48 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



LUNDY.i 



By Alfred J. H. Crespi, M.D. 



OOME audacity is needed to write a paper on 

 the tiny island looming up in the interminable 

 waste of waters west of Ilfracombe and Barnstaple, 

 sometimes only a faint blue streak on the horizon, 

 at others magnified by the mist, imposing, and of 

 vast but uncertain size. If half the charm of a 

 place consists in novelty, and half in unpolluted 

 fresh air, Lundy can claim a high position. As for 

 novelty, I dare assert that not the loneliest seaside 

 village nor the newest of new watering-places can 

 compare with it. Alone it stands in its glory, little 

 affected by the flight of centuries, innocent of trees, 

 far beyond the sound of railways, and a few years 

 ago, before the cable was laid, rejoicing in infre- 

 quent posts, and in as precarious communication 

 with the rest of the kingdom as any place could have 

 been and still remain part of the British Isles. 



Its configuration is imposing. Its long diameter 

 points nearly due north and south, while its 

 eastern slopes, precipitous enough to make them 

 interesting and romantic, are only one degree less 

 striking than its western sides, where walls of rock 

 rise in perpendicular steps, sixty and eighty feet at 

 a time. The western side is particularly imposing ; 

 and were Lundy more accessible, or had it a land- 

 locked harbour, it would have thousands of 

 visitors. But it has no harbour, no landing- 

 pier or stage, and though the beach at its south- 

 eastern extremity is good, it is not always accessi- 

 ble nor perfectly safe. Not seldom, especially in 

 brilliant spring easterly weather, furious seas roll 

 upon that beach, as though they would sweep the 

 very island away. Lundy is then completely cut 

 ofi from all communication with the mainland, 

 except by the telegraph. A iev; years ago a cable 

 was laid down between Hartland, on the Devon 

 coast, and the South Point ; but, unless I am 

 misinformed, the telegraph is not always in work- 

 ing order. Off Lundy the anchorage is excellent 

 in westerly gales, and then, especially if the storm 

 lasts some days, numbers of ocean-going steamers 

 and fine sailing-ships, with whole fleets of skiffs 

 and tugs, take shelter under the lee of the island 

 and stay till, with a shift of the wind to the east, 

 they are off to some less exposed roadstead. 



Altogether I have lived on Lundy three years 

 and a-half, and after much hurrying to and fro and 

 Jong residence in great cities, the contrast was 

 complete. Quiet and leisure I had in abundance, 

 for my professional duties were a sinecure ; but, 

 cut off from conflict and competition, the inclina- 

 tion to work and to make profitable use of my 



1 Being an Address given April jjth, i8j8, before the 

 Haslemere Natural History Society. 



time was wanting, and never did I do less, never 

 did I get through fewer books. In Lundy I used 

 to lie awake listening to the piercing shriek of the 

 restless wind, as the damp rapidly moving air did 

 not fully agree with me, and accounts for nearly all 

 the ill-health on the island. Something too might be 

 due to the difficulty of taking sufficient active out- 

 door exercise. No, whatever poets may say to the 

 contrary, the man exposed to the storms and dis- 

 tractions of life works hardest and does best. Lord 

 Lytton works this out beautifully in that gem of 

 fiction, " My Novel." Rural retirement is more 

 captivating to the imagination than in the reality. 

 The more one has to do the stronger the inclina- 

 tion one commonly has to undertake fresh work. 

 The thinker, or he who aspires to be reckoned such, 

 must live among men and be sharpened by inter- 

 course with his fellows. Even the poet must not 

 fly to the desert for inspiration ; and Lytton, in 

 accounting for Leonard Egerton's failure to produce 

 a second masterpiece, gives as an explanation his 

 fatal mistake in burying himself in a remote 

 western village. I am not sure that Natural 

 History would gain at the hands of a recluse, 

 whose theories were not corrected and observations 

 tested by critical and sceptical colleagues. 



Lundy is in many ways noteworthy. Its chief 

 attractions are its bold rocks, climate, bird-life and 

 vegetation, to say nothing of its history, the last 

 not eventful, but going far enough back to invest 

 it with some interest. On the south point, over- 

 looking a narrow and dangerous neck of land, 

 connecting the main portion of Lundy with 

 Lametry, stands a small castle — rugged, ancient 

 and gloomy — once the stronghold of a Norman 

 baron, and still called " The Castle." Its original 

 lord and founder was a certain De Marisco, a 

 name said to be a corruption of De Montmorency. 

 The island, according to tradition, was granted 

 many centuries ago to the Knights Templars, who, 

 however, never took possession of it. Then it 

 passed from one noble to another, was the scene of 

 much petty fighting between Welsh and Irish, and 

 finally, sixty or more years ago, came into the 

 possession, by purchase, of the late William 

 Hudson Heaven, a quiet, amiable country gentle- 

 man, who made it his home for many years, and 

 there died. The present owner is his son, the 

 Rev. Hudson Grosett Heaven, M.A., of Trinity 

 College, Oxford, an able and accomplished man, of 

 scholarly tastes, who has the rare felicity, in the 

 south of England, of being absolute lord of all he 

 surveys, without equal or rival for many miles. 



The top of the island is an extensive and toler- 



