Part 2

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.

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.

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.

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_.

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.

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.

_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.