Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/417

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SIR CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL
339


white-footed rock. I believe that there does not hve any single man who has actually explored all the isles of Scilly, stood upon every rock, climbed every hill, and searched on every island for its treasures of ancient barrows, plants, birds, earns, and headlands. Once there was a worthy person who came here as chaplain to S. Martin's. He started with the excellent intention of seeing everything. Alas! he never saw a single island properly: he never walked round one exhaustively. He wrote a book about them, to be sure; but he saw only half."

There are numerous cairns, barrows, kistvaens, and circles of stones in the islands, and Giant's Castle, in S. Mary's, is a good example of a cliff-camp of the Irish Firbolg type. A local guide attributes it to the Danes, but that is nonsense.

In Forth Hellick Bay Sir Cloudesley Shovel was washed ashore and buried.

In 1707 Sir Cloudesley in the Association, Captain Hancock in the Eagle, Sir George Byng in the Royal Anne, Captain Coney in the Romney, Lord Dudley in the St. George, Captain Piercy in the Firebrand, and a captured fireship, the Phœnix, were returning from Toulon after the capture of Gibraltar. On the morning of the 22nd October, the weather being thick and dirty, they came into soundings of nineteen fathoms. There is a tradition that a seaman on the admiral's ship warned the officer of the watch that unless the ship's course were altered they would soon be on the rocks of Scilly. This was reported to Sir Cloudesley, who was very angry. He had the man brought before him, and attempted to browbeat him, but the man stuck to his opinion. The