Borlase to gain from his ancient quarto some information about the place. I will not, as some learned pundits do, pitilessly burden you with all the knowledge recently obtained; because, although I suspect you to be hopelessly ignorant on all these matters, I also suspect you to be quite comfortable in that condition, and by no means hungering for information; and at any rate, you know where such hunger can be satisfied. But on the baptism of the islands a word may be worth hearing. Borlase pertinently asks, "How came all these islands to have their general name from so small and inconsiderable a spot as the isle of Scilly, whose cliffs hardly anything but birds can mount, and whose barrenness would never suffer anything but sea-birds to inhabit there? A due observation of the shores will answer this question very satisfactorily, and convince us, that what is now a bare rock, about a furlong over, and separated from the lands of Guel and Brehar about half a mile, was formerly joined to them by low necks of land, and that Treskaw, St Martin's, Brehar, Samson, and the rocks and islets adjoining, made formerly but one island." Thus it was by encroachments of the sea, according to Borlase, or by the dipping of the lands, that the one island was separated into several. Scilly was the highest and most conspicuous headland, and from it the whole group derived its name. That these isles were by the Greeks called Cassiterides, and by the Romans Sigdeles, Sillinæ, and Silures, may by conceded to antiquarians and topographers; or denied; we shall trouble ourselves but slightly with the question. Certain it seems that Phoenicians and Romans came here for tin; still more certain that, in the tenth century, "when trade began to thrive, shipping to increase, and naval wars to be carried on in the western world, the commodious situation of these islands at the opening into both the channels, soon showed of what importance it was to possess them, and how dangerous they might be to the trade and safety of England if in an enemy's hand." The hungry may find in Borlase a succession of historical dates and facts from the tenth century downwards; we will pause

only at what is said of Queen Elizabeth, who saw the importance of these islands; "and having the Spaniards, then the most powerful nation by sea in the world, to deal with, ordered Francis Godolphin (knighted by her in 1580, and made Lord Lieutenant of the county of Cornwall) to improve this station. Star Castle was begun and finished in 1593. At the same time were built a curtain and some bastions on the same hill." The castle still remains; and the fortificationsnot of a very formidable aspectmanned by five invalids, still keep up the fiction of awing the enemies of England. Not being a military man, and still less a politician, it does occur to me either that Scilly is strangely neglected in the matter of fortifications, or else that our enemies are very easily awed. What Borlase said of it a century ago remains true today: "In the time of war it is of the utmost importance to England to have Scilly in its possession: if it were in an enemy's hand the Channel trade from Ireland, Liverpool, and Bristol to London and the south of England could not subsist; for Scilly, lying at the point of England, and looking into both channels, no ship could pass, but a privateer might speak with it from one of these sounds. This the parliament ministry in the latter end of the civil wars of Charles I. quickly experienced as soon as Sir John Granville had garrisoned and fortified Scilly. Whitelock tells us that continual complaints were made to the then managers of affairs at London, of the taking of ships by the privateers at Scilly, so that at last they were obliged to send Admiral Blake and Sir George Askue to dislodge the cavaliers from a post which gave them such opportunities of distressing their trade." Surely a post of this importance needs a stronger garrison than five invalids? Five may do for the "contingent" of a small German prince; nay, in one sublime instance, five is the sum total of the standing army, but in that case the principality itself is of commensurate importance.

What has been already hinted will suffice to show that these patches of rock,on which ribald Cockneys doubt

ed whether English were spoken, and flounces worn, are islands dignified by historical and political associations. These Cockneys may be further assured that not only is English spoken here, but spoken with a purity of accent, and intelligent discrimination of diction, which I remember in no other part of the English dominion. The Scillians are a remarkably healthy, good-looking race-the black eyes and long eyelashes of the children making one's parental fibres tingle with mysterious pleasure as the ruddy rascals pause in their sport to look at the stranger. The manners are gentle and dignified; civil, not servile. Not an approach to rudeness or coarseness have I seen anywhere. In the highest sense of the word civilisation, therefore, the notion of the place being "half-civilised" is altogether wrong. It is only on making inquiries in the direction of commerce that the mind gets familiarised with the consequences of the remoteness of these islands. Then it is seen that, as far as civilisation is represented by shopkeeping, Scilly is at present in an embryonic condition. To speak zoologically, there is but slight differentiation of function in the Scillian commercial tissue. Just as in the simpler organisms we see one part of the body undertaking several functions which in more complex organisms devolve upon separate parts, so here we perceive the same smiling individual weighing out butter, and measuring yards of muslin, proposing the new cut of a cheese to your discriminating taste, or the new style of bonnet to your instinct of fashion; sarsenet ribbons are flanked by mixed pickles, and the pickles thrown into relief by loaves. If you are troubled with a raging tooth, you must apply to the postmaster for his gentle services; whether he punches it out with the letter-stamp, or employs more elaborate instruments, I know not. This want of differentiation is, however, but a slight obstacle, especially to me, who am not likely to array myself in sarsenet, and don't buy bonnets. Far other wise is the imperfection there where it could least have been expected, least endured-in the meat and market departments. It is proba

