JERSEY:
CÆSAREA – AUGIA – JARSARY – JERESEYE – GERSEY – GERSUI – GEARSEY – LA DEROUTE – DEARSI (GAELIC)
We have rounded the south-western point of the islet, and are floating into the wide bright bay of St. Aubin’s, steering by the western passage through the narrows between the bold fortress of Elizabeth Castle and the pier, and we wend at once to our hostelry at St. Helier’s.
This Jersey is an oblong islet, about twelve miles from east to west, by about seven or eight from north to south, extending from the Points of Sorell and of Noirmont, and those of Belle Hogue and Du Pas. It is completely escalloped by bays and coves and ravines, with their essential rocks and promontories, and belted with myriads of outlying rocklets of very eccentric forms, composed chiefly of sienite and porphyry. The five Points on the south coast – Corbière, Moye, Noirmont, Le Nez, and La Roque, being nearly in the same latitude. To these natural bulwarks the art of defence has added a circle of martello towers around the coast, and these are now so completely dismantled as even to embellish and add interest to the landscape; for they seem to tell of deeds and people of a feudal age, like the Border peels of the north. The three great bays of St. Ouen, St. Aubin, and Grouville, form the flat shores of the islet.
The area of the islet is about 40,000 acres; its population about 37,000. It is divided into twelve parishes – St. Helier’s, St. Lawrence, St. Peter’s, St. Brelade, St. Ouen, St. John, St. Mary, Trinity, St. Martin, St. Saviour, St. Clement, Grouville – and subdivided into about forty vintaines, an area containing twenty houses.
From each of these churches, which were held sacred as a sanctuary, there was in ancient times a direct road —Perquages– to the coast, by which the criminal might escape unscathed if he kept the direct line.
And these are the chief officers of the islet: – The military lieutenant-governor, the baillie, and the dean, appointed by the sovereign; the advocate, selected by the baillie, and the twelve judges, by the people.
As we step on the quay of St. Helier’s, or “town,” we look on quaint grey houses assuming a Norman aspect; but as we proceed to the interior we are reminded of an English market-town, with neat shops and new wine-houses. There are about 1000 houses in the town; its population being about 30,000.
In the royal square is the court-house, La Cohue, of the date of 1647, around which we meet loungers and gossips, especially during the sittings, and in the centre is a royal statue.
The public library was erected by Falle, the historian of Jersey, and contains a very fair batch of literature, and also the drawings of Capelin, a native artist.
There is a new prison, and a hospital, and a poorhouse.
St. Helier’s is prolific of temples of worship. Amidst French Protestant and Catholic fanes and conventicles, stands pre-eminent in the royal square the mother Church, 500 years old, and of pure Norman style, – a new aisle, in perfect harmony, being lately added. Very grotesque gargouilles and a profusion of ivy mark it as a very eccentric pile. The government stall and pulpit are ancient, and there are monuments and slabs to the memory of Carterets in 1767 – Durel, Dauvergues, Gordon, and Pierson, the defender. The gallery stairs are outside the walls. The evening is devoted to the French service.
The several market-places, especially on Saturdays, are scenes of very lively interest. The produce of the Jersey gardens is most prolific, and sold at a moderate price. The grapes are pre-eminent, and the Chaumontelle pear has nearly attained the weight of one pound, and is often sold at five guineas per hundred. In the afternoon the market is a sort of fashion; but the grouping of the buyers and the loungers is not picturesque, the costume being chiefly the formal cut of England, or the sombre colours of Normandy. The colloquial language is a mingling of French and English: the children are taught both, but, whether in truth or in courtesy, several assured us that they preferred the English.
The votary of mere pleasure or the excitement of gaiety, must not sojourn in Jersey: out of the pale of select society St. Helier’s will be most monotonous; it will be indeed a complete blank, and he will quietly fly off to scenes more exciting though infinitely less healthful and happy, leaving beautiful Jersey to us, to those whom the Deity has endowed with a deeper feeling for the charms of Nature’s loveliness.
