THE BAPTISM OF THE ISLANDS. 203 



information about the place. I will not, as some 

 learned pundits do, pitilessly burden you with know- 

 ledge recently obtained ; because, although I suspect 

 you to be hopelessly ignorant on all these matters, I 

 also suspect you to be quite comfortable in that condi- 

 tion, and by no means hungering for information ; and 

 at any rate, you know where such hunger can be satis- 

 fied. But on the baptism of the islands a word may 

 be worth hearing. Borlase pertinently asks, " How 

 came all these islands to have their general name from 

 so small and inconsiderable a spot as the isle of Scilly, 

 whose cliffs hardly anything but birds can mount, and 

 w^hose barrenness would never suffer anything but sea- 

 birds to inhabit there ? A due observation of the shores 

 will answer this question very satisfactorily, and con- 

 vince us, that what is now a bare rock, about a furlong 

 over, and separated from the lands of Guel and Brehar 

 about half a mile, was formerly joined to them by low 

 necks of land, and that Treskaw, St Martin's, Brehar, 

 Samson, and the rocks and islets adjoining, made for- 

 merly but one island." Thus it was by encroachments 

 of the sea, according to Borlase, or by the dipping of 

 the lands, that the one island was se2)arated into several. 

 Scilly was the highest and most conspicuous headland, 

 and from it the whole group derived its name. That 

 these isles were by the Greeks called Cassiterides, and 

 by the Romans Sigdeles, Sillincc, and Silures, may be 

 conceded to antiquarians and topographers, or denied ; 

 we shall trouble ourselves but slightly with the ques- 

 tion. Certain it seems that Phoenicians and Romans 



