and how she had taken the little babies from the arms of the rescuing seamen, and carried them up the shore, two at a time, to where they could be warmed and cared for. “A wreck is lovely,” said she; “I’d go miles to see one. Of course I’m very sorry for the poor people, but oh, I do love to be there when there’s a wreck!”

Here spake a true daughter of the sea, and the spirit that inspired her is the same that animates the brave fellows who man our life-boats. And it is the spirit of the Scillonians. The love of wrecks is in their island blood. Centuries of wrestling with the sea, and wresting from it the treasures it had stolen or was threatening to steal, have made this a part of their very nature. And how much better that it should be so; that the cry of “A wreck!” instead of inspiring them with horror and paralysing their efforts, should fill them with a kind of fearful joy, and nerve them to work wonders in saving life and property.

There is no need to say that to save human life is always their first consideration. If efforts in this direction are unsuccessful or only partially successful, a gloom falls over the islands, and the salvage-seeking loses much of its zest; but when all lives are saved the joy is unmixed, and no pity is wasted on the insurance companies, who are usually the chief sufferers.

There may or there may not be any truth in the stories that long years ago Scillonians used to show their love of wrecks by doing their best to cause them. Nowadays it is certainly true that they make every effort to prevent one when they get the chance. But it too often happens that the vessel is on the rocks before there is any consciousness of danger or signalling for help.

Now that the great sea-lights encircle the islands, and warn all vessels away from the danger-zone, it is seldom that any wrecks occur except during a continued fog. Fog was the cause of the great disaster in 1707, in which Sir Cloudesley Shovel lost his life, when four ships of the British fleet were wrecked on the western rocks. Fog, again, occasioned the loss of the “Schiller,” the German mail-steamer that struck on the Retarrier Ledges in 1875, and went down, with a death-roll of three hundred and ten. There are many who remember the terrible gloom that hung over the islands at that time, and the making of that sad array of nameless graves in the little burial-ground of Old Church.

And it was fog that caused the wreck of the “Minnehaha,” in April, 1910, when that great Atlantic liner, 600 feet long, and drawing six fathoms of water—the largest vessel that has ever been wrecked at Scilly—struck upon the Scilly rock. She was bound from New York to London, and for three days it had been quite impossible to take observations on account of fog. The look-out was searching eagerly for the “Bishop” light when suddenly rocks loomed up close to the vessel and the next moment she struck. The passengers, awakened by the shock, rushed on deck in great alarm, but being reassured by the captain, they went below again to dress. In a very short time boats arrived from Bryher, and the passengers, who were already in the ship’s boats, were safely piloted to that island, where they were treated with all possible kindness. Provisions ran short, but fresh supplies were fetched from the ship. So little inconvenience did the passengers suffer that some of them declared that the nicest way of arriving in England was to be wrecked! They could not speak highly enough of the way in which they were treated by every one—and of the care that was taken, not only of themselves but of their personal belongings, many of which had been left lying about in their cabins.

This was just the right kind of wreck, from the Scillonian point of view, for not a single life was lost, and there was a tremendous amount of salvage-work to be done in the weeks that followed. For further details I cannot do better than quote some letters I received from a friend who was there all the time.

“St. Mary’s, April 18th.

“The gun went last night or very early this morning. Of course I flew out of bed, and if it had not been for my landlady’s nerves I would have flown out of doors. The noise of the gun had hardly ceased to vibrate when men came out of the houses and began to run, and it has puzzled me ever since to know if the Scillonians sleep in their clothes, for they had them on, and how they got into them passes my comprehension.

“The life-boat I heard launched with a cheer about ten minutes after.

“It was a thick fog, and the boat, as you will see by the papers, is the ‘Minnehaha,’ with a crew of 100, 64 passengers, and 300 cattle. She struck on the Scilly Rock, near Bryher; and I believe everybody is safe on Bryher by now. They hope to float the vessel off at full tide. They have wired to Penzance for the ‘Lyonnesse’ to come and fetch the passengers, so I don’t think she will worry about such trifles as our mails to-day.

(Later the same day.)

“‘Wrecking’ is delightful work. I feel quite capable now of tying a lantern to a cow’s-horn. All morning I have been out in the damp fog, and all St. Mary’s also. The policeman had to shoo the children into the school.

