THE ISLES OF SCILLY.
By James Henry Stevenson.
Do not visit The Scillies. Go to Penzance—a charming spot that has not received the attention from the tourist that it deserves—and see the hopeful passengers take ship in the morning for the “blessed isles;” inspect them again on their return in the evening; if you are still curious go to Land’s End—a drive of eight or ten miles—and look across the sea that lies between you and The Scillies; buy a guide book and a few pictures when you come home, and bless your stars that you did not tempt the deep.
This is the advice which I vowed I would give, when, one day last summer, for three awful hours I “hove” with the heaving deep. I am not usually a poor sailor. Indeed I have generally crossed the Atlantic without making my offering to the gods of the Abyss. Anything in reason I am prepared to do, but the demands of the little steamer that plies between the Islands and Penzance are altogether unreasonable.
It was a beautiful morning and Mount’s Bay, on which Penzance is so picturesquely situated, was as placid as a swimming tank, but I noticed that the wind was blowing fresh from the southeast, and I mentally observed that there was likely to be trouble when we rounded Land’s End. I am proud of that prophecy now, though trouble came sooner than I had anticipated.
Long before we had lost the shelter of the rocky and fascinating coast that girts the shores of Cornwall towards Land’s End, many a swain, who had started off that morning with a light heart and “Arriet,” sadly admitted that “all was vanity.”
When we reached Land’s End I lost interest in the scenery and gave up—among other things—the unequal struggle. The “Lyonesse” was crowded and there was no place to lie down. Indeed one was fortunate to find a seat. I secured a camp stool and a vacant place in the gang-way, and as I watched, or rather was conscious of, the movements of our vessel, she seemed like a fabled sea monster sporting in the deep. Poised for a moment jauntily on the wave’s crest, or plunging her nose beneath a huge billow, she was equally happy. I called to mind the legend of the Lyonesse, the continent that once stretched between Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, and which in the days of “good king Arthur” sunk below the deep at the command of Merlin, engulfing Mordred and his host as they thundered hard after the remnant of the slain Arthur’s army. I thought of this and then I knew that our ship was trying to justify her high sounding title. Just at this moment she made a plunge towards the sunken continent and a huge wave swept in over the bow, most thoroughly drenching a party of ambitious sightseers who were tempting Providence on the ship’s nose. The wave rolled on towards me but I was too busy just at that moment to successfully evade it.
As we passed close by Land’s End I roused up for a moment to look at the celebrated point and again as we came in sight of Woolf lighthouse, a solitary sentinel in the waste of waters, midway between the mainland and the islands, and an eloquent witness for the Lyonesse legend.
As for the rest, I can say I was conscious of existence, but not taking much interest in life, when a sudden cessation of the turmoil within and without re-awakened somewhat my torpid senses, and as we made fast to the dock, I dragged myself ashore and followed the haggard and bedraggled passengers through a narrow street into the town. A short walk brought me beyond the city to a grassy hillside, where, with my camera for a pillow, having cast aside all literary and artistic aspirations as worthless, I was soon blissfully unconscious of the beauty and romance I had come so far and braved so much to see. In the course of an hour or so, I was awakened by a grazing horse on the alert for something green, and, recollecting my mission, started forth to make the tour of the island.