ble, on zoological grounds, that the Scillians, being carnivorously organised, would eat meat with gusto could they get it. Nay, as there are several well-to-do people residing here, some shipowners and shipbuilders, and as there are no poor, it would, on à priori grounds, be assumed that meat was freely assimilated by the Scillians, they not having fallen into the fallacy of "vegetarianism." But à priori conclusions force no pathway through facts; and the stern and startling fact early obtruded itself on me, that of all things meat is one of the most unattainable in these parts. Do not imagine that by "meat" I euphuistically indicate prime parts and quick varieties; no, I mean meat of any kind, without epicurean distinctions. Beef is obtainable-by forethought and stratagem; but mutton is a myth. A vision of veal floats with aerial indistinctness through the Scillian mind. Poultry, too, may be had-at Penzance; and fish-when the weather is calm, which it never is at this season; and when the one solitary fisherman adventurously takes out his line-which he seldom does. But market there is none. Twice a-week a vegetable cart from "the country" (which means a mile and a half distance) slowly traverses the town, and if you like to gather round it, as the cats and dogs do round the London cats'-meat-man, you may stock yourself with vegetables for three days. The inhabitants, of course, know how to arrange matters for themselves, although it was evident that my landlady regarded the wish of dining daily, and if possible on meat, as rather a metropolitan weakness, which was to be politely allowed for. The other day I should have gone meatless, but for a certain astuteness of forethought, met by a yielding benevolence on the part of the captain's wife. Meat was not to be had for love or money, especially love. The "country" had been scoured for a fowl!—

"But no such animal the meadows cropp'd." I saw myself midway in the dilemma of going impransus, or of cooking my Actinia with what appetite I could -an extremity which, in a zoologist, would have been only a milder form

of cannibalism. Standing thus at the point of intersection of two such paths, the pangs of prospective hunger developed in me new resources and new impudences. I went boldly to Mrs. Tregarthen (observe she is not a widow), and to her pathetically unfolded the case, on the supposition that she might not be utterly meatless, in which circumstance the loan of a chop or steak might gracefully be accorded. Meatless the gentle and generous woman was not. A piece of beef, killed eight days ago, and now kept fresh in salt against emergencies, would furnish me with a steak sufficient for two days, and there was a rumour that on the third day beef would be killed, when I could stock myself till next killingtime. Beef, at sevenpence a pound, as I said, is the only meat you can reckon on, even with forethought. In the time of Borlase it was just the contrary, mutton being then the meat, and beef a rarity. "About twenty years since," he says, "the inhabitants generally lived on salt victuals, which they had from England or Ireland; and if they killed a bullock, here, it was so seldom, that in one of the best houses in the islands they have kept part of a bullock killed in September to roast for their Christmas dinner." He adds, that in his time mutton was abundant enough, but beef unattainable.

Spiritual-minded persons, indifferent to mutton, may disregard this carnal inconvenience, and take refuge in the more ideal elements of picturesqueness, solitude, and simplicity. I cannot say that the inconvenience weighed heavily in the scale against the charms of Scilly: the more so, as an enlarged experience proved the case not to be quite so bad as it seemed at first. After all, I came not here for sumptuous larders, but for zoological delights; and those were not wanting. Was not the mere aspect of the sea a banquet? Xenophon tells us that when the Ten Thousand saw the sea again, they shouted. No wonder. After their weary eyes had wandered forlorn over weary parasangs of flat earth, and that earth an enemy's, wistfully yearning for the gleams of the old familiar blue, they came upon it at last, and the heart-shaking sight

