The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1915-02-04

his amazed people how to make almost DESERT
ed islands to bloom with narcissus and jonquil
and daffodil and lily. He divided the good
ground into little holdings and taught the pro.
lection of hedges and stone walls. And he in
sisted that no family should keep more than
one son at home to make his living from the
tiny patch, nor more than one daughter to help
with the flowers and the household tasks.
Other sons and daughters were to 60 to sea
or to the army or the mainland. or marry and
secure little holdings of their own. Many were
banished, but the grief and rage of the island
ers gradually turned to devoted love, for pros
perity came: and now from early January
through February and March the shipments of
flowers are estimated only in tons. And winter
is the time for seeing the Sciliys. True, the
sea is rougher, and the night winds more chill.
but it is in winter the splendid flowers may be
seen. They are not on every island; like the
inhabitants. they are on but few.
And Despot Smith did more. He planted
trees and plants where there was but
windswept heath. And what trees, and what
plants! Giant palms of the tropics, rhododen-
drons twenty feet height and magnificent
camellias. There are bamboo, and aloe and
magnolia. Within his private estate on Tresco
are the crumbling arches of an ancient abbey,
now tropically empowered. where in olden
times monks prayed in an infinite bleakpess.
He has made Tresco garden. which, consider
ing everything, is the most remarkable garden
in the world. From being islands of wreckers,
they are now islands of the law abiding. Schools
lighthouses, churches and wireless telegraphy
have come, and wrecks have decreased, and
crime is rare. Seen from the ocean liners
the ocillys are but naked shore and wind
swept reef. But the liners are of vast inter-
est to islanders; they know every line of every
ship and the exact course steered by each. One
of the islanders tells that not SO very long ago
he saw looming out of the close clinging mist,
giant liner bearing straight on his little
patch of flowers! There no time for warn
ing, but by some miracle OF swift reversing,
the great steamer quivered and stopped, then
slowly vanished into the deep, shivering gray
ness. On the rocks near the most exposed of
all the lighthouses in the world, the Bishop.
years ago there was wrecked steamer from
New York and more than three hundred lives
were lost. AS ar,back as the time of Henry the
First there were royal grants ''of the islands
and their wrecks" Most curious of all wrecks
was that of bark with cargo of beads that
went ashore more than two hundred years ago,
Nothing was ever known but that it was ship
with cargo of beads, and at times throughout
two centu ries, the sea had been giving up
thousands of then, and even now one may dig
down little way in the sand and find those
that have just been washed up. Upon st.
Agnes there is frightful cove which bears St.
Warna's name; rock hemmed with merciless
rocks covering what ought to be beach. At
the edge of the rocky shore is well, and be-
side that we'll in ancient days the islanders
gathered once year to pray to St Warna to
send them superabundance of wrecks. They
prayed for wrecks as farmers would pray for
harvests, and it would seem as if their prayers
were abundantly answered. They seem to
have been religiously minded in the old days
judging by the name of the islands-St. Helen,
St. Warna. St. Mary, St. Agnes and St. Martin
are among them. l am lingering too long in
this fascinating place, but l must speak of the
legendary belief that holds that the Scillys are
all that are left of Lyonesse, the land that
sank in the depths of the sea. Lyouesse! There
is magic in the very name. 1t stretched out
from Cornwall. this land of. Round Table his
tory, and the Scillys were the projecting head
lands or islands, at the very end. Within the
land that sank in the hungry ocean, there were
hundred and forty parishes, the old chroni-
cles relate, and tells of seeing ruins far
beneath the water, and when the mists of the
mighty Atlantic close in between Lands End
and the Scillys, even the dullesJ Imagination
may awa1 e, and the dullest ear catch the echo
of ancient parish bells. 1t is strange, too that
from time immemoral the islanders have call
ed the intervening sea the "Lioness," and that
tradition has insistently pointed out the reef
of Seven Stones as the site of the principal
city of the kingdom.
King Arthur came from Lyonesse, and it is
inseparably connected with the story of Iris
tam and Yysolte, for Tristram was the son of
its king. Geology notes the similarity between
the granite of Cornwall and that of the Scily
rocks; and there are SO many Druidical re-
nudlHS,So many IuuSeIoHc CIooSeS,ds " Poiut
the unlikeliness of these islands always having
been so far from the mainland now. One
writer on this subject says, where there is so
much smoke Of legend, there is surely some
fire of truth. In the Scilys romance seems
in the very air one breathes, and everywhere
are reminders of other nations and alien peo-
pie. vessels prov has become gate-post.
Ships bells that sounded the knell of sailors
now ring gayly for these jewellers on the
rocks, and many figure head which stood at
the prov of some stately ship, stands sentinel
at gateway. or stares impassively over fields
of narcissus and violets.
The old order passeth, and the spirit of
change is in the air-Happy peaceful little
Luxembourg lost what it will never regain
The old road between Padua and Venice may
some time again come into its own in the new
geography which is making, and even the little
Scillys may have part in the great change.
They may become the seat of great wireless
plant, or port of call for the great merchant
fleet OF the air. and some day, Miady's wi tier
palace of New York may be wreathed for the
New Year ball in blossoms fresh that day. by
aerial express, from the Scilys. The POSSIBLE
tiles and probabilities are already here, it only
needs some master hand to touch the spring
which will electrify the whole great system
T -. E e.