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Title: The Islets of the Channel
Author: Dendy, Walter Cooper
Language: English
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THE ISLETS OF THE CHANNEL
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MYSTERY.
“We have the greatest pleasure in recommending the elegant and
laborious work of Mr. Dendy.”—TIMES.
“Drawn with fancy and elegance.”—ATHENÆUM.
PSYCHE:
A Discourse on the Birth and Pilgrimage of Thought.
THE
BEAUTIFUL ISLETS OF BRITAINE.
Illustrated by 45 Woodcuts.
“We are delighted to join Mr. Dendy in his trip.”—ATHENÆUM.
* * * * *
THE ISLETS OF THE CHANNEL.
by
WALTER COOPER DENDY,
Past President of the Medical Society of London;
Consulting Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary for Children and Women,
Author of “The Philosophy of Mystery,”
“The Beautiful Islets of Britaine,” “Psyche,” etc.
“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.”—ENDYMION.
[Illustration]
Described and Illustrated from Sketches on the spot
by the Author.
London:
Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts.
1858.
London:
Savill and Edwards, Printers,
Chandos Street.
ISLETS OF THE CHANNEL.
From Southampton (Mail), Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 11 P.M.
Fare from London, 1_l._ 11_s._ and 1_l._ 1_s._
" " Southampton, 1_l._ 1_s._ and 14_s._
From the Islets on same days, at 8 A.M.
Other Boats, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Return from the Islets, hour uncertain.
Fare from London, 1_l._ 5_s._ 6_d._, 17_s._, and 11_s._ 6_d._ Steward,
2_s._ and 1_s._
" " Southampton, 16_s._ and 11_s._
Half-fare for children from two to twelve.
Return tickets, 1 Month, 45_s._ and 35_s._
From Weymouth, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 8 A.M.
Return Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, at 7 A.M.
Other Boats, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, at half-past 8
A.M.
Return Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, at half-past 7 A.M.
Fare from London, 1_l._ 11_s._ and 1_l._ 1_s._
Boat from Jersey to St. Malo’s, in 3 to 5 hours, Tuesday about noon.
Boat to Granville on Saturday.
Excursions from Jersey to Sark and Alderney and round the Islet.
* * * * *
In Guernsey, chiefly French money: Jersey, chiefly British. Chief
circulation in Island one-pound notes. 12 British shillings equal to 13
Jersey.
* * * * *
Hotels of all grades. Lodgings in town-houses and garden-villas. Poultry
and Fish cheap, especially in Guernsey. Tobacco and Tea moderate. Milk
plentiful, even in many cottages.
Wine, per doz.:—Port, 18_s._ to 40_s._ Sherry, 18_s._ to 36_s._
Madeira, 50_s._ Marsala, 15_s._ Claret, 16_s._ to 75_s._ Burgundy,
30_s._ to _55s._ Champagne, 30_s._ to 60_s._ Mountain, 20_s._ Hock and
Moselle, 35_s._ to 55_s._ Muscat, 25_s._ Chablis and Barsac, 20_s._
Sauterne, 12_s._ to 15_s._ Grave, 18_s._ Champagne Brandy, 49_s._
Horses, 6_s._ or 7_s._ a-day. One-horse carriage, 8_s._ Two-horse
carriage, 12_s._ to 15_s._
Table of Contents
1. Alderney.
2. Guernsey.
3. Sark.
4. Jersey.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
ALDERNEY MAP
LA PENDENTE, ALDERNEY
ALDERNEY FROM BERHOU
GUERNSEY MAP
LE FORÊT, GUERNSEY
MUEL HUET
SERK MAP
LE CREUX HAVEN, SERK
LES AUTELETS
LA COUPÉ
POINT VIGNETTE
JERSEY MAP
ELIZABETH CASTLE, JERSEY
ST. BRELADE’S BAY
ST. BRELADE’S CHURCH
CLIFFS NEAR GRÈVE LA LECQ
GUERNSEY AND SERK, FROM JERSEY
CROMLECH
MOUNT ORGUEIL CASTLE
LA TOUR D’AUVERGNE
THE
ISLETS OF THE CHANNEL.
* * * * *
IT was in the tenth century that the French King, Charles IV., granted
to Rollo the Pirate, who had married his daughter, the Dukedom of
Normandy, together with the islets of “the wide bay of St. Michael’s;” a
guerdon for his conversion to Christianity. When William, the descendant
of Rollo, won the field of Hastings, the islets became an appanage of
Britain, by the right of _being conquered_, and so they remain to this
day politically subject to Britain, although geographically a parcel of
France. The discovery of Roman, Celtic, Runic, and Gallic relics and
coins, and the ruins of temple and fortress throughout the islets,
reflect their history on the olden time. Jersey, it seems, was the
isolated retreat of Ambiorix, a rebel to Julius Cæsar, if we rightly
interpret the sixth book of the “Commentaries.” These Norman rocks,
however, have not been held unchallenged. The French descents date from
Henry I., through the reigns of John—who established the “Royal
Courts,” on a visit to the isles—of Edward I., Edward III., Henry VII.,
Edward VI., George II., and George III., but they were all failures,
although Du Guesclin, who was commissioned by Charles the Wise, seized
and held Mount Orgueil Castle. In the dilemma of “the Roses,” the Norman
Pierre de Breze assumed the title of “Lord of the Isles” until the
blending of these royal emblems. The last attempt was on Jersey, in
1779-80, by the Duke of Nassau, when Pierson fell in its successful
defence.
During the joyous months of summer and autumn, this fair group of islets
will become more and more attractive as the facility of communication
increases, especially as they possess the elements both of the
salubrious and the beautiful in a very high degree. Soft and
health-breathing gales are wafted along their very lovely and
bloom-spangled valleys; they are belted by magnificent cliffs, indented
by sheltered coves and deep and darksome caverns, and by outlying rocks
of the most fantastic forms, and they are enriched, moreover, by quaint
and antique structures, emblazoned in remote history and romantic
legend.
There is a charm, also, in feeling that they are _our own_, and that the
genial atmosphere and the luscious fruits and the light wines of France
may be so perfectly enjoyed without the inquisitorial annoyance of the
system of Passe-porte.
There are hotels and lodging-houses adapted to the most economic purse,
the direction to which may be learned on board; and the markets will
supply all the delicacies an island appetite can desire. For the
votaries of health and joy the islets are thus exquisitely fashioned by
the bounty of the Creator, and the invalid and convalescent may with
confidence adopt them as a resort, especially as the facility of sailing
and boating on genial waters offers delightful recreation without the
exhaustion of fatigue and the consequent evil of _reaction_.
The islets are fanned by southern breezes, yet the tidal currents in
their rock-bound channels, often running seven knots in the hour, foam
over the breakers in very wild magnificence. The floods of the _Race_ of
Alderney, _Les Ras de Blansharde_, between that islet and Cape la Hogue,
and even those of the _Swinge_ between the islet and the porphyritic
rock of _Berhou_ are proverbial, and in very foul weather the boat may
roll and ship heavy seas in the passage of the Ortac within the crags of
the _Caskets_.
Through the _Race_ run the boats from the Thames: those from Southampton
chiefly through the _Swinge_ or the _Ortac_: those from Weymouth direct
in the open channel to Porte St. Pierre in Guernsey, the most rapid and
_pacific_ course for the languid and the delicate.
* * * * *
The geologic _arrangement_ of the islets is in three pairs. Jersey and
Guernsey are inclined planes, shelving from magnificent cliffs to a flat
beach studded with rocklets; Jersey trending southward, Guernsey
northward; the granite rocks of Jersey enclosing one-half, those of
Guernsey one-third.
Alderney and Serque are _table-lands_, raised on bases of rock; Alderney
irregularly _belted_—Serque completely _framed_. Herm and Jedthou are
mounds isolated by the waves. _Satellite blocks_ and _ledges_ are lying
in profusion in the channels, some overwhelmed at high water. These
groups are exquisitely bold in outline and deep and rich in colour, from
the incessant play of wind and wave, the pencils and the washes with
which elemental _art_ is still heightening the wildness and the beauty
of the creation.
The valleys and downs are prolific in bloom, and flowers of the
brightest and deepest colours adorn the more cultivated parterres. In
the deep, deep caverns, with which the cliff and the bays are darkened,
sport in their almost sacred solitude the acephalæ and the actiniæ. In
the watery bosom of the cave, the male syngnathus may nurse its infant
brood in safety, and the delicate comatula unfold its feathery
tentaculæ. In the hollow cups scooped in the granite and glittering with
brine, the daisy actinia, that Clytie of the rocks so loving of the
light, may unfold her enamoured florets to the sun. Then what profusion
and what variety in form and colour of deep sea-weeds are thrown by the
billows on the pebbles and the sand; a spot richer both in these
cast-away treasures of the deep and in the living botany of the ocean,
may not be found than the caverned bays of eccentric Serque.
[Illustration: ALDERNEY]
ALDERNEY:
AURENÊ—AURIGMA—AURIMA—ARENO—ABRENO—AURNE—ORIGNI—AURINÆ
INSULA—ISLE OF THE CAPE—ISLAND OF ST. ANNE.
