HOLY VALE.
Holy Vale, inland, is one of the few places on St. Mary's where trees grow. Whence arose the name is quite unknown, and there is nothing in the nature of any religious house here; but there is, if you like to look at it in that way, a holy calm in this sheltered spot, where the winds abate and groups of dracæna palms grow freely.
But Tresco is the show-place in Scilly for gardens. It is something under two miles to the island of Tresco, where the residence of the Lord Proprietor is situated. There is little left of the Abbey buildings, and the residence so called is quite modern. Beneath it is a rush-bordered freshwater lake, and all around are subtropical gardens, in which visitors are free to wander. Here is a large shed partly built from the timbers of wrecked vessels, whose figureheads form a melancholy row in front. The old iron cresset in which the coal-fires of St. Agnes lighthouse were burnt until 1790, stands close by.
Tresco is two miles long. Visitors rarely go beyond the Abbey gardens, but the walk along to the northern extremity of the island is interesting, commanding views on one side across the narrow channel of New Grimsby to the island of Bryher, and on the other across Old Grimsby to St. Helen's, Menavawr, Round Island, Teän, and St. Martin's. Here, in New Grimsby Harbour, are the ruins of "Cromwell's Castle," and out in the channel is Hangman's Island, where vague legends say he hanged his prisoners. Not far off are the ruins of Charles Castle. The shores are thickly grown to the water's edge with vivid-coloured mesembryanthemum, an alien plant, which looks better than its name. And in the cliffs on the headland is the dark cavern of "Piper's Hole," running a long way in, with a stygian lake in its midst and a boat to take you across to further exploration, which is weirdly done by the aid of torches.
The names of the Scilly rocks and islets are themselves a pure delight, compact of romantic suggestion. There, off Bryher, exposed to the full fury of the Atlantic, are the two grim rocks called Scilly, that confer a name upon the entire group; there is Maiden Bower, there are Mincarlo, Illiswilgie, Great and Little Minalto, Carntop, Nundeeps, the ominous Grim Rocks, Tearing Ledge, Crebawethan and his little brother, Rosevean, Rosevear, Daisy, Gorregan, Meledgan, Hellweathers, and I know not how many others. And weather permitting—a much more insistent condition here than elsewhere—you may, with the aid of experienced boatmen, come near them all, and experience wonderful fishing and see strange assemblages of solemn sea-birds grouped, fishing also, but with unerring beak, from lonely ledges.
Great families of cormorants, shags, and puffins inhabit these rocky places, subsisting upon fish. The fishing methods of these birds differ entirely from those of the gull, for they are clumsy in flight and are expert rather in diving from cliffs than soaring. It is not easy to frighten a cormorant, and it is quite impossible to satisfy his ravenous hunger, which has rendered the very name of "cormorant" a synonym for greed and rapacity. I have seen excursionists engage in the hopeless task of trying to "shoo" a solemn conclave of cormorants away by shouting, gesticulating, and throwing stones, but those wise birds, better able to judge distances in their native air than any holiday-making townsfolk, do not so much as deign to take notice of the disturbers, and witness stones falling a quarter of a mile or so short with all the contempt such marksmen deserve.
The shag is no doubt equally wise, but his is an even more contemplative and much less active wisdom than that of the cormorant. To see a row of still and solemn shags, all black and white, gazing into immensity from a shelf of rock is extraordinarily parsonic in effect: just as though one had come upon the Upper and Lower Houses of Convocation in full session. But there is humour among the clergy; no one has ever yet observed it in a shag. The shags, indeed, are extra-parsonic; more like fakirs in surplices. They take life seriously, and look with a calm but severe disapproval upon the laughter of strangers.
And strangers tend to increase in Scilly and its surrounding seas, in spite of the voyage from Penzance. The isles, truly the Fortunate Isles, where there is no income-tax and there are no motor-cars, and the post comes but once a day—and sometimes not even then—and the only police-force necessary is one officer, who combines all ranks, and even then has little to do, are further blest with a delightfully equable climate, and good hotel and other accommodation. They look with some pity upon the turmoils of the adjacent island of Great Britain.