THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.
CORBIÈRE LIGHTHOUSE, JERSEY.
From the harbor of Portland we will make a steamer-excursion almost across the English Channel, going about one hundred and fifteen miles to the Channel Islands, off the north-western coast of France and within a few miles of the shores of Normandy and Brittany. They are Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark, standing in a picturesque situation, with a mild climate and fertile soil, and devoted mainly to dairying and to fishing. These islands were known to the Romans, and their strategic position is so valuable that England, while getting but $100,000 revenue from them, has expended two or three millions annually in maintaining their fortifications. It was upon the dangerous cluster of rocks west of Alderney, and known as the Caskets, that Henry I.'s only son, Prince William, perished in the twelfth century, and here the man-of-war Victory was lost with eleven hundred men in 1744. Jersey is the most remarkable of these islands for its castles and forts, and has seen many fierce attacks. Both Henry VII. and Charles II. when in exile found refuge in Jersey. In approaching this island the fantastic outline of the Corbière Promontory on the western side is striking. When first seen through the morning haze it resembles a huge elephant supporting an embattled tower, but the apparition vanishes on closer approach. A lighthouse crowns the rock, and the bay of St. Aubin spreads a grand crescent of smiling shores, in the centre of which is Elizabeth Castle, standing on a lofty insulated rock whose jagged pinnacles are reared in grotesque array around the battlements. Within the bay is a safe harbor, with the villages of St. Helier and St. Aubin on the shores. Here is the hermitage once occupied by Jersey's patron saint Elericus, and an abbey dedicated to him anciently occupied the site of the castle. The impregnable works of the great Regent Fort are upon a precipitous hill commanding the harbor and castle. Upon the eastern side of the island is another huge fortress, called the castle of Mont Orgueil, upon a lofty conical rock forming the northern headland of Grouville Bay. The apex of the mountain shoots up in the centre of the fortifications as high as the flagstaff which is planted upon them. Here lived Charles II. when in exile, and this is the most interesting part of Jersey, historically. A part of the fortifications is said to date from Cæsar's incursion into Gaul, and the Romans in honor of their leader called the island Cæsarea, describing it at that time as a stronghold of the Druids, of whose worship many monuments remain. It was first attached to the British Crown at the Norman Conquest, and, though the French in the many wars since then have sent frequent expeditions against the island, they have never been able to hold it. The Channel Islands altogether cover about seventy-five square miles. Alderney, which is within seven miles of the French coast, now has an extensive harbor of refuge. Guernsey contains the remains of two Norman castles—one almost entirely gone, and the other called Ivy Castle, from its ruins being mantled with shrubbery. Its great defensive work, Fort George, built in the last century, stands in a commanding position and is of enormous strength. Upon a rocky islet off St. Peter's Port is the chief defensive fort of that harbor, located about a mile to seaward—Castle Cornet, a work of venerable antiquity, parts of which were built by the Romans. In 1672, Viscount Christopher Hatton was governor of Guernsey, and was blown up with his family in Castle Cornet, the powder-magazine being struck by lightning at midnight. He was in bed, was blown out of the window, and lay for some time on the ramparts unhurt. Most of the family and attendants perished, but his infant daughter Anne was found next day alive, and sleeping in her cradle under a beam in the ruins, uninjured by the explosion. She lived to marry the Earl of Winchelsea and have thirty children, of whom thirteen survived her.
VIEW FROM THE DEVIL'S HOLE, NEAR CORBIÈRE, JERSEY.