THIS lies nearest to the shore of Albion, within its belt of shoals, and
difficult of access in stormy weather, even in its new haven of Braye la
Ville, or Brayer. The access was still more perilous in Crab Bay, or in
the more ancient port of Longy. We are landed. How quiet the people, how
social and primitive, how wedded to old customs. It is probable,
however, that in a few years the harbour of Braye will display a busier
scene, much of the sterile land of the Giffoine be fertilized, the petty
farms multiplied, and the treasures of its fisheries realized: but
Alderney will never be admired, for dulness reigns around, and the sea
spray seems to excite cutaneous maladies, and the salt and fish diet to
induce dyspepsia. There is, however, with its sterile aspect and its
dearth of foliage, a prominent and novel character in Alderney. About
its elevated centre is the quaint old ville of St. Anne, possessing a
new church (the ancient fane being despoiled), a new court house, the
Government house, the gaol, the female school, and chapels of dissent.
Of the ancient town on the south-eastern coast, of which the oblong
granite blocks of Les Rochers, near the cemetery, are believed to be the
debris, very solemn legends are recorded. Its destruction is referred to
the judgment of the Deity on the crimes of a gang of wreckers, who
plundered and murdered the crew of a Spanish vessel wrecked on the
coast. This infliction, according to the record, had its parallel in
Jersey.
The _Court_ consists of judge, jurats, attorney and solicitor-general,
greffier, sheriff, and his depute and serjeant.
The ecclesiastical history is not without interest, and there are
seriously romantic legends of the mission of Geunal, Vignalor, or St.
Vignalis, the patron saint of Aurigny. He was a scion of a noble family
in Bretagne, a proselyte of St. Magloire, and he resigned his abbacy of
Landenec, and became a missionary to Sark. From thence he wended to
Alderney, and converted the catchers of fish and the tillers of ground,
before this the most desperate _wreckers_ in the Channel.
From the outlying rocks on the eastern height stands the ruined castle
(_La Chatte_) of Essex, built, it is said, by Robert Devereux, for the
detention of his queen. Below it, on the lower shore of Longis is a
Roman _cist_, noted by Holinshed; and _Castrum Longini_. _Les murs des
bas_, or the _Nunnery_, is a very antique square, with corner towers,
constructed with the Roman tiles of the dilapidated ville. Here and also
at _Corbelets_ were discovered antique vessels and coins and relics, and
monumental stones of porphyry and sienite.
On the coast heights there are batteries and watchtowers and beacons,
and a telegraph for Guernsey, all dismantled in time of peace.
[Illustration: LA PENDENTE, ALDERNEY]
The coast is one of the wildest belts of cliffs and rocklets; those
eastward of a line from _Braye_ to _L’Etat_ are of ruddy grit, those
westward of porphyry or hornstone. The eastern group, more exposed to
disintegrating forces, assumes the columnar form, or that of hanging
blocks, as at _Pendente_; but the porphyry of the west is of the wildest
fashion. Between these strata is a narrow black belt of hornblende and
quartz, running north and south across the islet. On the south-west
point is _La Nashe Fourchie_, the cones of _Les Rochers des Sœurs_, and
the secluded _Chaise de l’Emauve_, the _Lovers Chair_, a record of the
passion of Jacquine Le Mesurier for one far lower than herself in rank.
Of this romance the story and catastrophe are just as interesting as the
common run of these love tales. Below the ridge of the _Giffoine_ there
is the bold _Tête de Jugemaine_, and the fine bays of _La Platte Saline_
and _La Clanque_. On its outlying rock is still celebrated on the first
Sunday in Lent, by youths and maidens, the ancient festa of Les
Brandons, the wild gambols being peculiar to the islet. After dancing in
the ring and kisses round, the corps de ballet return to Braye in
procession, waving aloft their blazing firebrands, displaying all the
wild gambols of Comus. The islet is most exposed; it is therefore
_bracing_, yet the Cape _Alctris_ and other exotics thrive in the open
air. About Longis and La Clanque a profusion of _fuci_ and _algæ_ is
thrown on the shore. The _Haliotis_ and _Trochus shells_ lie on the
beach, and myriads of the _strombiformis_ on the sterile ground.
[Illustration: ALDERNEY, FROM BERHOU]
In her course from England, whether in the open channel or in the Ortac,
the boat closes on the _Caskets_. From the Weymouth course these lie off
eastward. The water is twenty and thirty fathoms deep around these white
sand rocks, which are about a mile in circuit, and have two
landing-places, with steps in the rock, accessible in calm weather. The
approach is perilous in a storm; and it was off the Caskets that in 1120
Prince William, the only son of Henry I., was drowned. The platform is
walled and surrounded by three light-towers at triangular points. The
sea block of _Ortac_ and the rocklet of _Berhou_ lie between the Caskets
and Alderney, the latter rock being the resort of the Stormy Petrel, the
Barbalot, and the burrowing bee, one of the most interesting little
things in entomology. From this rock the peep at Alderney is
picturesque.
We are nearing the little Russell Channel, and surrounded by blocklets:
another of the sister islets is looming in the distance.
[Illustration: GUERNSEY]
GUERNSEY:
CÆSAREA—SARNIA.
PASSING between the point of _Vale_ and Herm, we are directly off the
harbour of _St. Peters Port_, its fort of _Castle Cornet_ crowning an
isolated granite rock, southward of the pier, which now connects it with
the shore, and forms the harbour of refuge. The coup d’œil assumes a
perfect Norman aspect, and the costume, dialect, and manners are in just
harmony with the scene. The marine quarter of the “town,” as it is _par
excellence_ termed (and indeed there is no other in Guernsey),
especially the old church, the hotels, and wineshops, of dark grey
stone, with which the quay is lined, is perfectly _continental_. The
shops and offices, of more modern aspect, compose the streets; the
dwellings of the opulent, among which _Castle Carey_ is conspicuous, are
chiefly on terraces along the abrupt escarpment; _Elizabeth College_,
the modern church, and the _Victoria Tower_, by the cemetery, on the new
ground, being the most prominent public objects. The old church on the
quay, dating about 1120, is crucial, the interior being darkened by its
massive columns and heavy galleries.
The marble slabs of the fish-market are profusely supplied with choice
fish—turbot, dorey, and very fine crustacea; and the stalls teem in the
season with the treasures of Pomona.
The education at the College is economical, about £12 per annum; the
cost for living with the Principal not exceeding £60.
The influence of this facility of learning will enlighten the minds even
of the unlettered islanders, among whom there is a prevalent
superstition. The belief in witchcraft may still be discerned, although
it is now two centuries since women were tortured, hung, and burned
under this demoniac creed.
The scenic quality both of the interior and of the eastern and northern
coasts of Guernsey is mere prettiness. On the south, however, from
Fermains Bay to Rocquaine it is buttressed by some of the most
magnificent rocks in the Channel, the land gradually descending from
them northward. The coast rocks on the east, south-east, south, and
south-west, from Saline to Rocquaine, are of _gneiss_, those of
Rocquaine are of _schist_, and thence they are _granitic_.
A line from Vagon Bay on the west through Catel to Amherst cuts the
islet into two unequal parts, differing in geological character. Much of
the bed of the northern portion is alluvial; some, indeed, embanked from
the sea by General Doyle. The southern is a more elevated platform, and
consists of a series of undulating hills, and sloping bosky lanes, and
little glens with rippling runnels, until the highest downs dip at once
into the waves their magnificent gneiss cliffs, rounding into beautiful
bays, embossed with outlying rocks, and worn into clefts and fissures,
or running up into exquisite little dingles. This magnificence is
confined to the south; the sea and coast views, however, to the east,
are finely backed by the islets of Herm and Jedthou, and the more
distant ridge of Serque.
Guernsey is an easy study; it may be _coasted_ and _threaded_, and its
objects of natural and archæological interest analysed, in four or five
days. In calm weather, however, the cliff beauty of the islet may be
contemplated more perfectly from a boat, surveyed from Fermains Bay to
Les Hanois.
The coast from Port St. Pierre to St. Sampson is flat, and studded with
rocklets, on which loads of _vraich_ and _laminaria_ and _asperococcus_
are profusely strewn. These algæ are gathered and dried for fuel, at the
legal harvest time, in March and July, the harvest home being profusely
supplied with _vraich cakes_ and bread. The digging and blasting of the
quarries of black stone, and the tiny windmills that drain these
excavations, give life to the scene as we approach St. Sampson’s.
Martello towers crown several of the brows, and there is within very old
walls to the left a little remnant now styled _Ivy Castle_. It is not
worth the visit, although it is a bit of a castle, built by Robert of
Normandy, contemporary with that of Jerbourg.
We are close to the archæological gems of the islet,—the churches of
_St. Sampson_ and _Braye la Ville_, or _du Val_, within a mile of each
other, at each end of a flat alluvial isthmus. The first is dated 1111,
its name being derived from Sampson, Bishop of St. David’s, consecrated
Bishop of Dol under the Duke of Brittany, and endowed with these islets
by Childebert of France. He came to Guernsey, and built a chapel here.
There are three aisles, with massive pillars and Norman arches; the old
gallery-loft and the tower are in exquisite antique. It is profusely
covered by most luxuriant ivy with enormous stems.
The steeple of Braye du Val, dated 1117, is very eccentric, immense
granitic blocks lying before the belfry-door.
At low water we cross the harbour of St. Sampson’s, Vale, or Du Val, on
stepping-stones. The Castle on the mound was erected as a defence
against the incursion of the Danes, and then called St. Michael’s, or
the Castle of the Archangel. There is a legend imputing its erection
chiefly to a band of military monks, who, in a sort of holy pilgrimage,
made a descent on the islet.
