thirteen miles. Five of the islands are
inhabited; the rest may be generally described
as masses of rock, wonderfully varied in
shape and size. Inland, in the larger islands,
the earth, where it is not planted or sown,
is covered with heather and with the most
beautiful ferns. Potatoes used to be the
main product of Scilly; but the disease has
appeared lately in the island crops, and the
potatoes have suffered so severely that, when
we filled our sack for the return voyage, we
were obliged to allow for two-thirds of
our supply proving unfit for use. The views
inland are chiefly remarkable as natural
panoramas of land and sea—the two always
presenting themselves intermixed in the
loveliest varieties of form and colour. On
the coast, the granite rocks, though not
notably high, take the most wildly and
magnificently picturesque shapes. They are rent
into the strangest chasms and piled up in the
grandest confusion; and they look down,
every here and there, on the loveliest little
sandy bays, where the sea, in calm weather,
is as tenderly blue and as limpid in its clearness
as the Mediterranean itself. The softness
and purity of the climate may be
imagined, when I state that last winter none
of the fresh-water pools were strongly enough
frozen to bear being skated on. The balmy
sea air blows over each little island as freely
as it might blow over the deck of a ship.

The people have the great merit of good
manners. We two strangers were so little
stared at as we walked about, that it was
almost like being on the Continent. The
pilot who had taken us into Hugh Town
harbour we found to be a fair specimen, as
regarded his excessive talkativeness and the
purity of his English, of the islanders generally.
The longest tellers of very long stories,
so far as my experience goes, are to be found
in Scilly. Ask the people the commonest
question, and their answer generally exhausts
the whole subject before you can say another
word. Their anxiety, whenever we had occasion
to enquire our way, to guard us from the
remotest chance of missing it, and the honest
pride with which they told us all about local
sights and marvels, formed a very pleasant
trait in the general character. Strangely
enough, in this softest and healthiest of
climates consumption is a prevalent disease
among the people. If I may venture on an
opinion, after a very short observation of
their habits, I should say that distrust of
fresh air and unwillingness to take exercise
were the chief causes of consumptive maladies
among the islanders. I longed to break
windows in the main street of Hugh Town as
I never longed to break them anywhere else.
One lovely afternoon I went out for the
purpose of seeing how many of the inhabitants
of the place had a notion of airing their
bedrooms. I found two houses with open windows
—all the rest were fast closed from top to
bottom, as if a pestilence was abroad instead
of the softest, purest, heavenliest sea breeze
that ever blew. Then, again, as to walking,
the people ask you seriously when you
enquire your way on foot, whether you are
aware that the destination you want to
arrive at is three miles off! As for a pedestrian
excursion round the largest island—a
circuit of thirteen miles—when we talked of
performing that feat in the hearing of a
respectable inhabitant, he laughed at the
idea as incredulously as if we had proposed a
swimming match to the Cornish coast. When
people will not give themselves the great first
chance of breathing healthily and freely as
often as they can, who can wonder that
consumption should be common among them?

In addition to our other pieces of good
fortune, we were enabled to profit by a very
kind invitation from the gentleman to whom
the islands belong, to stay with him at his
house, built on the site of an ancient abbey,
and surrounded by gardens of the most
exquisite beauty. To the wise, firm, and
benevolent rule of the present proprietor of
Scilly, the islanders are indebted for the
prosperity which they now enjoy. It was not
the least pleasant part of a very delightful
visit, to observe for ourselves, under our
host's guidance, all that he had done, and was
doing for the welfare and the happiness of the
people committed to his charge. From what
we had heard, and from what we had previously
observed for ourselves, we had formed
the most agreeable impressions of the social
condition of the islanders; and we now
found the best of these impressions more
than confirmed. When the present
proprietor first came among his tenantry he
found them living miserably and ignorantly.
He has succoured, reformed, and taught
them; and there is now, probably, no place
in England where the direr hardships of
poverty are so little known as in the Scilly
Islands.

I might write more particularly on this
topic; but I am unwilling to run the risk of
saying more on the subject of these good
deeds than the good-doer himself would
sanction. And besides, I must remember
that the object of this narrative is to record
a holiday-cruise, and not to enter into details
on the subject of Scilly; details which have
already been put into print by previous
travellers. Let me only add then, that our sojourn
in the islands terminated with the close of
our stay in the house of our kind entertainer.
It had been blowing a gale of wind for two
days before our departure; and we put to sea
with a double-reefed mainsail, and with more
doubts than we liked to confess to each
other, about the prospects of the return
voyage.

However, lucky we had been hitherto, and
lucky we were to continue to the end. Before
we had been long at sea, the wind began to
get capricious; then to diminish almost to a
calm; then, towards evening, to blow again,