The Cornwall Coast

by Arthur L. Salmon

THE SCILLY ISLANDS

Geologically, we are still on the mainland when we reach the isles of Scilly; they belong to the axis of the Cornish peninsula, and are in what may still be called, comparatively, the narrow seas. The hundred-fathom line lies far beyond them; these waters, though thoroughly oceanic in character, are not oceanic in depth. We may regard the islands as the last upward thrust of the granitic backbone that runs, at a diminishing gradient, from Dartmoor to Land's End, while the submarine plateau follows a similar gradient. Structurally, therefore, these isles are a continuation of Land's End, but the granite has become less consistent and more friable; it is largely broken into felspar, quartz, and mica, with schorl, chlorite, and hornblende. No great elevation is attained—nothing above 160 feet; the grandeur of the coasts, which certainly does not equal that of North Cornwall, consists in their rugged wildness and the fantastic weathering of their crags. Contorted formations, logans and rock-basins, reveal the decomposition of softer measures that has been proceeding for ages. The isles lie about 27 miles west of Land's End, but the journey from Penzance to St. Mary's is about 40 miles, and the small steamers that make the passage usually take about four hours. More often than not this passage is an uncomfortable one; the islands stand in the ocean gateway of the two Channels, and they catch whatever is going in the way of sea, while of course winds play upon them with unbroken force. It is rather surprising that their strategic importance should be neglected by the Government. There was indeed some talk of forming a naval base here, but the scheme seems to have been abandoned; yet a station with extensive harbourage could be planned without vast cost, and would be a dominant factor in controlling the navigation of the English Channel. During the Franco-German War, when the navy of Germany was much less powerful than that of France, Germany made considerable use of the Scillies as a neutral port for the convenience of vessels making the Channel; and a time may easily come when a naval base here would be of untold advantage to Great Britain, as its absence might become a positive disaster.

Photo by][Gibson & Sons.

The archipelago occupies an area of about 30 square miles, the isles, reckoning many that are mere fragments of rock, numbering about two hundred; the principal of which range in size from the 1,600 acres of St. Mary's to the five acres of Little Ganniley. St. Mary's is about three miles long and two in breadth, with a circumference of nine miles and a population of about 1,500—about three-quarters of the entire population. It contains the capital, Hugh Town, which is more often simply styled St. Mary's, and which stands chiefly on a neck of land that appears to be rather perilously threatened by the sea. Four other islands are inhabited—Tresco, St. Martin's, St. Agnes, and Bryher; they are all considerably smaller. The first to come into definite view from a vessel making the isles is St. Martin's, with its day-mark standing at a height of about 160 feet.

It must be confessed that, for their beauty, the islands depend very largely on sunshine and atmospheric effect; without the sun they can become very dreary. Meteorologic figures prove that the average summer temperature is only 58° Fahrenheit and the winter about 45°; so that there is little oppressive heat, and frost is very rare. But in spite of these figures the islands can become sultry under a blaze of sunshine; and in winter the winds are sometimes piercingly keen. No trees will grow unless protected from this wind; yet the tropical vegetation that flourishes in the open air conclusively proves the remarkable equability of the climate; while rainfall, which is seldom excessive, is quickly absorbed or evaporated. To the lover of history, legend, and romance the Scillies are a rich mine of treasure, and their inaccessibility keeps them immune from the spoiling tendencies of fashion. At one time this inaccessibility was far greater, and only those came to Scilly who had business there. It is claimed by tradition that these islets are a portion of the lost land of Lyonesse, the old-world haunt of Arthur and Tristram—a land of villages, pastures, smiling vales, now buried beneath the waves. Persons sometimes apply the name of Lyonesse to the whole of Cornwall, but this is a mistake; the true Lyonesse of legend was a tract of country lying to the south-west of Land's End, which we may connect, racially or otherwise, with the Leon of Brittany. There are many traces of submerged forest in Mount's Bay and elsewhere along the southern coast; and the old Cornish name of St. Michael's Mount represents that rock as having once stood in the centre of woodland. It is impossible to say when or how the Scillies first became insular, whether by sudden cataclysm or by gradual erosion; the latter seems more likely, but tradition has preferred to speak of a sudden catastrophe, such as that which is supposed to have overwhelmed Cardigan Bay. There is a story which says that a member of the Trevilian family was only saved from the inrush of waters by the speed of his horse, which struggled inland from the pursuing waves, reaching a rocky cleft on the shore at Perranuthnoe. It is possible that slow erosion may have paved the way to some such immediate disaster, such as that caused by a great storm in 1099, when, according to the Saxon Chronicle, many villages and churches were swept away. It was this storm, accompanied perhaps by a tidal wave, that converted the estates of Earl Godwin into the dreaded Goodwin Sands; and it may have caused tremendous damage, not definitely recorded, in the West. But another tradition attributes the formation of the islands to magic. It was said, by those who placed Arthur's last great battle in the West of England, that, after the fight was over, the triumphant Mordred chased the King's despairing followers to the extreme limits of Lyonesse, where they lay "between the devil and the deep sea," like the Israelites pursued by Pharaoh. The cruel Mordred was close at their heels, rejoicing in the prospect of exterminating the last remnant of Arthur's Round Table, when suddenly the wizard Merlin appeared in his path. The magician raised his hand and summoned the elements to his aid. The earth began to heave and the rocks to split; waters came rushing into immense fissures and yawning chasms. Mordred and his men turned back horror-stricken, attempting to flee from this upheaval of nature; but the ocean was too quick for them. Where there had been smiling acres of pasture and tillage, valley and moorland, waves were now seething and foaming; there was no refuge to the east or to the west; the breakers overtook them on all sides. But while they were thus overwhelmed in the ruin of Lyonesse, the followers of Arthur stood on land that had been spared. This far-west cluster of hill-summits had been changed into a group of islets; and in this home of refuge that was miraculously left to them, the fugitives settled into peaceful residence, building houses and churches. Such, the story says, is the ancestry of the Scillonians.