was saluted by a shout still more heart-shaking. At the first flash of it there must have been a general hush, an universal catching of the breath, and the next moment, like thunder leaping from hill to hill, the loosened burst of gladness ran along the ranks, reverberating from company to company, swelling into a mighty symphony of rejoicing. What a sight, and what a sound? There was more than safety in that blue expanse, there was more than loosened fear in their joy at once again seeing the dear familiar face. The sea was a passion to the Greeks; they took naturally to the water, like ducks, or Englishmen, who are, if we truly consider it, fonder of water than the ducks. We are sea-dogs from our birth. It is in our race-bred in the blood. Even the most inland and bucolic youth takes spontaneously to the water, as an element he is born to rule. The winds carry ocean murmurs far into the inland valleys, and awaken the old pirate instincts of the Norsemen. Boys hear them, and although they never saw a ship in their lives, these murmurs make their hearts unquiet; and to run away from home, "to go to sea," is the inevitable result. Place a Londoner in a turnip field, and the chances are that he will not know it from a field of mangold-wurzel. Place him, unfamiliar with pigskin, on a "fresh" horse, and he will not make a majestic figure. But take this same youth, and fling him into a boat, how readily he learns to feather an oar! Nay, even when he is sea-sick-as unhappily even the Briton will sometimes be-he goes through it with a certain careless grace, a manly haughtiness, or at the lowest a certain "official reserve," not observable in the foreigner. What can be a more abject picture than a Frenchman suffering from sea-sickness-unless it be a German under the same hideous circumstances? Before getting out of harbour he was radiant, arrogant, self-centred; only half an hour has passed, and he is green, cadaverous, dank, prostrate, the manhood seemingly spunged out of him. N.B.-In this respect I am a Frenchman.

At the sight of the sea the Ten

Thousand shouted. At that sight I too should have shouted, had not the glorious vision come upon me through the windows of a railway carriage; where my fellow-travellers, not comprehending such ecstasy, might have seized me as an escaped lunatic. But if my lungs were quiescent, my heart shouted tumultuously. There gleamed once more the laughing lines of light, there heaved and broke upon the sands the many-sounding waves; and at the sight arose the thought, obvious enough, yet carrying a sort of surprise, that even thus had the sea been glancing, dancing, laughing, breaking in uninterrupted music, ever since I had left it. While I was bustling through crowded streets, amid the "fever and the stir unprofitable,” harassed by printers, bored by politicians, and by

"The weary, weary A, and the barren,

barren B,"

bending over old books, engaged in serious work and daily frivolous talk, through all these hurrying hours, the tides had continued rising and receding, the pools had been filled and refilled, the zoophytes had quietly dedicated their beauty to the sun, the molluscs had crawled among the weeds, the currents of life had ebbed and flowed in the great systole and diastole of nature.

By a mysterious law, every Thirst blindly, yet unerringly, finds its way to the fountain. My thirst had led me here, to the shores of that ocean which Homer, "the paragon of philosophers," as Rabelais calls him, very unphilosophically styles "unfruitful,” ἀτρύγετος. Barren, it may have been to him, poor fellow, unable to use the microscope; (he was blind, you know!) yet even he had intellectual vision enough to see that it was Mɛyaxens "abounding in marvels;" and he was not a man to pause openmouthed at a slight deviation from ordinary appearances, as may be gathered from this single example: When Helen passes through the gates of Troy, under the eyes of Ucalegon and Antenor, those venerable and inspired men are by Homer seen to be "like cicada chirping on the trees" -surely a very strange phenomenon? -and as if this were not enough, their

chirp is said to have a lily-like sound

ona pióɛooar-surely a strange intonation? If, therefore, to Homer, familiar with sights and sounds so unusual, the sea could nevertheless be held as abounding in marvels, judge what it abounds in for our more easily astonished minds.

Come with me to the rocks, on my first visit after arrival. The tide is not a very good one, but in a few minutes we discover that we are in the land of marvels. Here are the snaky-armed Antheas in abundance: green with ravishing pink tips; brown with silver-grey tentacles; and a few of quaker drab. Presently a noble Crassicornis reveals himself in a cleft-impossible to get at, unfortunately. But in a few minutes another, then another, then a group, at last such quantities of them make their appearance, that the heart palpitates at such wealth. Was not this worth a few hours' discomfort on board the packet? Nay (now that it is past), what was that discomfort? A hurricane of blows upon the chisel answers with contemptuous emphasis.

