There are still people who seem to think that the Scillies are almost desert islands, where it is not easy to obtain good food and lodging. But this is very far from the truth, for in Hugh Town there are two comfortable hotels--Tregarthen’s, with its garden of tropical plants, at the foot of Garrison Hill; and Holgate’s, overlooking St. Mary’s Pool, at the other end of the town. There are besides a number of good boarding-houses, and “apartments to let,” and one can also stay at some of the flower-farms. [Illustration: A FLOWER-BARROW, HUGH TOWN] G. H. Lewes writes amusingly of his experiences in the matter of food in 1857:-- “Beef _is_ obtainable, by forethought and stratagem, but mutton is a myth. Poultry, too, may be had--at Penzance; and fish--when the weather is calm, which it never is at this season. But market there is none. “Twice a week a vegetable-cart from ‘the country’ (which means a mile and a half distance) slowly traverses the town, and if you like to gather round it, as the cats and dogs do round the London cat’s-meat man, you may stock yourself with vegetables for three days.” His landlady appeared to think him most unreasonable because he objected to doing without meat for an entire day. “Spiritually-minded persons, indifferent to mutton, may disregard this carnal inconvenience, and take refuge in the more ideal elements of picturesqueness, solitude, and simplicity; and I cannot say that the inconvenience weighed heavily in the scale against the charms of Scilly--the more so as an enlarged experience proved the case not to be quite so bad as it seemed at first.” Nowadays things are very different; but still if you decide to board yourself, “forethought” if not “stratagem” is required for obtaining meat, which in part comes from Penzance, and is exhibited for sale on the ground-floor of the Town Hall--the only “butcher’s shop.” Once in the fishing season I followed a group of Lowestoft fishermen all the way down the street, and could tell from their talk that they were in search of the butcher’s. “Not one in the whole blessed place!” I heard them say in astonishment, which was not lessened when they were presently directed to the Town Hall. In Woodley’s time the “gentry” used to bespeak the different portions of an animal before it was killed, so that the farmer was insured against risk; just as nowadays in Egypt the would-be purchaser of camel-flesh will chalk out in white his private mark, on neck or thigh or shoulder, of the living beast, to show which is the joint he desires to have when it has become meat. Fresh fish is to be had when there has been a good catch, and is hawked round in sixpenny strings. Milk and new-laid eggs seem to be obtainable to any extent. Cornish cream, alas! with the advent of the separator, is threatening to disappear. I must not forget to mention one article of food which shows decided originality--a twopenny loaf of bread, one half of which is brown and the other half white!