“They are now landing the passengers’ luggage, and a cheer went down the quay on the arrival of a large teddy-bear. The purser of the vessel says they have been in fog three days. They struck just where the cocoanut vessel struck before.

“All the boats rushed across to the wreck this morning, but the captain stood with a pistol in his hand and dared the men to come on board. When the vessel is proclaimed hopeless there will be a rush—thousands of tons of cargo on board, and they are throwing heaps overboard to try and get her off, but the universal prayer is that they won’t, as it will be a harvest for Scilly. All the same, there is much sympathy with the captain.

(Later still.)

“The passengers have just arrived from Bryher, and considering they were wrecked whilst in their beds, they look intensely respectable. They were chaffing and joking as they came up from the quay. The crew also are here, and sleeping, I think, in the Town Hall. Everybody is half crazy with excitement. Tons of stuff are being thrown overboard, and grand pianos and motor-cars are floating in Hell Bay. (Nice for your sketch!)

“April 20th.

“Between one hundred and two hundred men have come over from the mainland to help with the salvage, and they are sleeping in the Town Hall, Church Hall, Rechabite Hall, etc. Most of the crew leave to-morrow; the passengers got off yesterday, and will have reached London last night.

“What with the custom-house officers, salvage men, and police it is very difficult to smuggle anything, and so far I have only managed a pencil, not from lack of zeal but from lack of opportunity. Motor-cars and grand pianos are towed in—in cases. I believe a grand piano loose is of a sulky nature when in the sea, and instead of allowing itself to be towed it does its best to settle down comfortably at the bottom, and takes the boat with it if the rope is not quickly cut—at least, that is one experience of which I was told. The boats arrive laden with everything under the sun—clocks, and food, and anti-pain tablets, squirts, dress-lengths, wheels, typewriters, sewing-machines, phonographs, boxes of jewellery, boxes of oranges, barrels of apples, pencils, meat-skewers, and lots of tobacco and cigarettes. The policeman is kept quite busy trying to puzzle out the contents of the different boxes. One lady has lost a £1,500 motor-car. They say the value of the cargo is greater than that of all Scilly and Penzance put together. It is all insured, but unfortunately the vessel is not.

“The cattle are on Samson. The poor dears had to leap off the wreck into the water—a height as great as from the top of the church tower. To-day one could see the vessel quite well from here; it was not so foggy. I am hoping to get out to her soon, but it would mean paying pounds at present, as the men are all so busy.

“I think most of the boys have been bad from smuggled cigarettes, and everybody is having a fine time.

“April 26th.

“I have just come in from the wreck; we went to Bryher this afternoon. The ‘Minnehaha’ is this side of the Scilly Rock, resting on a plateau of rock not far from Hell Bay. She does not look a bit as if she were wrecked. I believe they are putting bags of air under her in hopes of raising her to float her off on some high tide. The divers are at work, but many do not expect to get her off unless they cut her in halves. One diver landed on an old wreck—one that had struck on Scilly some time ago.

“There is indignation amongst the men, as they have only been offered £2 a head for the cattle they saved, and last time they had £5; and they say these are larger and were more difficult to save.

“Wrecking is still the only topic with everybody. The goods are now being taken out of the stores and shipped to London. There were twenty-six carts working on Saturday, and they stretched from the Post Office to the quay. Fifty tons of coffee was only one little item of salvage amongst many others.”

Later came the welcome news that the “Minnehaha” had been successfully floated off. The rock was cleverly blasted away from inside of her, and with the help of several tugs she got clear away. Finally, with the pumps going all the time, she was able to make the journey to Falmouth by her own steam-power.

Quite another kind of wreck was that of the “Thomas W. Lawson,” which occurred at Christmas-time in 1907, and made a great and painful sensation in the islands. She was a seven-masted sailing-vessel, one of the largest in the world. Her sails were named after the seven days of the week; they were worked by electricity, and could all be set in three minutes. Her anchor was also raised and lowered by electricity. She was bound for London from Boston, and carried a cargo of oil, many thousands of gallons of oil, in tanks.

