In enumerating the advantages this town holds out as a residence to invalids, it deserves notice that a packet sails every Friday to the Scilly Islands, and returns on the following Tuesday. The distance is about fourteen leagues, and, with a fair wind, the passage is generally accomplished in six hours; but with contrary winds it has sometimes, though very rarely, exceeded two days. In a town so remote from the metropolis, and in a great degree insulated from the other parts of the empire, it is not extraordinary that we should find the traces of several very ancient customs. The most singular one is, perhaps, the celebration of the Eve of Saint John the Baptist,[19] our town saint, which falls on Midsummer Eve; and that of the Eve of Saint Peter, the patron of fishermen. No sooner does the tardy sun sink into the western ocean than the young and old of both sexes, animated by the genius of the night, assemble in the town, and different villages of the bay, with lighted torches. Tar barrels having been erected on tall poles in the market place, on the pier, and in other conspicuous spots, are soon urged into a state of vivid combustion, shedding an appalling glare on every surrounding object, and which when multiplied by numerous reflections in the waves, produce at a distant view a spectacle so singular and novel as to defy the powers of description; while the stranger who issues forth to gain a closer view of the festivities of the town, may well imagine himself suddenly transported to the regions of the furies and infernal gods; or, else that he is witnessing, in the magic mirror of Cornelius Agrippa, the awful celebration of the fifth day of the Eleusinian Feast;[20] while the shrieks of the female spectators, and the triumphant yells of the torch bearers, with their hair streaming in the wind, and their flambeaus whirling with inconceivable velocity, are realities not calculated to dispel the illusion. No sooner are the torches burnt out than the numerous inhabitants engaged in the frolic, pouring forth from the quay and its neighbourhood, form a long string, and, hand in hand, run furiously through every street, vociferating "an eye,"--"an eye,"--"an eye"! At length they suddenly stop, and the two last of the string, elevating their clasped hands, form _an eye_ to this enormous _needle_, through which the _thread_ of populace runs; and thus they continue to repeat the game, until weariness dissolves the union, which rarely happens before midnight.