WAYSIDE FLOWERS. 7 



The only landing-place on the whole island is in 

 this bay; and here the Trinity House have made a 

 good carriage-road from the beach up the precipitous 

 hill-side to the lighthouse, which occupies the highest 

 point, and which I shall speak of more particularly 

 presently. Up this zigzag road, which is substan- 

 tially built with granite in the lower part, where it is 

 exposed to the action of the sea in heavy gales, we 

 climbed, eager to find the means of satisfying our 

 quickened appetites, yet not indifferent to the charms 

 with which nature had embellished this lonely place. 

 The sides of the road were gay with flowers of many 

 kinds. The common mallow, the milfoil, the weld or 

 wild mignonette, looking like its pleasant namesake, 

 but scentless; the flaring ox-eye daisy, the figwort, 

 with its brown bead-like blossoms; the navew, loose 

 and sprawling, but bright in hue; ragworts and sow- 

 thistles, and elder-bushes with snow-balls of bloom, 

 the nearest approach to a tree which the island can 

 boast ; these, with minor weeds and grasses and ferns 

 of several kinds, fringed the footpath. The perpen- 

 dicular side of the road, where the shale had been 

 scarped away, and the crevices of the stones, where it 

 had been faced with a rude wall, presented other and 

 more attractive features. The kidney vetch, or lady's 

 finger, displayed its heads of delicate flowers in pro- 

 fusion, pale yellow fading into cream colour ; and the 

 scarlet-tipped blossoms of the little bird's-foot lotus, 

 that characteristic plant of our seaward downs and 

 precipitous slopes, were not less abundant. From 