A Druidical _carn_ lies on the hill, half a mile northward on the left
of the road. There are twelve upright and three immense horizontal
stones. The largest of these, fifteen feet long and a yard thick, rests
on four uprights, the second only on two, the third on the second and
the edge of the pit, so that six uprights are unoccupied. From this brow
there is a perspective view of the chief objects in the islet, Alderney
lying on the horizon to the north-east.
Forts _Doyle_ and _Pembroke_ are on the northern point on either side of
_Lancresse Bay_, the bay of “_Anchorage_,” in which the Duke of Normandy
landed in a storm, as he was sailing over to England to Edward the
Confessor.
The shores and bays are here flat and dull; as we leave the Race Course
and pass _Portinger_ and _Long Port_, the upheaved blocks of gneiss
increase in number and proportion. In _Cobo_ Bay stands _Le Grande
Roche_; its veins of rose-coloured feldspar are unique. Here and there
we have picturesque glimpses—one of the flat islet of _Lihou_, once
hallowed by a priory built in the reign of Henry I., the grouping of
cots and walls still in bold relief. The outlying rocklets are profuse
between _Le Grand Havre_ on the north and the bold blocks of _Les
Hanois_ or _Hanoreaux_ off _Pleinmont Point_, the west corner of the
islet; they completely stud the bays of _Port du Fer_, _Saline_, _Long
Point_, _Great Cobo_, _Vazon_, _Perelle_, _Le Rie_, _Rocquaine_, the
widest bay in Guernsey. It was in Vazon Bay that the Spaniard Yvon de
Galles descended and fought the battle in which the islander Jean de
Lesoc performed feats of great valour. The site of this conflict is
still named La Bataille.
In contrast to this record of history is a fairy legend. In this bay of
Vazon was “_Les Creux des Fées_,” a cavern haunted by the little people.
Why and when and how we know not, but they conquered Guernsey!
A sterile sameness reigns around Pleinmont Point and Mount _Herault_ and
_Creux Marie_, a cavern 200 feet deep, and _Le Corbière_, until we reach
_Point la Maye_. In the vicinity are the old village churches of _St.
Peter_ in the Wood, of the æra of Henry II., 1167, and _Torteval_, still
more ancient, of the æra of Henry I., 1130, which was erected by Philip
de Carteret and dedicated to his Saint, Philip, after a vow during a
storm in Rocquaine Bay. There is the menhir stone in a meadow by one of
the lanes.
[Illustration: LE FORÊT, GUERNSEY]
The highest peak of the islet is the perpendicular cliff eastward of
Maye Point, rising to 300 feet—with offset rocklets and caverns or
slits in perfection. After the steep descent to the north-east into the
little cove of _Petit-bôt_, we mount abruptly to a very fine brow,
_Mount Hubert_, the name associated with the chase, and as we are now in
the district of _Le Forêt_, we may believe that we are on the site of
sylvan sport in the olden time. The dingle over which we look to the
elevated church of _Le Forêt_, on the opposite brow, reminds us of the
ravines of Devon or Man, the road winding in zigzag down a very deep
valley with a rippling streamlet at its side. We are now on the brow
over Icart Bay, the wildness and breadth of its waters spread out far
below us. The sienite rocks are finely chaotic, exactly grouped for the
pencil, and among the best studies in the islets; and around us we may
discover very luxuriant patches of lichen—among them the _Roccella
Tinctoria_, or _Orchel_, to which we owe many a bright olive dye and the
litmus paper so essential as a test. Another descent to eastward brings
us to the most exquisite little cove, _Saint’s Bay_; the huts and nets
and grouping of fishermen are on a ledge of the rock, adding life to the
otherwise solitary scene. The martello tower that was to guard the
descent of the gorge, like a Border peel in Scotland, is properly
perched to carry off the cliffs. Crossing Bon Point, the most fantastic
outlying rocks of Muel Huet at once arrest the eye; disintegration has
left them at present almost as caricatures. Leaving St. Martin’s on our
left, the high brow of _Jerbourg_ rises eastward, on which there is a
lofty column to the memory of General Doyle. It is the finest point for
a panorama of the isles; Herm and Jedthou beneath us, Serque and Jersey
extending their long grey ridges in the distance. The lines at _Fort
George_ commanding the road and the port are dismantled; from the
eastern bastion we gain a very fine bold view of the harbour and Castle
Cornet, with the eastern coast to the Castle of du Val, Alderney, lying
on the horizon. And so we accomplish the coast route of Guernsey.
[Illustration: MUEL HUET]
It is early evening in summer: wandering in the interior of this floral
islet, we are directly surrounded by pretty quiet hamlets and
homesteads: the abrupt lanes are lined and feathered by underwood of
very luxuriant yet dwarfish growth. The little gardens are glowing with
flowers, and they, as if to shame the forest by a contrast, attain a
gigantic height, their colours being exquisitely deepened into perfect
beauty. The tree _verbena_ rises twenty feet; _camellia_, _oleander_,
_myrtle_, _aloe_, _cystus_, blue _hydrangea_, _fuchsia_, _geranium_,
_magnolia_, all blooming profusely in the open air; _amaryllis_, the
Guernsey lily, being here unparalleled. The _heliotrope_ overruns its
bed in the wildest luxuriance—a carpet of the richest dyes more
beautiful by far than the cloth of gold of Hindustan, and on which Flora
might well hold her Court of Blossoms—and the _canna indica_ is now a
denizen in the islet. And here on the brow is the village of _Catel_,
looking down and across the flats to Braye. The antique church of the
twelfth century, frowning in dark stone, adds subject of high interest
to the bright landscape around us. And look at that eccentric daub
within it—three knights on horseback with falcons, and three skeletons
lying on the ground. It is somewhat tempting to hatch a legend, but we
refrain in pity, especially as the ovum is _addle_. There are, however,
real records of the ceremonial magnificence with which these islet
churches were consecrated, that are truly entitled to a remembrance.
Bishops and abbots and feudal lords, with their trains of vassals and
servitors, were wont in days of old to take, we hope, a holy pride in
assembling to grace the consecration with their state. Still more
fanciful is the romance of the Well of St. George, near Catel, which is
fraught with a very potent charm. St. George beats St. Valentine hollow;
for a maiden has merely to make a votive offering to this Saint at his
well nine days in succession, and lo! if she looks then into the well,
she not only sees her lover, but may _claim_ him as her right. So he
becomes a Benedict will he nill he.
From the slopes as we walk are the home peeps down the lanes and across
the dingles, with the church of du Val, and a windmill, and an arch, and
the martello of Crevelt, composing pictures of quiet beauty; and amid
such fair scenes we wander along to _St. Peter_ in the Wood, and _St.
Sauveurs_ (near which is the Beacon Hill, _La Hogue foque_,) and _St.
Andrew_, all consecrated by ancient fanes that claim the era of Henry
II.
And there in the hall of an old manor house—for we are bold in our
peregrination, and assume all the invasive liberty, the freemasonry of
curiosity—there, in the hall, we look on a large couch covered with dry
grass, fern, and heather; and what doth it import? It is the _Lit de
Veille_. On this bed, during the dreary evenings of winter, assemble the
maidens and youths of the isles, and there they sit and huddle or
recline often beneath festoons of autumnal or dried flowers, and beguile
the hours with song and chat, and thrifty needle too, forming a group
worthy of the pen of Boccaccio or the pencil of Watteau.
HERM AND JEDTHOU
Are lying along in a lake of molten gold, for so smiles the Channel in a
calm evening of July. We are rowed across with sketch-book and wallet
and hammer.
Jedthou—_Grande Hogue_—as it was a famous beacon-hill or watch-tower,
is not more than a mile long, offering fair rock subjects for the
pencil, with its satellite blocks, _Fauconnière_, _Goubinier_, and
_Crevisou_, for every block has a name.
Herm is two miles in length, and is deeply quarried. Rabbits are
burrowing among its rocks, and very small crustacea lie profusely around
its shore. But there to the north is spread its carpet of sand and its
shell beach, on which we may chance to gather very choice specimens: for
instance, chiton, lepas, pholas, solen, tellen, chama, cypræa, voluta,
haliotis, murex, and sponge and coral. It is a treasury of wrecked
shells; probably among the granite there is a lack of lime for the
construction of shell, so as to yield a profusion of living shell-fish.
On such a night, and the currents calm, we may row across the Channel by
moonlight to Port St. Pierre, as safely as we may float in a gondola
across a lagune in Venice. The moon has lighted on our slumber, and at
the earliest sunbeam we start from our couch, and we are looking on a
long amethystine ridge just coming out of the morning haze, and thither
are we bound.
[Illustration: SERK]
SARK:
SERK—SERQUE—GERS—L’ISLE DU CERS—SARNICA.
THIS exquisite little islet is lying before us, eight miles off; yet we
may often gaze on it with longing eyes, even from the pier in Guernsey,
with boats of all kinds, even the _Lady_ (cutter) _of Sark_ floating
around us, without a hope of landing on its guarded rock.
