Part 3

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.