It is laborious work this chiselling away of Anemones from the granite. The gray-slate of Ilfracombe was troublesome; the limestone of Tenby worse; but this granite opposes us with quite another stubbornness, and needs energetic patience to overcome it. In spite of March winds I am forced to take off my coat after a little of this hammering; and during summer heats the exercise would create a vapour bath, giving unpleasant extension to the faculty of perspiring, which is exerted by the twenty-eight miles of tubing (such is the calculation) possessed by our skins. After filling our baskets with as many of these Anemones as satisfy present desires, we begin turning over the stones. Presently we descry two specimens of marine spiders, or daddy-long-legs (Nymphon gracile), very curious to behold. They have no body to speak of; a mere line, not thicker than one of their legs, representing the torso. Tie a piece of silk thread, about one-fourth of an inch long, into four equidistant knots, and that will represent the body; from each of these knots let much longer pieces of

the same thread dangle, and you have the legs; split the tip of the thread into three filaments, and you have the head; gum bits of dirty wool, about as large as a pin's head, on the second legs, and you have the eggsacs and with this the animal is complete. The microscope reveals fresh wonders, the head being furnished with crablike nippers; the alimentary tube, instead of occupying an isolated and dignified position in the body, meanders out into each of the legs, so that the leg repeats the body in its internal structure, as well as in aspect. This ramified alimentary canal is covered with brownishyellow globules or cells, called "hepatic cells," upon no very convincing evidence, and supposed to represent a rudimentary liver. Mr. Gosse, in his pleasant book on Tenby, mistakes this intestine for the circulating system; but the animal has no circulating system whatever. "Each of the long and many-jointed limbs is perforated by a central vessel," he says, "the walls of which contract periodically with a pulsation exactly resembling that of a heart, by which granules or pellucid corpuscles of some sort or other are forced forward." It was food which Mr. Gosse saw thus moved; the blood-circulation, such as it is, he correctly saw in what he describes as the extra-vascular circulation; only we should add, that vascular circulation there is none. The blood, if blood it can be called, is outside the intestine, bathing the walls of the body, and moved to and fro by the peristaltic action of the intestine. Curious, as this Nymphon gracile is, I had reason to be the more pleased at finding one, because while the latest authorities declare nothing to be known of the development of the Pycnogonido, I had been fortunate enough at Ilfracombe, to discover some of the embryonic phases, of which I made drawings, and awaited further opportunity for pursuing the subject.

Here, in a pool, we find three curious fish, one a ribbon-fish, the other two unknown to me; and on raising the stone, behold, a queer eel-like

fish with a miniature grey-hound's head; it is the pipe-fish, Syngnathus anguineus. Pop him in; also this bit of red weed, on which I observe some Polyzoa clustering. What is this? a tiny Daisy on a frond of weed? the beauty! No, now it is in the bottle, it turns out to be an Eolis, Eolis alba, lovely among the loveliest. Stay! here are two cowries, and alive! The shells every one has seen, but few of us have seen the animals so the capture is very welcome. My back is aching with all this stooping and groping, and I really must get home now, content with my day's work. One farewell glance in at that pool, and I have done. Lying on my face, and dangling my feet in water, I peer scrutinisingly for some minutes, and bear off a lovely green Acteon, as a reward. Now I will turn homewards.

The

Another day, in idler mood, we ramble along the shore in receipt of windfalls. A bottle is always ready in the pocket, and something is certain to turn up. The stem and root of• that oar-weed, for example, is worth · an investigating glance, certain as it is of being a colony of life. tiny annelids, white, green, and red, wriggle in and out among the sheltering shadows of these roots; the sponges and polyzoa cluster on them; and see! what pink-and-white feathery creature is this, clasping the weed with a circle of pale pink roots? By heavens! it is a Comatula, "the romance of the sea;" and now that it feels the grateful sea-water again, how it expands its feathers, and reveals itself as an animal fern, marvellous to look upon. Sudden joy leaps in our hearts at the sight of this creature, hitherto known only from hazy descriptions and inadequate engravings. There is interest in reading about Crinoidea, fossil and recent, and in learning that the Comatula is one of these, having kindred with star-fishes; but how that interest is intensified by direct inspection of the living animal! I could not satiate myself with looking at my prize.* All the way home the bottle was constantly being raised to