The visitation of the ancient and modern works around St. Helier’s is worth a day even to the superficial gazer. The eye of the archæologist and the artist is attracted at once by the bold fortress of Elizabeth Castle, isolated at high tide, but approached at low-water on the floor of the bay. Along a causeway track from the “Black rock,” on the shore, we wend with market-women at our heels, and meet a company of soldiers marching on some duty to St. Helier’s. We must not linger in our survey, as the tide will flow in four or five hours, often to the height of forty feet.
The castle stands amidst a group of schist rocks, about a mile in circumference. One of the outermost blocks is crowned by the remnant of a real hermitage, the cell of St. Helier, who was murdered in the ninth century by a band of Norman pirates.
The access to the stronghold is intricate and well planned for safety and defence. It was built in the seventeenth century. Amidst a profusion of modern and debasing architecture, look on the very curious gate-arch, on the ascent to the keep. Above a fleur-de-lis at the point of the ogee of the arch is an escutcheon in stone – the royal shield of Britain, crested by the red and white roses. Over the left feet of the supporters are the initials, E. R., of the maiden Queen, in whose reign the first stone was laid. On one of the arches is a circular disc, displaying daggers and a fret. To this keep Charles II., when Prince of Wales, fled for refuge, with his brother James and Clarendon, the islet of Jersey having declared for him, while Guernsey sided with the Parliament; and here Charles drew a new map of the island, and Clarendon penned part of his celebrated record of the Rebellion. In gratitude for its loyalty the King presented them with a gilt mace on the Restoration, and graced it with a Latin inscription.
Across a deeper water opens the capacious harbour, with its two piers, Victoria and Albert, which, especially in storm and tempest, is often crowded with vessels. The basins were now nearly destitute of craft; but acephalæ are floating around the piers. Crowning the high greenstone ridge above it, Mont de la Ville, is Fort Regent, a fortress, erected at the cost of a million, of stone from the quarry of Medo, on the northern coast. Its area is about four acres. It is bomb-proof, and commands completely the bay and the town. The view from its height compasses the bay of St. Aubin, the government house, the college, a mansion of modern Gothic, erected in 1846, after the Queen’s visit, and the south-eastern corner around St. Clement’s and Grouville, the Banc des Violets displaying a strange group of black blocks among the surf waves. At low tide the bay is a wide stone basin, carpeted with rock and weed. As we looked on it at high water, in an autumn sunset, it was a mirror of liquid amethyst.
On the brows around St. Helier’s many Druidical stones and tumuli have been discovered. The chief cairn, or Poquelaye, very complete, with its circle and alley, was revealed in 1785. It was removed entire by General Conway to Park Place at Henley.
And now there are three classes of subjects that are to be admired and studied in Jersey – the magnificent cliffs, the beautiful bays, and the fair natural garden of the interior, taking up the archæological relics in our way as choice morceaux of historic illustration, adding an interest even to the face of Nature.
In our visitation of the bay and the cliffs we thread the lanes and valleys, scenes of very contrasted excellence, like the picture of a fair beauty within a richly-carved frame. The scenic grandeur of Jersey is between Le Tac and La Coupé, the whole northern coast of the islet, and at the south-eastern corner, from Noirmont to La Rocca in St. Ouen’s, all exquisitely rich in rockwork. The coast from St. Helier’s to Gourey is a mass of button rocks. In the interior St. Peter’s displays the only Devonian valley. But throughout the islet there are very lovely spots, like those of Kent and Surrey, for our rambling, amid meadows enlivened by tethered cows and green hedge-rows, enamelled with flowers, often rich and rare, on which bees luxuriate and gather their luscious stores of honey, and dingles (the Val des Vaux is close to “Town”) feathered with petit, though very luxuriant foliage; but there are no gigantic woods of oak or beech frowning from uplands of chalk or sand. The descent to the caves, however, opens all around us, often with the heightening charm of unexpectedness, dingles of surpassing beauty, as wild as we can wish them. And to all this, the mere holiday folk may be wafted along the military roads of General Don, and they may be lifted from St. Helier’s to St. Aubin’s and to Gourey in public coaches. We, who come to woo Nature – for we love her with all the pure idolatry of a Thomson or a Davy – select the bye-lanes and the meadow paths. Yet even here we loiter not, although these garden meads of Jersey are the very choicest spots for the secluded rambles of lovers and the joyous festa of gipsying, especially when the warm south-west blows over the Atlantic.