[Illustration: LE CREUX HAVEN, SERK]
Now this little Serque was the cell of St. Magloire, an Armorican or
Brittany bishop, and here he prayed and fasted himself into fitness for
the conversion of the Channel islets. This cell, in the reign of Edward
III., was still a ruined relic, and the islet was then a nest of
corsairs: it still assumes a sort of wild or neutral aspect. In the
reign of Edward VI. or that of Mary, the Flemings took it by stratagem,
but in 1565 it was securely colonized by Hilary or Helier de Carteret,
Lord of St. Ouen’s, under a grant from Mary and from Elizabeth of _fief
en Hubert_, a guerdon for knight’s service. There are monumental stones
indicating its association with the Britons, and the Romans we believe
were not ignorant of Serque. The _plan_ of this little gem is highly
eccentric: a table-land, four miles long, two miles its greatest
breadth, and five feet! at the narrowest, spread on a majestic pile of
rocks deeply indented with bays and coves and clefts, and fringed by
groups of rocklets and ledges, in all the fantastic fashioning of the
elements. These outposts, by increasing the difficulty of access, impart
a deeper interest to the islet, scarcely alloyed by the slight sense of
peril, for we are confident of being safely wafted, D. V., by the
superior skill of the Serque boatmen, even among breakers and
conflicting currents, into the tiny cove of _Le Creux_. So our _Lady of
Sark_ is safe at her moorings, and we are rowed into this puddle of a
harbour, completely overhung by perpendicular cliffs, 200 feet high, and
richly clothed with velvet mosses and lichens, a complete study for
Salvator or our own Pyne. This is the only point for landing in certain
states of current or surf, although in very calm weather there is an
available cove to eastward, and the daring may be run ashore in the
bays. But even from this beach we have no natural mode of escape. A
tunnel in the cliff opens by an arch, over which is the date 1688, the
year of its construction by the Carterets; and so we walk out and up
between green hills chequered with heath and rock, with triumphant pride
at thus carrying the mighty earthworks which the Gnome and the Triton
have raised around their granite home. And so we seek our hostelry, and
find it in a capital farm-house, and we are soon engaged with Madame
Vaudin in a cosy chat, in which come out, so unexpectedly, records of
our lamented friend, Sir John Franklin, who years ago sojourned in our
very chamber, and slumbered within those green curtains; and all this
while the fish and the ducks and the puddings, bathed in exquisite
cream, are being prepared for our luxurious and most economic feasting.
And then, in the kitchen, we discuss the statistics, the poetry, and the
government of the islet with this ancient, clever dame. Of this it is
enough to record, that there are about forty yeomen, tillers of the
land, in Serque, the magistracy of the isle, quite a Venetian Senate;
one of whom, we believe, may try a cause, subject, however, to an appeal
to the forty, and to the Seigneur or Lord of Serque, who is of course
their president. They are their own law-makers, not subject to the
enactments of our legislature, exchequer, or customs; the only duty paid
to England being a sort of quit-rent of £2 per annum.
Our hostelry is in the pretty village of _Dixcard_, a few scattered
houses forming the ville of _Le Vorsque_, the chief rendezvous of the
Serque islet, nearly in its centre. The dingle runs nearly across the
islet, winding for about a mile between lofty brows down to its bay, and
may form a line for our promenading—the northern and the southern walk.
The beauties of the coast of Serque, however, should be revelled in;
they are worth more than a glance and away, and after a rapid survey of
two days, we may wander away in any direction from our central roost,
and be sure of descending in a score of minutes to some beauty of the
rocks, some cove or block or boutique, the names of which, though sadly
mutilated by the islanders, we will essay to record.
Our first walk is by the church and the scattered ville of Roselle and
the Seigneury to the northern cape. This house of the lord is in the
Tudor style, and boasts a lake, a boat, a bowling-green, a flagstaff,
and a belvidere, and parterres and greenhouses of choice and beautiful
flowers; and it is near the head of a ravine leading down to the most
exquisite cave of the islet.
And here we are on the promontory of _Point le Nez_, the first cape on
our scud from Guernsey. The terminal rocks are insular at high water,
but _Le Bec du Nez_ may be reached on a ledge at ebb of tide. On the
brow the schist blocks, traversed by porphyry, are upheaved in the
wildest confusion, and assume an endless variety of form, more so than
the shore blocks, which are washed and rolled and rounded by the waves.
It is a fine wild range to begin with. The turf down invites us even to
an Olympic race, for the pure air elevates both the will and the power
of our frame. We feel our muscular energy almost grow upon us, and when
we have revelled on the turf, then down among the white, smooth rocks
that lie scattered around in chaotic rudeness, like the thrones of
Titanic nobles. But prolific nature has gemmed these blocks for a more
charming study than mythological fancies; there is a garden of lichens
strewn for our special admiration on their surface; there are the golden
studs of _squammaria_, and the grey and purple bosses of _parmelia_; and
if we peep between these stone giants, we shall light on many a lovely
flower and rich green plant, blooming and luxuriating within little
nooks, and nursed by their genial shelter. The _scolopendrium_ and
_hart’s tongue_ are long and broad in leaf, and the _grammitis_ expands
its fronds in profusion; and here we breasted one of the most violent
gales of the Channel, not without some peril, for it was often difficult
to _hang on_; but the wind _blew into us_ such a joyous and refreshing
energy and power that this clinging to the rocks was no labour. Our
sketch-book was not so fortunate, it was whirled from our grasp in a
moment, and dashed against a towering block. We rushed wildly to save
our treasure, but four or five of our favourite sketches were wafted in
a few seconds high up among the clouds, imparting a deeper value to the
_salvage_.
[Illustration: LES AUTELETS]
Ascending the ledge to the eastern side of the _Corbie du Nez_ or
_Grin_, we come abruptly on a yawning cleft that nearly isolates the
cape itself. Its aspect is formidable but its descent is easy, and it
leads down to the mouth or funnel of the largest cave in the islet, _La
Boutique, par excellence_. To reach an inner cave a barrier must be
mounted. At high water, the billows, after dashing on the shore cliff,
rush in with a thundering sound at two chasms on the north and west. At
low water the inner boutique may be entered with a light; it is lofty,
and on its surface there are a few stalactitic droppings and a
sprinkling of ferns. There are smaller caverns in the cliffs. We come
out on the broad bay of Banquette, and in the little cave to southward
stand out in the most fantastic beauty the finest outlying rocks in the
islet, _Les Autelets_—little altars: in complete contrast, however, one
being a stupendous cube of _Grauwacke_ on a very narrow base, the other
a huge pyramid, on the ledges of which a flight of choughs and shags
settle and roost in the evening. The overhanging cliffs are nearly
perpendicular, and along their base lie around in heaps the most
gigantic blocks of very variegated stones, black, red and grey; and
unlike the _angular_ blocks on the hills they are mathematically rounded
off by the attrition of the waves. Among these rocks are deep pools of
water, in which we may discover small crustacea, and rich varieties of
the _daisy actinia_, the _nereis_, and _holothuria_, and other
_anthozoa_. There is one flaunting in bright orange, and yonder crawls
the _hermit crab_ that seems to have _perforated_ an actinia within a
shell, the tissue of the anemone forming a ring round the crab. Many of
the blocks are richly clothed with _fucus spiralis_ (_bladdervraich_)
and _crithmum_ (_samphire_) in all their splendour of gold and bronze.
We must be wary, however, in paddling over these slippery carpets, a
fall from them is not a trifle. _Chondrus membranifolius_, and pink and
green _polysyphonia_ and _dasya_ are hanging on the cliffs, and the
_ulva_ and _porphyra_, oyster-green, and purple _laver_ on the deeper
rocks. The blocks are studded with minute univalves, and the _patella_
shells of the limpet show like bosses on a shield.
Through a splendid arch of dark reddish sienite, marked by horizontal
lines of schist, standing nobly out from the cliff, we pass into the
next bay, the most magnificent in Serque, _Porte Meullin_. It is a deep
wide cave, overfrowned by cliffs of clay shale 300 feet high, that come
down perpendicularly on the beach. On their sides and brow _zigzags_ are
cut, by which the summit is gained, and from it we look down on the most
splendid grouping of the islet. A cleft on the south side of Port
Meullin sets off an isolated rock of very quaint form, and leads to
another fine cave with chaotic blocks and pools, a lofty pinnacle
towering above the cleft, and a wide cavern yawning in the islet rock.
These rocks are bronzed by masses of golden gelatine, _laminaria
bulbosa_, and _fucus canaliculatus_.
Among these ferruginous blocks, _talc_ and _asbestos_ and _agate
chalcedony_, green, red, and yellow _jasper_ may be discovered, and
veins of _lapis ollaris_ running across the islet.
During the western gales—and we now encountered one of the most
determined violence—the waves roll into Port Meullin a profusion of the
most magnificent algæ or weeds that we have beheld. In a few minutes we
selected and displayed on the pebbles half a score of splendid
specimens, a complete museum of sea treasure. There was a gigantic flag,
six yards long, of rich sienna brown with a fringe of pink, covered with
white spots, _laminaria saccharina_, or _sea hanger_. There were the
fleshy fans of _nitrophyllum_; long brown ribbon slips six or eight in a
bunch, _asperococcus_ and _rhodomenia_; bunches of golden pods or
bladders at the end of narrow leaves, _fucus spiralis_; huge bunches of
broad reddish leaves, like those of the oak, _delesseria sanguinea_;
eight or ten ribbon thongs, six feet long, on a thick brown stem,
_laminaria digitata_ (they might be a cat-o’-nine-tails for the backs of
the Nereids); filigree weeds of the purest pink and white,
_polysyphonia_ and _dasya_; very long, tough, gelatinous brown thongs in
a bow, _chorda filum_, sea whip-lash, and the purple _iridea_. The heath
brows over this lane are clothed in corresponding luxuriance. There were
at least three species of _erica_, a profusion of _spurges_, _aspidia_,
and _asplenia_ ferns; _ophioglossum_, adder’s-tongue, and an _adiantum_,
maiden-hair fern, and dwarf _polypodium_ were springing from the stunted
stems, and little tufts, like _codium bursæ_, green purse-moss, and all
these among clumps of _thrift_ and _chicory_, and dwarf thistles, and
wild _sage_ and _spinach_, and _vaccinia_. We could not light on the
_stramonium_, _wormwood_, or _canna indica_, which we were told now grew
wild in the islet.
