The Isles of Scilly. Jessie Mothersole

      THE OLDEST INHABITANT

      [Pg 16] [Pg 17]

      Then there is the mackerel fishery, which is at its height in May and June, when St. Mary’s Pool is full of the picturesque, brown-sailed fishing-boats from Mount’s Bay.

      The other “industry” mentioned by the boatmen, that is to say “visitors,” is carried on intermittently all through the year, but is naturally most active during the spring and summer months.

      In the summer there are cheap day-excursions from the mainland, and crowds of trippers arrive at St. Mary’s by steamer to spend a few hours on the islands. Some of them land in such a woebegone condition that they are fit for nothing but to lie about on the benches in the “Park” until the hoot of the steamer rouses them to crawl back to the quay. Others, more courageous in spite of having had a “sick transit,” will only stop to snatch a morsel of food before rushing off to the steam-launch for Tresco, where they will make the round of the famous gardens, walk perhaps to Cromwell’s Castle, and return to St. Mary’s dead-beat, just in time to go on board for the homeward journey. And they call that a day’s holiday! But these are not the visitors to bring grist to the boatman’s mill. The kind he wants are those who come to stay, those who come again year after year, and who delight in sailing about amongst the islands and learning to know and love them well. They do not come looking for “Entertainments,” with a capital E. They are quite content with the magical music of the wind and the waves, and with the natural beauties that surround them on every side.

      These visitors are neither so many nor of such a kind as to take away from the peaceful charm of the place. You can always get peace and quiet in Scilly, even in the most “tripperish” season, for the trippers follow a beaten track which it is easy enough to avoid. And the islands are, fortunately, quite unspoilt by any efforts to cater for their supposed wants. Not a single penny-in-the-slot machine flaunts its vermilion and yellow in your face; there are no niggers on the beach, nor brass bands, nor cinematographs; no dancing on the pier; no “marine parades” or “esplanades”; above all, here are no artificial “natural attractions” (most hateful of paradoxes), no manufactured show-places to pander to perverted taste. If you come hoping for these things, you will go away (and the sooner the better for all concerned) disappointed. You would only be an alien in this little Paradise.

      There are many who will sympathise with this description of the islands taken from a visitor’s book: “A Paradise surpassing Dante’s ideal, but alas! only to be attained by passing through three and a half hours of Purgatory.” For the voyage from Penzance to Scilly is not one to be treated lightly. Looked upon as a pleasure trip, it may be enjoyable or the reverse, according to the weather and the constitution of the passenger; but considered in the light of a test of “good-sailor”-ship it is, I think, without a rival. Do not be set up because you have travelled unscathed to Australia and back, or crossed to America without turning a hair. This little bit of the Atlantic may yet humble you! There seems to be something in the cross-currents between Scilly and the Land’s End which tries the endurance of even the most hardened sailors. How often does one hear it said in Scilly, “I used to think I was a good sailor, but——”; and that “but” speaks volumes! Even sea-captains, regular old sea-dogs who have spent a lifetime afloat, have been known, to their shame and disgust, to fall victims to Neptune on the Scilly passage. I never made a voyage in which less (or should I say more?) was expected of you. The steward gives you a friendly peep at intervals. “Feeling all right, I hope?” You never felt better in your life, and say so. “Well, please hold out as long as you can; my supply is limited.” And you almost feel that it would be ungenerous to disappoint his evident expectations by “holding out” to the end!

      But what matters three and a half hours of Purgatory when once one has attained to Paradise? And the passage weighs as nothing in the scale against the charms of Scilly.

      In the “good old days” things were very different from what they are now. You could not then make a return journey in the same day. Sailings were few and far between, and people prepared for going to Scilly as for a long voyage.

      In Lieutenant Heath’s time (1744) the passage was seldom made more often than once a month or six weeks in summer, and not so often in winter; and he says that as it was made “in small open fisher-boats amidst the running of several cross-tides, the passengers are forced to venture at the extreme hazard of their lives when necessity or duty calls them.” And these passengers “should be qualified,” he continues, “to endure wetting or the weather like so many Ducks; however, the Boatman undertakes to empty the water with his Hat or what comes to Hand without the least Concern.” Half a century later Troutbeck writes that the inhabitants “want a constant, regular, and even monthly communication with England,” chiefly for the sake of getting food. A strong proof of the uncertainty that attended the journey in those days is that in 1793 the “Prudence and Jane,” coming from Penzance to Scilly with necessaries, was driven by a contrary wind to Cherbourg in France! Nowadays it may happen in very exceptionally stormy or foggy weather that a Scillonian’s Sunday dinner does not arrive till Monday, but at least it never goes to France!

      When Woodley wrote in 1822, the crossing was made every week, but even then a “good passage” took eight or nine hours, and sometimes the vessel was delayed at sea for thirty-six to forty-eight hours, without any provision of food for the passengers. There is an old lady now living on St. Mary’s who told us that the first time she visited the mainland the crossing took twenty-four hours, and then they were landed at the Mousehole and had to walk the three miles into Penzance.

      It was not until 1859 that the sailing-vessels were replaced by a small steamer.

      Now the Royal Mail Steamer “Lyonnesse” makes the return journey every day in the summer; and although she may not be perfection, she is reckoned absolutely safe. The distance from Penzance is generally covered in about three and a half hours; but the proprietors reserve to themselves the right to “tow vessels in distress to any other port or place without being chargeable with any deviation of the voyage, or being liable to make compensation to any Passenger”; so if under these circumstances you were taken to Kamschatka you would have no right to complain!

      I know of one passenger who was taken out nearly to the Bishop Lighthouse on account of a vessel in distress. Far from complaining, she enjoyed the excitement of the adventure; but such happenings are rare and need hardly be taken into account.

      The notice posted on the quarter-deck of the “Lyonnesse” leaves one in a happy state of doubt as to whether passengers or merchandise are the least acceptable: “This Quarter Deck contains 1,014 square feet and is certified for 112 passengers when not occupied by cattle, animals, cargo, or other encumbrance.”

      But that passenger would be churlish indeed who had any fault to find with the way in which he was treated by the officials, whether on sea or land. From the highest to the lowest they are as courteous as one could wish—unless, of course, they are provoked to turn, like the proverbial worm.

      There is a stoker on the “Lyonnesse” with a portly and majestic figure; but woe to the ill-bred passenger who tries to raise a laugh at his expense! Once such a passenger saw the stoker looming across his field of vision, and, in spite of being curled up and woebegone with sea-sickness, he aimed at him a feeble joke.