But running water is well-nigh a blank in Jersey. As in all small islets, the rivulets are quiet little runnels rippling down from springs on the northern brow, and stealing south straight into the bays; the gulleys of Grève le Lecq and Boullay creeping northward. Here and there the runnels turn a little mill-wheel; and then, in our walks, we often stumble on an old church, and also on a venerable manor-house, of which there are about half a score in Jersey, St. Ouen’s, Rosell, La Hogue Boëte, &c. And now to compass the beauty of Jersey. The walks should be around and across the south-west and south-east corners, from Town to La Corbière, and to Gourey, the northern coast from Le Tac to St. John’s, and thence to St. Martin’s. A pony may carry us to any of the northern villes, from which we may reach the magnificent points of the northern coast, or a carriage may take us along the Devonian valley of St. Peter’s to St. Ouen’s, and await us at St. Martin’s, to bring us back to St. Helier’s, and, in this lovely valley of St. Peter’s, if we are fond of cryptogamic botany, let us thread the bosky cliffs of the glen, and on the stems of the wild rose find the finest tufts of the beautiful golden lichen, Borrera chrysophthalma.
High and low water display contrasted aspects, both equally perfect. At high tide, the full bays and havens, like gigantic mirrors, are resplendent with the reflection of their beautiful shores.
To the botanist, the geologist, and even the artist, low water is far more propitious, for the beach, cliffs, and rocks are profuse in weed and sea-flowers and pebbles and shells, and they thus give up their treasures for the seeking; the outlines and colours present a perfect charm for the pencil.
Let us be off in pursuit of these temptations, scramble among the rocks, creep round the bays, or into the caves; for, like the violet, much of the more enduring beauty of the creation lies hid in the deep shades of the earth.
We are about to make the circuit of the islet. It is high water, and we float over the wide bay to St. Aubin’s, or to Noirmont. It is low tide, and we walk round the shore of this marine crescent on the firm carpet of sand. (At a tiny rill at Doet de Demigrave there is a very sudden transition from firm to soft.) There a group of girls are disporting like Nereids among the waves. It is at full tide, and at evening hour, however, that the bay of St. Aubin’s is perfect to the eye; the setting sun is flinging the most gorgeous colours on the little slate rocks and the walls of the fort: the hue is gold, with a shadow of bronze, while the more distant walls of Elizabeth Castle are bronze with shadows of deep grey, a scene special for the eccentric brush of Turner.
From the brow over St. Aubin’s the view is splendid, overlooking the now poor, yet neat and secluded little village town, its petty haven, and its castle. We are at the entrance of a richly wooded glen, leading up to the peninsular hill (on which stands a tolmen stone), that dips southward to Noirmont, a ridge formed of sienite, rose feldspar, and thallite, striated at the point; ay, and we may gather a wallet-full of ferns – and there is one very rare, if not quite unknown, in England, gynogramma leptophylla. We may creep round the secluded Portelet Bay (enlivened by the Janerim towers or martello) from Noirmont to Point la Frette, or descend from the brow to the broad bright bay of St. Brelade’s, divided by a red rock ledge into two; the cliffs and rocks come out in great splendour, and the out-crops of the sienite groups on the hills are in the finest style. One enormous mass of blocks is a perfect specimen of Titanic arrangement; it looks primeval, antediluvian. It is richly covered by grey and yellow lichen, and deeply festooned with ivy and clematis, amidst the most luxuriant variety of heath-flowers, pink and deep purple, blended with the bright golden pods and deep green of the mountain furze. Around it are the green tufts of the protonoma moss and the adiantum, or maiden-hair fern, and myriads of the dwarf rose d’amour are studding the turf, and amidst all this floral profusion green lizards are creeping stealthily, their eyelets sparkling like diamond points amid the leaves – a perfect study for a Pre-Raphaelite. From the hills we descend to the white hard-soft sand around the crescent bay – it is a luxury to step on it.