_Couleur de rose_ will ever gild our memory of Port Meullin. It was the
scene of our first grand impression of the extreme beauty of Serque; but
it was gilded by a sentiment somewhat beyond mere admiration. From
another point, a very courteous gentleman left his islet villa, and his
lady and his luncheon, and guided us to the descent, where a bevy of
fair girls, in all the romance of elegant deshabille, were gathering
weed and pebbles among the rocks. Charming! Look across from Port
Meullin to Havre Gosselin; there is a green fissure in the cliff 200
feet in height, as if the rocks had quarrelled and fallen away from each
other—it is the _Moie du Mouton_, and along it sheep are lifted to
browse on the green down above.
[Illustration: LA COUPÉ]
And there on the right stretches the bold isolated rock, _Brechou_, or
L’Isle de Merchant, a table of rich mould on a belt of flat rock. On its
southern side yawns a very lofty chasm. We longed to pore into it; but
the currents daunted even the boatmen of Serque. Round the point of
Lionee opens the wide bay of Le Grand Grève, divided from the opposite
bay by that most eccentric wall of rock 200 feet high and 6 feet thick
on its ridge. This _coupée_, thus pared down for safety and for traffic,
is chiefly of sienite or hornblende granite, traversed by a vein of
porcelain clay, and it divides the islet into Great and Little Serk.
This, perhaps prudent cutting down, has, however, shorn the guide-books
of the high-flown epithets of “awe” and “terror,” which they affirm must
strike the adventurer from Great to Little Serk. This peninsula,
_presq’île du petit Serque_—wears a dreary aspect on its face; yet
parterres of the most splendid ericas here and there adorn its soil—a
little nest of cots and some scattered ruins of miners’ huts display a
curious contrast of vitality and desertion. The southern point is the
mining district; and though they have quite abandoned the search for
ore, the superficial barrenness is perfectly consistent with mineral
impregnation below. Our research for mollusca was more fertile in the
pools about the southern point than elsewhere. As we round the point we
come on a little bay, the avant courier of a splendid succession of
coves and clefts on the eastern coast, and lying off this southern point
peers up the bold rock _L’Etat du Serq_. Every brow on this deeply
indented shore should be rounded and scaled and descended, as far as the
worn or stony path can be traced, and then we look directly on the face
of the cliff and _into_ the caverns. There is one cave especially,
called, we believe, _Le Pot_, as fine as can be imagined—the boldest
feature of Little Serk, and on these rock-brows the lichens are in
beautiful profusion, and the grey and yellow cetraria, and the fleshy
_sycophorus deformis_.
We now come round to the eastern cliff of Coupée Bay, its extraordinary
wall lifting up its causeway almost in the clouds. Beyond, the next
headland opens on us the fine bay of _Baleine_, or _Dixcard_, the
holiday spot of the islet. It is carpeted by white sand, on which small
boats may be pushed in calm weather; it is the bathing-place of the
visitors, whose half-mile walk from the hotel is chiefly on the
greensward, and there is an arched cave in a pinnacle for our disrobing.
Every step on this bold shore displays a fresh picture.
[Illustration: POINT VIGNETTE]
_Le Creux_ cavern, a great hole 100 feet deep, and opening above on the
hill, yawns on the beach. At high-water a boat can be pushed into this
cauldron, which is a perfect miniature of the famed Buller of Buchan
in Scotland. _Point Vignette_, _La Terrible_, or _La Conchée_, lifts
its proud pinnacles beyond this. _Les Burons_ and _La Moie_ lie
off the cliffs. Then comes a black ridge, looking like porphyry,
termed, we believe, _La Chateau_. It bounds the only little cave,
L’Eperquerie—Paregorois—Port Gourey, in which boats may be sheltered
and moored. Into this caverned cave of green velvet it was our fortune
to descend during one of the severest gales, the rolling foam
beautifully contrasting with the black-green rocks. The small boats were
dancing high on the liquid mountain, and even the cutters and a lugger
were rocking and dipping their bows in the water, and yet at the time
the water in this cave, and in _Creux_ also, was the calmest around the
islet. The group of fishermen below us on a rock-ledge were seemingly in
dilemma for ourselves. It was a most perilous footing; so boisterous was
the blast around the rocks, that we were compelled to cling to the
rocks, and several of our hapless sketches were wafted aloft in a
moment. The sailors seemed to think us wild, and to wonder how and
whence we came, and, indeed, why we came at all; and yet this was what
we hoped to see—a calm would have tamed the scene down to
insignificance. Close to the landing-place and the off-lying rock it is
all perfect studies. We have _La Chapel de Meuve_, a square block of
pendant granite, as if momentarily about to fall. The range of rocks on
the eastern coast consist chiefly of sienite. We have now well-nigh
rounded the islet of Serk, a complete _embarras de richesse_; one
glimpse of these rocks taken at random were worth a day’s journey.
Hark! amid the howling of the wind there is the scrape of a
fiddle—shade of Straduarius, a cremona in Serk! A band of wandering
minstrels are wind-bound in the islet, and in sympathy they are about to
invoke Terpsichore in a stable-loft, approached by a narrow mud path,
beneath a dripping hedge and a muck-heap! And there is the fair, the
fairest maid in Serk, Fanny, of whom it is the fashion to talk, flirting
in very accomplished style, raising flames of jealousy among the
juveniles who resort to Mrs. Hizzlehurst’s hotel. It was a very fair bit
of romantic burlesque, and _took_.
We are in Serk four days more than we had contemplated; the pressure
of harvest binds us in the islet; all hands to the sickle and the
sheaf. Boreas, however, had the credit of our imprisonment; yet we
regret it not—almost every waking hour was passed in contemplation
of some fresh beauty. The bracing breeze of health, the complete
retirement—_solitude_, if you will—the absence of all mere holiday
intrusion, the instant transition from our hostelry into the midst of
romantic beauty, to be admired or studied as the fit may work, and,
withal, the order of domestic economy, all mark this little islet as the
perfect home of the student who is reading or writing—of the romantic
wanderer—of the artist—of the geologist—of all, indeed, who love to
revel in wild and unspoliated nature.
Adieu! beautiful Sark, we shall not soon forget your perfection; adieu!
for yonder lies the “Lady” of the islet, in whose bosom we are to be
wafted off to Guernsey with the market-people who wend to St. Peter’s
Port to replenish the exhausted stores of the islet. Romance itself must
be fed, it cannot live on flowers: and so, at five in the morning, in
bright moonlight, amid a bevy of visitors and a group of Serquois
peasants, we have passed the portal of the rocks, and wait on the beach
to be rowed to the cutter in the cove—wind, tide, and currents dead
against us; so, to gain an offing, we make the tour of the island, and
by a long tack of three miles run up the Great Russell and round Castle
Cornet into the haven of Sarnia.
And now, still further southward, we are nearing the fairest islet of
the Channel, and after the circuitous struggles of our voyage from
Serque, with all the charm of contrast, we overcome time and space with
almost a certainty of progression. We chuckle at this triumph of vapour
over the gales, yet with time to spare, and with wind and tide and
current in our favour—a very rare coincidence in the Channel seas—we
would yet prefer to hoist our canvas, and skim leisurely over the
glittering waves to Jersey.
[Illustration: JERSEY]
JERSEY:
CÆSAREA—AUGIA—JARSARY—JERESEYE—GERSEY—GERSUI—GEARSEY—=la
deroute=—DEARSI (_Gaelic_)
WE have rounded the south-western point of the islet, and are floating
into the wide bright bay of St. Aubin’s, steering by the western passage
through the narrows between the bold fortress of Elizabeth Castle and
the pier, and we wend at once to our hostelry at St. Helier’s.
This Jersey is an oblong islet, about twelve miles from east to west, by
about seven or eight from north to south, extending from the Points of
Sorell and of Noirmont, and those of Belle Hogue and Du Pas. It is
completely escalloped by bays and coves and ravines, with their
essential rocks and promontories, and _belted_ with myriads of outlying
rocklets of very eccentric forms, composed chiefly of sienite and
porphyry. The five Points on the south coast—Corbière, Moye, Noirmont,
Le Nez, and La Roque, being nearly in the same latitude. To these
natural bulwarks the art of defence has added a circle of martello
towers around the coast, and these are now so completely dismantled as
even to embellish and add interest to the landscape; for they seem to
tell of deeds and people of a feudal age, like the Border peels of the
north. The three great bays of St. Ouen, St. Aubin, and Grouville, form
the flat shores of the islet.
The area of the islet is about 40,000 acres; its population about
37,000. It is divided into twelve parishes—St. Helier’s, St. Lawrence,
St. Peter’s, St. Brelade, St. Ouen, St. John, St. Mary, Trinity, St.
