66 



dry shod from one island to the other, over sand-banks 

 where, upon the shifting the sands, walls and ruins are 

 discovered frequently, upon which at full sea there are 

 ten and twelve feet of water. All strong arguments 

 that these islands were once one continued tract of land, 

 though now as to their low lands over-run with the sea 

 and sand. History confirms their former union " The 

 isles Cassiterides (says Strabo) are ten in number, close 

 to one another ; one of them is desert and unpeopled, 

 the rest are inhabited." But see how the sea has mul- 

 tiplied these islands ! There are now reckoned one 

 hundred and forty. Into so many fragments are they 

 divided, and yet there are left six inhabited. But no 

 circumstance can shew the great alterations which have 

 happened in the number and extent of these islands,, 

 more than this, viz. that the isle of Scilly, from which 

 the little cluster takes its name, is no more at present 

 than a high rock, of about a furlong over, whose cliffs 

 hardly any thing but birds can mount, and whose 

 barrenness could never suffer any thing but sea-birds 

 to inhabit it. How then came all these islands to have 

 their general name from such a small and useless plot 1 

 Doubtless Scilly, which is now a bare rock, and se- 

 parate from the lands of Guel and Brehar, by a narrow 

 frith, was formerly joined to them by low necks of land, 

 being the rocky promontory of one large island now 

 broke into seven. This promontory (at present called 

 Scilly-island) lying westermost of all the islands dis- 

 cerned by the traders from the Mediterranean and 

 Spanish coasts, and, as soon as discovered, was said to 

 be Scilly, nothing being more usual with sailors, upon 

 their first seeing land, than to call the part by the name 

 of the whole. But when this considerable island called 

 Scilly was broken to pieces, the greatest portions be- 

 came inhabited, and had first British names, as Brehar, 

 Trescaw, Enmor ; but afterwards were called according 

 to the religion of the times, after the names of par- 

 ticular saints. The chief division was intitied St. Mary's, 

 the others dedicated to St. Nicholas, St. Martin, St. 

 Theot), and so 013; but this remarkable promontory 