All this belongs to the region of romance; history knows nothing of it. Even the name of Scilly is a puzzle, though perhaps the best authorities think that it derives from the widespread tribe of the Silures. Strictly speaking, the name Scilly only attaches to one small islet lying off Bryher, but somehow it has affixed itself to the whole group. Many derive it from silya or selli, meaning conger-eels, a favourite Cornish dish; others suggest the Celtic sulleh, or "sun-rocks," denoting the old sun-worship. It is interesting to note that there is a Sully isle lying off Glamorgan, south of Cardiff, and there may have been some connection between the two names, for Scilly was sometimes spelt Sully; there is also a Scilly in Ireland. The Romans usually called the islands Sillinæ, but Sulpicius Severus used the form Sylinancis, which Sir John Rhys associates with the Silulanus of an inscribed stone at Lydney. Another name was Silura; Richard of Cirencester wrote of the Sygdilles, "also denominated the Œstromenides and Cassiterides"; the Danes spoke of the Syllingar; and in French charts the isles are "les Sorlingues." The whole question is very difficult, and this is hardly the place in which to discuss it. It is almost certain that the isles cannot have been the Cassiterides, or tin-islands; they present only slight traces of tin-working, and it is far from likely that the tin-workers of Cornwall would have shipped their metal to this isolated spot in order to find a market with foreign traders. It is more probable that the name of Tin Islands was applied by the ancients to the British Isles in general, whose number and extent were little known in those days. Rome seems to have used the isles as a place of banishment and penal settlement, and in days of early Christianity two heretical bishops were exiled here. Early in the tenth century Athelstan made a progress through Cornwall, ostensibly to conquer it as a part of Wessex; and when he reached the high land near the present St. Buryan it is said that he sighted these islands in the distance and was not content till he had visited them. He vowed to build a church on the spot where he then stood if he returned safely from the expedition. The church of St. Buryan stands as a memorial of his fulfilled vow. On the isles themselves he is said to have founded Tresco Abbey, dedicated to St. Nicholas, which became a wealthy religious establishment, though now only a few fragments remain. Later in the same century King Olaf of Norway came hither during one of the marauding cruises that made him a terror of the British shores. It is related that a hermit living at St. Mary's gave him timely warning of a mutiny among his seamen; Olaf crushed the mutiny, but received a severe wound. He was carried to the monastery at Tresco, and consented to be baptized; after which he became a saint himself, and churches were dedicated to him—there is one such at Exeter. Longfellow has told us of

"His cruisings o'er the seas,
Westward to the Hebrides,
And to Scilly's rocky shore;"

and he was probably not the only Norse Viking whose keel touched here. Other saints have left their mark on Scilly: Samson of Glamorgan came hither, about the middle of the sixth century, after founding a church near Fowey; he is the same Samson that we find at Guernsey, who afterwards became Bishop of Dol. The island that bears his name, rendered familiar to many delighted readers by Besant's Armorel of Lyonesse, is no longer inhabited, but bears many marks of its former population. Traces of old habitation abound; there are many barrows and one perfect kistvaen. Among other saints, Teilo seems to have been at St. Helen's. St. Agnes, like the parish so named on the mainland, is almost certainly a dedication to the Celtic Ann. It was natural that Tresco should become the ecclesiastical centre of Scilly. The abbey and all the churches of the islands were granted by Henry I. to the monks of Tavistock; at the Dissolution the abbey reverted to the Crown, and passed to the Godolphins, whose name survives at Dolphin Town. It is likely that the private history of the isles was romantic and exciting enough, but there is little to record until the days of the Civil War, when they became a last refuge of the fugitive Charles II. before his escape to France. In the meantime the Governor, Sir John Grenville, had fortified the isles and held them for the King; they became a centre of active privateering. The Royalist garrison did not limit themselves to attacking Parliamentary vessels; they molested Dutch shipping as well; so that the Admiral, Van Tromp, made an attack on them, but without result. It is said that he parleyed with Grenville, trying to induce that gallant soldier to yield Scilly into Dutch hands; but Grenville was too loyal an Englishman for such treachery—he would rather the Parliament took the isles than that they should become Dutch. It was with no disgrace that he was forced to yield, at last, to such worthy opponents as Blake and Sir George Ascue. In the days of our French wars, a century since, the islands were garrisoned, and became a port of supply for British ships, as well as a rendezvous for vessels waiting convoy. A great deal of smuggling was done here, and it has been said some wrecking; but, here as elsewhere in Cornwall, the lights that were thought to be exposed with such wicked intent were often merely meant as signals to those who were watching for an opportunity to run a cargo. There was little need indeed at Scilly for any artificial increase of wrecks; Nature did her part far too well in this particular, from the disaster to Sir Cloudesley Shovel to that of the Minnehaha in the present year. A small detachment of Royal Artillery and some engineers are stationed here. Beyond this, the islands are practically defenceless, except for the protection of their rough seas, fierce inter-channel currents, and the off-lying deadly fangs of rock.