The Cornish Coast (South), and the Isles of Scilly

by Charles G. Harper

CHAPTER XVII
THE SCILLY ISLANDS—FLOWER-FARMING—THE INHABITED ISLANDS—ST. MARY'S—STAR CASTLE—SAMSON AND "ARMOREL OF LYONESSE"—SIR CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL—TRESCO—THE SEA-BIRDS.

The Isles of Scilly lie twenty-seven miles off the mainland and forty miles from Penzance, the nearest harbour from which you can voyage to that fortunate archipelago. It is possible in these days to reach St. Mary's, the capital of Scilly, in a little over sixteen hours from London, doing it luxuriously, as far as the railway portion of the journey is concerned, by taking the 9.50 p.m. train from Paddington, which arrives at Penzance terminus at 7.30 the next morning, leaving two and a half hours' rest before the steamer Lyonesse leaves for the islands, a voyage of about four hours. But this is suspiciously like toiling to get your pleasure, for night travel, however well-appointed, is tiring, and then you miss the scenery on the way. Upon this writer at least, the delights of the country, as seen framed in the carriage-windows of the flying express, never pall, and he who forgoes the daylight journey by the Great Western Railway misses much. The best method of reaching Scilly is therefore by taking the 10.30 a.m. restaurant car train ex Paddington, which delivers you upon Penzance platform at 5.5 p.m.; a railway journey of 305-1/4 miles, performed at the rate of nearly fifty miles an hour throughout.

The Lyonesse leaves Penzance at 10 a.m. Over that voyage of forty miserable miles—miserable or magnificent according to whether you are what is called a "good sailor" or not—I would like to draw a veil. Once the steamer has passed the Rundlestone and left the lee of the land (with some even before) the woes of the "bad sailor" begin. Do I not know it, all too well? Alas! yes. But the potent charm of Scilly may well be deduced from the fact of such a voyager revisiting the islands, knowing full well that even a "good passage," which phrase in these rolling leagues seems like the ill-timed saturnine humour of a misanthrope—will prostrate him in the scuppers, or fling him athwart the bulwarks, yearning for peace and rest in the creaming billows that go dizzily seething past. Here let me not fail to add, for the comfort of those who would dare the deed, that "once pays for all," as the old proverb says. Your miseries, generally speaking, are confined to the outward voyage, and, although you may be thoughtful and perhaps apprehensive of the like disturbance in returning, Neptune generally refrains from exacting other tribute. You have paid your footing, if staggering along the heaving deck (ugh!) may so be called; and having paid your fare in money and in kind, are free of the ocean blue.

The Scillies rise slowly out of the waters as you approach. There is St. Mary's Island ahead, with St. Martin's on the extreme right, rising behind the numerous rocky islets known as the Eastern Islands, comprising Menewethan, Great and Little Inishvouls, Great and Little Arthur, Ragged Island, Hanjague, Nornor, Great and Little Ganilly, and Great and Little Ganinick. There are two means of approach to the pier at St. Mary's, to which the steamer comes: if it be high tide, by Crow Sound; if at ebb by the circuitous route of St. Mary's Sound. It is the last despairing misery of the sea-sick, who know nothing of the local conditions of navigation, to notice that the captain, apparently out of sheer wanton cruelty, is making a prolonged circuit of the island before coming to an anchor.

But these miseries are speedily forgotten when once you have set foot upon the quay at Hugh Town, St. Mary's; for you realise at once that you have come to a new and strange, and interesting, land.

The Isles of Scilly are the land of the narcissus and the daffodil, but not of those alone. Arum lilies, stocks, wallflowers, and crimson anemones are grown abundantly. There are in all 3,600 acres in the islands, and of these 2,000 are cultivated, chiefly nowadays in the flower-farming interest. It was in 1878, or thereabouts, that the first ideas of flower-farming took root in Scilly. There had always been, time beyond the memory of man, more or less wild narcissi growing on the isles. It was thought, without any evidence being available, that the old Benedictine monks of Tresco had introduced them. There were eight varieties known to botanists. Some time subsequently to 1834, Mr. Augustus Smith, the then Lord Proprietor of the islands, uncle of the present Mr. Dorrien-Smith, introduced many others to Tresco, and it is claimed for him that he was the first to see the possibilities of a London market for these delightful flowers, blossoming here so early, when London is still shivering in midwinter. According to this article of faith, he advised some of his tenants to grow them and send them up to Covent Garden for sale, himself sending the first lot, and realising £1 profit from the transaction. According to other versions, it was Mr. Trevellick, of Rocky Hill, St. Mary's, who made the first consignment; and there is a circumstantial story which tells us that he and a few pioneers, who despatched a few bunches in those early years, when fresh spring blossoms first took London with delight, realised thirty shillings a dozen bunches. A bunch in Scilly is a dozen blooms; and therefore those fortunate few took twopence-halfpenny apiece for narcissi. It seems almost too good to be true, and still the Scillonians (there are no "Scilly people," as Sir Walter Besant makes Armorel say, in his delightful "Armorel of Lyonesse") talk in reverential tones of those wonderful days.

At that time the islanders were making a moderate livelihood out of growing early potatoes; I have seen the quays of St. Mary's heaped high with boxes of them. But nowadays let those grow "new potatoes" who will. Scilly knows a more excellent way, and specialises in flowers so completely, that no one would be in the least surprised to hear of potatoes being imported, just as Scilly imports its cabbages and other vegetables, its butter, and most other things, from "England."

The growth of flower-farming in Scilly has been continuous, and is by no means restricted to St. Mary's: the "out-islands" take an active part. But it is not the easy business it was, for the increased output has naturally by degrees brought prices down, and a steady shilling a dozen bunches would now be considered good. The business increases so surely that this year's figures are out of date the next season. It was considered remarkable in 1893, when the shipments amounted to something over four hundred tons, but those of 1910 exceeded one thousand tons, valued at £40,000. Of this total, the sum of £25,000 is reckoned to be clear profit. So, although the flower-farmers have now to work for their increase, the results are not discouraging, and the Scillies still remain, and increasingly become, the Fortunate Isles. The climate is mild and equable, there are no poor; "penal" Budgets raise no alarms, for the isles are free from income-tax; and the wan, ragged, famished spectre of unemployment, or of the unemployable, is unknown. Scillonians read of it in the newspapers that occasionally come their way, and ask visitors what it is!