Martin, St. Saviour, St. Clement, Grouville—and subdivided into about
forty vintaines, an area containing twenty houses.
From each of these churches, which were held sacred as a sanctuary,
there was in ancient times a direct road—_Perquages_—to the coast, by
which the criminal might escape unscathed if he kept the direct line.
And these are the chief officers of the islet:—The military
lieutenant-governor, the baillie, and the dean, appointed by the
sovereign; the advocate, selected by the baillie, and the twelve judges,
by the people.
As we step on the quay of St. Helier’s, or “_town_,” we look on quaint
grey houses assuming a Norman aspect; but as we proceed to the interior
we are reminded of an English market-town, with neat shops and new
wine-houses. There are about 1000 houses in the town; its population
being about 30,000.
In the royal square is the court-house, _La Cohue_, of the date of 1647,
around which we meet loungers and gossips, especially during the
sittings, and in the centre is a royal statue.
The public library was erected by Falle, the historian of Jersey, and
contains a very fair batch of literature, and also the drawings of
Capelin, a native artist.
There is a new prison, and a hospital, and a poorhouse.
St. Helier’s is prolific of temples of worship. Amidst French Protestant
and Catholic fanes and conventicles, stands pre-eminent in the royal
square the mother Church, 500 years old, and of pure Norman style,—a
new aisle, in perfect harmony, being lately added. Very grotesque
gargouilles and a profusion of ivy mark it as a very eccentric pile. The
government stall and pulpit are ancient, and there are monuments and
slabs to the memory of Carterets in 1767—Durel, Dauvergues, Gordon, and
Pierson, the defender. The gallery stairs are outside the walls. The
evening is devoted to the French service.
The several market-places, especially on Saturdays, are scenes of very
lively interest. The produce of the Jersey gardens is most prolific, and
sold at a moderate price. The grapes are pre-eminent, and the
Chaumontelle pear has nearly attained the weight of one pound, and is
often sold at five guineas per hundred. In the afternoon the market is a
sort of fashion; but the grouping of the buyers and the loungers is not
picturesque, the costume being chiefly the formal cut of England, or the
sombre colours of Normandy. The colloquial language is a mingling of
French and English: the children are taught both, but, whether in truth
or in courtesy, several assured us that they preferred the English.
The votary of _mere pleasure_ or the excitement of gaiety, must not
sojourn in Jersey: out of the pale of select society St. Helier’s will
be most monotonous; it will be indeed a complete blank, and he will
quietly fly off to scenes more exciting though infinitely less healthful
and happy, leaving beautiful Jersey to us, to those whom the Deity has
endowed with a deeper feeling for the charms of Nature’s loveliness.
[Illustration: ELIZABETH CASTLE, JERSEY]
The visitation of the ancient and modern works around St. Helier’s is
worth a day even to the superficial gazer. The eye of the archæologist
and the artist is attracted at once by the bold fortress of _Elizabeth
Castle_, isolated at high tide, but approached at low-water on the floor
of the bay. Along a causeway track from the “Black rock,” on the shore,
we wend with market-women at our heels, and meet a company of soldiers
marching on some duty to St. Helier’s. We must not linger in our survey,
as the tide will flow in four or five hours, often to the height of
forty feet.
The castle stands amidst a group of schist rocks, about a mile in
circumference. One of the outermost blocks is crowned by the remnant of
a real _hermitage_, the cell of St. Helier, who was murdered in the
ninth century by a band of Norman pirates.
The access to the stronghold is intricate and well planned for safety
and defence. It was built in the seventeenth century. Amidst a profusion
of modern and debasing architecture, look on the very curious gate-arch,
on the ascent to the keep. Above a _fleur-de-lis_ at the point of the
_ogee_ of the arch is an escutcheon in stone—the royal shield of
Britain, crested by the red and white roses. Over the left feet of the
supporters are the initials, E. R., of the maiden Queen, in whose reign
the first stone was laid. On one of the arches is a circular disc,
displaying daggers and a fret. To this keep Charles II., when Prince of
Wales, fled for refuge, with his brother James and Clarendon, the islet
of Jersey having declared for him, while Guernsey sided with the
Parliament; and here Charles drew a new map of the island, and Clarendon
penned part of his celebrated record of the Rebellion. In gratitude for
its loyalty the King presented them with a gilt mace on the Restoration,
and graced it with a Latin inscription.
Across a deeper water opens the capacious harbour, with its two piers,
Victoria and Albert, which, especially in storm and tempest, is often
crowded with vessels. The basins were now nearly destitute of craft; but
_acephalæ_ are floating around the piers. Crowning the high greenstone
ridge above it, _Mont de la Ville_, is _Fort Regent_, a fortress,
erected at the cost of a million, of stone from the quarry of Medo, on
the northern coast. Its area is about four acres. It is bomb-proof, and
commands completely the bay and the town. The view from its height
compasses the bay of St. Aubin, the government house, the college, a
mansion of modern Gothic, erected in 1846, after the Queen’s visit, and
the south-eastern corner around St. Clement’s and Grouville, the _Banc
des Violets_ displaying a strange group of black blocks among the surf
waves. At low tide the bay is a wide stone basin, carpeted with rock and
weed. As we looked on it at high water, in an autumn sunset, it was a
mirror of liquid amethyst.
On the brows around St. Helier’s many Druidical stones and tumuli have
been discovered. The chief cairn, or _Poquelaye_, very complete, with
its circle and alley, was revealed in 1785. It was removed entire by
General Conway to Park Place at Henley.
And now there are three classes of subjects that are to be admired and
studied in Jersey—the magnificent cliffs, the beautiful bays, and the
fair natural garden of the interior, taking up the archæological relics
in our way as choice _morceaux_ of historic illustration, adding an
interest even to the face of Nature.
In our visitation of the bay and the cliffs we thread the lanes and
valleys, scenes of very contrasted excellence, like the picture of a
fair beauty within a richly-carved frame. The scenic grandeur of Jersey
is between Le Tac and La Coupé, the whole northern coast of the islet,
and at the south-eastern corner, from Noirmont to La Rocca in St.
Ouen’s, all exquisitely rich in rockwork. The coast from St. Helier’s to
Gourey is a mass of button rocks. In the interior St. Peter’s displays
the only Devonian valley. But throughout the islet there are very lovely
spots, like those of Kent and Surrey, for our rambling, amid meadows
enlivened by _tethered_ cows and green hedge-rows, enamelled with
flowers, often rich and rare, on which bees luxuriate and gather their
luscious stores of honey, and dingles (the Val des Vaux is close to
“_Town_”) feathered with _petit_, though very luxuriant foliage; but
there are no gigantic woods of oak or beech frowning from uplands of
chalk or sand. The descent to the caves, however, opens all around us,
often with the heightening charm of unexpectedness, dingles of
surpassing beauty, as wild as we can wish them. And to all this, the
mere holiday folk may be wafted along the military roads of General Don,
and they may be lifted from St. Helier’s to St. Aubin’s and to Gourey in
public coaches. We, who come to _woo_ Nature—for we love her with all
the pure idolatry of a Thomson or a Davy—select the bye-lanes and the
meadow paths. Yet even here we loiter not, although these garden meads
of Jersey are the very choicest spots for the secluded rambles of lovers
and the joyous festa of gipsying, especially when the warm south-west
blows over the Atlantic.
But running water is well-nigh a blank in Jersey. As in all small
islets, the rivulets are quiet little runnels rippling down from springs
on the northern brow, and stealing south straight into the bays; the
gulleys of Grève le Lecq and Boullay creeping northward. Here and there
the runnels turn a little mill-wheel; and then, in our walks, we often
stumble on an old church, and also on a venerable manor-house, of which
there are about half a score in Jersey, St. Ouen’s, Rosell, La Hogue
Boëte, &c. And now to compass the beauty of Jersey. The walks should be
around and across the south-west and south-east corners, from Town to La
Corbière, and to Gourey, the northern coast from Le Tac to St. John’s,
and thence to St. Martin’s. A pony may carry us to any of the northern
villes, from which we may reach the magnificent points of the northern
coast, or a carriage may take us along the Devonian valley of St.
Peter’s to St. Ouen’s, and await us at St. Martin’s, to bring us back to
St. Helier’s, and, in this lovely valley of St. Peter’s, if we are fond
of cryptogamic botany, let us thread the bosky cliffs of the glen, and
on the stems of the wild rose find the finest tufts of the beautiful
golden lichen, _Borrera chrysophthalma_.
High and low water display contrasted aspects, both equally perfect. At
high tide, the full bays and havens, like gigantic mirrors, are
resplendent with the reflection of their beautiful shores.
To the botanist, the geologist, and even the artist, low water is far
more propitious, for the beach, cliffs, and rocks are profuse in weed
and sea-flowers and pebbles and shells, and they thus give up their
treasures for the seeking; the outlines and colours present a perfect
charm for the pencil.
Let us be off in pursuit of these temptations, scramble among the rocks,
creep round the bays, or into the caves; for, like the violet, much of
the more enduring beauty of the creation lies hid in the deep shades of
the earth.