There was a heavy gale blowing, and she signalled for a pilot to bring her into harbour. Pilot Hicks on St. Agnes was busy planting potatoes, but he threw down his spade at once, and went aboard of her. She was then out beyond Annet amongst the western rocks. A graphic description of what followed was given to us by an islander:—

“We stood at the door and watched her; we could see her lights still in the same place when we went to bed between ten and eleven o’clock, but in the morning she was gone. It is supposed she dragged her anchor in the night, or that the heavy seas broke both the anchor-chains. St. Mary’s life-boat had been out to her, but their mast was broken, so they went back to repair it. Otherwise they would have stayed by her all night, and would probably have sunk with her when she went down. It was agreed that a flare should be sent up from the vessel if help was wanted from St. Agnes during the night, but no signal came. The gale increased in fury, and the vessel went down, and the pilot and nearly all on board were drowned.

“When she was knocked to pieces on the rocks, the tanks of oil escaped from her hold and burst open. The oil floated upon the waves; we could see it washing up here on the shore. At first we could not think what it was—it made the water look black; but soon we learnt from the smell—in fact, we were almost driven away by the smell. They say if it had caught fire it would have cleared the islands, it would have been like a sea of fire, and the smoke would have suffocated all the islanders. As it was, many of the rabbits and birds on Annet were killed by the oil, and lay dead upon the shore.

“It was a horrible time. Everything seemed to reek of the oil. The very spray on the windows ran down in oily blue streaks for long after, and even now, when eighteen months have passed, we can still smell it at times.”

The pilot’s son went off in a boat with some hope of finding his father, and then swam through the boiling surf with a rope round him and succeeded in rescuing two men, the captain and the engineer. They had been washed all along the west coast of Annet to Hellweathers, where they were picked up. A third man was saved, but he lost his reason and died. All of them were simply saturated with the oil, besides being terribly beaten about, and with limbs broken.

The pilot’s son had two magnificent gold watches sent him from America—one from the President of the United States, and the other from the owners of the vessel; and he was also awarded a silver medal for his bravery.

Sometimes great risks are run in doing salvage work. In August, 1909, there was a thick sea-fog, which lasted from Friday night to Sunday morning, and stopped the “Lyonnesse” from sailing. A grain-boat lost her bearings and struck on Lethegus’ Ledge, off St. Agnes. The crew were all saved; but a man and a boy from Hugh Town who were at work on the cargo went down with the vessel when, without warning, she sank. If she had lasted a little longer, forty or fifty islanders would have been occupied in saving the bags of grain, and must infallibly have been drowned. This tragedy attached a sad import to the notice which was posted up on the warehouses for weeks afterwards—“Maize for sale.”

VIII
ANNET AND THE SEA-BIRDS

THE sea-birds are everywhere in Scilly. All the year round the gulls fill the air with their cries, and cormorants and shags skim the water and dive beneath its surface.

No “Scilly-scape,” if I may use the word, seems complete without a few gulls. We see them circling and wheeling high above us; dropping, suddenly, to rest upon the dancing waves; chasing each other in turn from the tops of the chimneys; sitting in rows on the ridges of the roofs; quarrelling for fish over St. Mary’s Pool; following the plough or harrow in greedy quest of worms; or standing stock-still on the rocks or sands, at equal distances from each other, and all primly facing the same way.

Herring-gulls, black-headed, and great and lesser black-backed are all plentiful.

The black-backed gulls are fierce and savage fellows. They will carry off young guillemots and kittiwakes in their powerful beaks when the parent-bird is out of the way, and kill and eat them; and they are ruthless robbers of eggs.

The great cormorant, or sea-crow (from the French of which latter name, “corbeau marin,” his ordinary name is taken) is not so common in Scilly as the smaller kind, the green or crested cormorant, or shag.

Shags may be seen in great numbers round the islands, swimming so low in the water that they look only like the tops of walking-sticks above the waves; and propelling their thin and keel-shaped bodies forward by using their wings as oars. Suddenly they disappear head first into the water, reappearing after what seems a very long time, in quite a different direction, and some distance away.

All cormorants are voracious (is not their very name a by-word for greed?), and they consume great quantities of fish, so they are no friend to the fisherman.

Shags are amongst the earliest breeders, and they are worth watching during their love-making, rubbing their snaky heads together and performing strange, ungainly antics. They make rough, untidy nests, with three or four eggs, on many of the uninhabited islands. If you go near them when they are sitting on their eggs, they will hiss at you like geese.