Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/407

CHAPTER XX.

THE SCILLY ISLES

Armorel of Lyoness—A refuge for the Celtic saints—Lighthouses—The name of Scilly—Olaf Trygvason at Scilly—Mr. Augustus Smith—The flower trade—Flowers not allowed to blossom in the fields—Traces of tin-streaming—Contrast between the east coast and the west of England—Variety in Scilly—Sir Cloudesley Shovel.

FOR a guide to what is to be seen in this cluster there is no better book than Sir W. Besant's Armorel of Lyoness, to my mind one of the most delightful works of fiction I have ever read; I refer, of course, to the first part, that concerns Scilly. Let a visitor take that book, and go over the ground and be happy. Nothing can be added, but one word in caution. The whole is a little over-coloured. Scilly presents scenes of great interest, but the cliffs are by no means so fine as those of Land's End, and far inferior to those of the Lizard. Nevertheless, island clusters have a charm of their own distinct from the scenery of the fringe of the mainland, and a cluster Scilly is, intricate, and presenting great variety. There are one hundred and forty-five islets, large and small, forty miles due west from Lizard Point, and twenty-eight west-by-south from Land's End.

329