We are about to make the circuit of the islet. It is high water, and we
float over the wide bay to _St. Aubin’s_, or to _Noirmont_. It is low
tide, and we walk round the shore of this marine crescent on the firm
carpet of sand. (At a tiny rill at _Doet de Demigrave_ there is a very
sudden transition from firm to soft.) There a group of girls are
disporting like Nereids among the waves. It is at full tide, and at
evening hour, however, that the bay of St. Aubin’s is perfect to the
eye; the setting sun is flinging the most gorgeous colours on the little
slate rocks and the walls of the fort: the hue is gold, with a shadow of
bronze, while the more distant walls of Elizabeth Castle are bronze with
shadows of deep grey, a scene special for the eccentric brush of Turner.
[Illustration: ST. BRELADE’S BAY]
From the brow over St. Aubin’s the view is splendid, overlooking the now
poor, yet neat and secluded little village town, its petty haven, and
its castle. We are at the entrance of a richly wooded glen, leading up
to the peninsular hill (on which stands a tolmen stone), that dips
southward to _Noirmont_, a ridge formed of sienite, rose feldspar, and
thallite, striated at the point; ay, and we may gather a wallet-full of
ferns—and there is one very rare, if not quite unknown, in England,
_gynogramma leptophylla_. We may creep round the secluded _Portelet_ Bay
(enlivened by the Janerim towers or martello) from _Noirmont_ to _Point
la Frette_, or descend from the brow to the broad bright bay of _St.
Brelade’s_, divided by a red rock ledge into two; the cliffs and rocks
come out in great splendour, and the out-crops of the sienite groups on
the hills are in the finest style. One enormous mass of blocks is a
perfect specimen of Titanic arrangement; it looks primeval,
antediluvian. It is richly covered by grey and yellow lichen, and deeply
festooned with ivy and clematis, amidst the most luxuriant variety of
heath-flowers, pink and deep purple, blended with the bright golden pods
and deep green of the mountain furze. Around it are the green tufts of
the _protonoma_ moss and the _adiantum_, or maiden-hair fern, and
myriads of the dwarf _rose d’amour_ are studding the turf, and amidst
all this floral profusion green lizards are creeping stealthily, their
eyelets sparkling like diamond points amid the leaves—a perfect study
for a Pre-Raphaelite. From the hills we descend to the white _hard-soft_
sand around the crescent bay—it is a luxury to step on it.
[Illustration: ST. BRELADE’S CHURCH]
The gem of St. Brelade’s is its very quaint little church, the parish
fane of St. Aubin’s. It is perched on the edge of the Rock cliff,
overwashed by the waves at spring tide, and surrounded by tombs and
slabs on the velvet turf, and spotted with cypress. It is of the æra of
Henry I., 1111, one of the twenty-five erected at that period, and its
history bears a very romantic legend. It was to have been built eastward
of the bay, but the fairies of the sward removed from their realm the
work and tools of the masons for three successive nights, and dropped
them at St. Brelade’s; and at length the people, in a panic, yet warned
and directed by this deposit, erected their church on the spot which the
fairies had thus selected. On the walls of an antique chapel the form of
Herod and the angel Gabriel are rudely figured, and on a scroll from the
mouth of the Tetrarch is inscribed, “_Herod le Roy_,” and before him is
the Saviour, bearing his cross.
On the brow of _La Maye_ is the signal-post, and off the cove of
_Beauport_ lie the _Aiguillons_ rocks, and off the south-west point the
rock of _La Corbière_, its apex painted white for a sea-mark. From the
downs the views are complete.
An extensive district of this south-west corner, _Les Quenvais_, is a
record of the devastation of the hurricane in the fifteenth century. In
_St. Ouen’s_ Bay, as in Loughneagh, in Ireland, it is believed that
ruins of houses and walls are visible at low ebb. The village was
overwhelmed, and all the people drowned, for decoying, by false beacons,
some Spanish argosies that then foundered on the rocks. The wreckers
plundered and plunged them into the deep. As they were by Bacchanalian
orgies celebrating the anniversary of the wreck, the sea rolled in and
overwhelmed the sinners and their ville beneath its waves.
And there spreads out its arc of nearly three miles the flat bay of St.
Ouen, from the rock of _La Corbière_ to that of _Le Tac_, or _La
Crevasse_. The bay shore consists almost entirely of round hillocks of
mica-quartz sand (the relics be sure of the _avenging_ elements),
profusely covered by long marine grasses, to the fine stems of which
myriads of tiny univalves are adhering. The sea holly, eryngo, is in the
most brilliant flowering; its blossom, of the purest cerulean blue, may
rival in Jersey the brightest exotic of the greenhouse. The Great and
Little Sandbanks lie off the bay, and nearer are the fine group of _La
Rocca_, and the _Gorden_ tower in the bight.
The quaint ancient church of St. Ouen is on the brow and close by the
venerable manor-house, and there is a fresh-water marsh lake, _La Mara_.
And here Sir Philip de Carteret was fishing in the olden time, when he
was attacked by a French troop; but he escaped by leaping his horse over
a chasm near La Val de la Charriere, the animal falling dead as he
reached his home. A giant rock stands alone at Le Tac and _La Pinnacle_,
100 feet high at the extreme point, both very fine studies. A recluse
may lodge at Le Tac, almost out of the world.
The road abruptly winds from the beach over the hill, and on the downs
we are at the hamlets of _Grosnez_ and _Vincelez_. Cape Grosnez, “_the
great nose_,” points half a mile to the left, the boldest cliff of the
islet. The rocks are of magnificent proportions, 300 feet deep, and
almost perpendicular. The gate arch of the very ancient castle of
Grosnez, its origin believed to be Roman, and the home of Le Carteret,
in the æra of the Plantagenets, stands alone on its green platform. From
it the whole group of islets to the north-west forms an exquisite little
picture.
From the “_Stone Plank_,” lying across a deep rock ravine, a youth fell,
and was washed to sea, in sight of his friends assembled at a pic-nic.
A flash, a peal—ay, all in keeping with the scene—the growl of thunder
completely around and above us, and the lurid gleam flings a sort of
spectral halo over the heavens. There are two intensely black clouds
sailing in contrary currents towards each other, like destroying
spirits. The flash from the Guernsey cloud charged highly electric
streams over to that from Sark. Guernsey comes out in bright light for a
moment, and then is lost. Sark is overshadowed, and looms out like a
great purple wall, the chiselling of its cliffs and rocks, that a minute
since showed like huge bastions and gables, is totally obscured. An
awful position, if we linger here, and yet the _mise en scène_ is most
magnificent—sublime. The storm instantly bursts on Grosnez, and we
brave its wild fury, to look forth on a glory from which Salvator,
Loutherbourg, and Turner might have drunk in ideas of elemental majesty.
A black and murky cloud settles round yon point of _Pleinmont_, a bold,
caverned rock of sharp sienite, shaking with its thunder the old fort
and drawbridge, and driving its flood across the bay of _Grève au
Laucheon_, and far into its caves of gloom, 400 feet deep. One of those
sudden transitions of electric storm brings out the brightest sunbeams,
and we look across yonder rocky dingle two miles away on the beautiful
cove of _Grève la Lecq_, with its barrack and hostelry. The sea is
rolling gloriously at high water over the rocks of _Les Deniers_, its
mountains of milk-white foam breaking on a floor of sand as white as
they, and thundering on the deep umber rocks, embossed on the surface,
and then rolling with a deeper roar into that yawning cavern on the
western cliff. Towering over the shore of the bay hang stupendous
cliffs, some 400 feet high. From the eastern mound over the _Crab
Caves_, _Catel de Lecq_, we look up the two dingles which come down,
rich in woodland, to the bay, just about an old grey martello: then by a
mere turn on the heel we are directly on the verge of a magnificent
cave, closed in by cliffs nearly 500 feet high, huge granite blocks
strewed around their bases, and more seaward a belt of white sand and a
beach of black pebbles. The scene is wild and rude as the Hebrides, and
where the rolling surge on the beach meets the transient flood of a
storm-cloud, it displays a picture almost as majestic as a sea-loch in
Skye.
[Illustration: CLIFFS NEAR GRÈVE LA LECQ]
On the face of the cliff yawn two deep and dark caverns, to reach which
at low water a ledge of rudest steps has been cut diagonally on the
perpendicular face of the rock. The descent by this rock-ladder is no
puerile feat. We are halfway down, and are checked by a block having
fallen from the ledge. There was no turning, so there we lay on the side
looking down over the perpendicular 200 feet on the black rocks in the
cave. To fall or not to fall, that was the question: if we condescended
to drop, that is, to descend rapidly, in obedience to the primal law of
gravitation, a fracture of limb or neck was a certainty, and yet we
deemed an ascent an impossibility; so as a _dernier ressort_, or rather
a forlorn hope, we turned on the back, worked upwards half on and half
off the cliff, when happily a wider ledge _by six inches_ enabled us to
turn, and then we stood erect in proud triumph, crowing like a bantam at
our really _narrow_ escape, and looked gratefully down on the frowning
rocks thus cheated of “an awful catastrophe.” There is a grey kite, too,
hovering noiselessly over our head. We wave him off majestically—we are
not to be the prey of gleds and corbies be sure on’t.
Silence reigns around, a calm between the storms, save when the sea-bird
flutters screaming along, or the beetle wheels around us his droning
flight. But, hark! again—thunder is growling like a jealous gnome at
our escape and our exalted enjoyment. Twice, indeed, we essayed to leave
this accomplished spot, and lingered until the broad evening shadows
began to deepen even the gloom of the storm-cloud, and we descend by two
dismantled forts, their guns lying rusted on the turf. _Les Pierres du
lacq_—_the Paternosters_—high above water on our ascent, are now lost
in the deep.
The tempest was raging as we were driving down a wooded dingle. A flash
and a crash in quick succession—the lightning has struck the rock: a
huge block, several tons in weight, rolls thundering down the precipice,
crushing trees to atoms in its downward course.
The driver of our carriage is scared from under the boughs and dashes
down the valley like a madman. Poor fellow, he was neither a Franklin
nor a Faraday; and not reflecting that the storm-cloud travels swiftly,
he did not know that this very dingle was now the safest place in
Jersey.
The villes of St. Mary and St. John are near us; their churches of the
fourteenth and thirteenth centuries.
In St. John’s, on its saint’s eve, was once celebrated in all its
degraded perfection of orchard-robbing, cow-milking, &c., the wild
marauding game of _Faire brave les Poeles_, a stain on the sporting
annals of Jersey. It is now, we hope and believe, nearly obsolete.
The coast is still bold, and there are tiny cascades on the runnels
close by, and a ruined mill somewhat picturesque. It is on this northern
coast that the scenic contrasts of the islet are so exquisitely
displayed. Not far from the verge of a cliff 300 feet high, we are in a
leafy dingle, and look over the waters unconscious of our height.
Yonder, a mile off, are the _Pierres du lacq_ at low water; the front of
Guernsey looming on the left, and Serk rearing its majestic wall of
sienite on the right.
[Illustration: GUERNSEY AND SERK, FROM JERSEY]
The granite quarries of _Mount Mado_ are above the coast, and near the
point of Belle Hogue there is a little _twin_ spring of water that is
believed to cure blindness, age, and dumbness—and this is the legend of
the wells. These little founts were the tears of two fairies—for fays
feel like ordinary mortals.—Well, _Arna_ and _Aruna_ were wont to
gambol and to chant around the rocks of _Belle Hogue_. They were at
length sanctified, and wafted to heaven by an angel; but the love of
their Channel home was still warm in their little bosoms, and once,
musing in melancholy mood on the delights of their Belle Hogue, and
fluttering with longing hearts directly over the enchanting spot, each
dropped a tear of regret on the earth, and from them two little
fountains were instantly playing up the sparkle of their crystal drops.
From _Belle Hogue_ to the bold round block of _La Coupé_, the cliffs are
of breccia, or pudding-stone; the rest is chiefly schist, with veins of
porphyry, especially about St. Martin’s and Roselle.
_Trinity_ lies about a mile from the shore. In the old manor house, the
home of the Carterets, are still preserved the goblet, table, and
gloves, presented by Charles II. The lord of this manor presents two
drakes before the sovereign who may be dining in Jersey.
Descending along a fine dingle, we open the wide bold bay of _Boullay_,
the landing-place of Strozzi, the invader, in 1549. The panorama,
enlivened by its beacon and its pier, is almost as beautiful as that of
St. Brelade’s, and it is belted by very splendid cliffs and rocks of
thallite, greenstone, and porphyry.
Near _Le Nez du Guet_ are the Roman mound works of _La Petite Cæsare_.
And now opens the little bay, _Havre de Roselle_, a beautiful rocky
basin, bounded by Le Nez du Guet and _Le Couperose_, and spotted with
three rocklets, and possessing a barrack. A fine rocky dingle, between
lofty cliffs and fringed with wood, runs up into the land towards a
Druidical _Poquelaye_ above Le Couperose and _La Coupé_ and the bay of
_Fliquet_, with its tower. The road from Roselle to Gourey is scooped in
the shore rock. Round the point of _Verclut_ opens the bay of _St.
Catherine_ with its insular horns of rock, and one crowned by the tower
of _Archirondel_. Then there is _St. Geoffrey’s rock_, from which in the
olden time criminals were thrown into the sea. Roselle Manor and the
ville of St. Martin’s lie on the high ground.
[Illustration: CROMLECH]
Approaching _Gourey_, we stumbled on two most interesting bits of
antiquity. On the hill near the coast is a very fine _Poquelaye_ in a
rough field near the warren. An oval of twenty-one stones—fourteen
within, in two rows, supporting three large horizontals, one fifteen
feet long and ten and a half broad, and weighing eighty tons. Near the
Parc de la belle Fontaine a very quaint old house stands in an orchard.
Its turret staircase, _La Tourelle_, is especially curious, but we
cannot find it described.
[Illustration: MOUNT ORGUEIL CASTLE]
And here below us on a shallow bay is the quaint little town of Gourey,
the third ville of importance; its church perched on the brow—large
dark blocks lying around its little haven—one, l’Ecquiercriere,
standing out the most eastern point of the islet. Above all, the
magnificent, though now dismantled fortress of _Mount Orgueil_ is
towering aloft on its rock, fully illustrating its proud title. It is a
perfect subject for the pencil, and is replete with historical
associations. It was an especial object with King John. In the reigns of
Henry VI. and Edward IV. the Count de Maulevrier seized Mount Orgueil
and half Jersey for Henry, while Carteret of Grosnez, Seigneur of St.
Ouen, held the rest for Edward. In its dungeon were imprisoned by De
Carteret the two Bandinels; one, in trying to escape, was killed on the
rocks; the other went mad. It was the prison of Prynne, who here wrote
his thoughts and Rhymes on the castle, which he dedicated to—
“Sweet Mistress Douce, fair Margaret,
Prime flower of the house of Carteret.”
As we mount the immense flight of steps, we come on the door through
which Charles II. passed to the cliffs where the boat was moored that
wafted him to France. He had fled hither to Jersey from St. Mary’s in
Scilly, as more remotely secure. Near this is the crypt—one of the most
eccentric bits of antique masonry which we have seen—and opposite is
the court in which was discovered the effigy of the Virgin Mary; and
onwards yawns the tower dungeon deep and dark. There are Roman bits of
masonry still in the walls. Near the gate are stone benches, once the
seat of judges, and close by beams for the suspension of those whom they
condemned. From the keep the Cathedral of Coutances is distinct in a
clear atmosphere.
On the rocky beach of _Grouville_ bay, a profusion of vraich is often
deposited. The sand hillocks are covered by long grass, and the eryngo
here blooms beautifully. The oyster bank, for which Gourey is famous, is
spread two miles off the bay. The rocky ledge of sienite which underlies
the schist of all this south-east point fringes the whole south-eastern
angle, and is defended by a formal range of martellos—_La Roque_ at the
point, and _Seymour_ tower stands in the midst of the waves.
And near _La Roque_, or _Rocbert_, is the _Rock of the Hag_, and this is
the legend of the rock:—
There was a very beautiful Madeleine and there was a young fisher named
Hubert, who loved her; but he was inveigled by the witches, and charmed
into aversion to her. The heroine in despair, with a cross in her hand,
incurred the perils of storm and billows to save him from these spells,
and as a memento of her happy success, there is the _Point du Pas_, the
“footstep of the virgin,” to this day.
Then there is another large rock, once a stumbling-block of contention
between St. Magloire and the Druids. The priests engaged the Devil to
roll a block from the shore to proselyte the people; but when they tried
to roll it back again, St. Magloire laid his holy book on it and it was
immovable; he then set the cross on the rock, and the demon fled, the
Druids succumbed, and the immortal safety of the people was insured.
And these rocks may be discovered if one will, and pebbles and shells
may be gathered, and we may bathe at the favourite dipping-place of
_Portague_, or we may ramble to the nice little church of Grouville,
dated 1312.
[Illustration: LA TOUR D'AUVERGNE]
But we must not overlook the bit of antiquity about midway between
Gourey and St. Helier’s—the Prince’s Tower, _La Tour d’Auvergne_, or
_La Hogue bie_—Hogue, mound, or monument—that crowns a mount on the
most elevated brow in the islet. It was built on the site of an ancient
chapel, on the model of the Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and was enlarged by
Mabon, Dean of Jersey, about 1750, who, it is said, worked miracles
under the Virgin. One of its lords was the Prince de Bouillon, an
English admiral; but the legend of De Hambie, as deep as it is obscure,
is the illustrative charm of La Hogue. This is the tale in brief:—The
servant of this De Hambie murdered his master and married the widow,
who, stung by remorse, erected this tower, visible from her _chateau_ at
Coutances, to the memory of her dishonoured lord. Another record refers
the death of De Hambie to the poisonous breath of a dragon which he
slew; but as even the Livre Noir of Coutances leaves the matter
undecided, we presume not to fathom the secret.
A blind boy is our guide, who from habit points out correctly the very
richly-wooded panorama from the summit. The islet resembles one expanded
grove, spire and turret peeping up just where the imagination of a
consummate artist would have placed it.
And so we may wander back to St. Helier’s by the elegant ville of St.
Saviour’s, the living of the Dean of Jersey, and the largest church in
the islet; among richly cultivated grounds and gardens teeming with
myrtles and verbenas and fuchsias and amarillidæ, or we may wander yet
further afield amidst yet more beautiful nature—lanes fringed with
blushing hedges, and knolls of woody luxuriance, and banks and meadows
gemmed with floral wildings, and here and there a blossom most rare in
England; and we may perchance meet little groups of juveniles on their
way to drink warm milk at a dairy farm, and all this at an equable
temperature between 50° and 60°, purified by the occasional sprinkling
of a genial summer shower.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in punctuation and the use of hyphenated words have been
maintained.
Some illustrations moved to facilitate page layout.
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