The lighthouse is much the oldest in the islands, and one of the oldest in the British Isles, having been built in 1680. For more than two centuries it formed a guiding-star by night, but at first it was lighted merely by a coal-fire, which was sometimes allowed to go out. In 1790 oil-lamps and reflectors were fixed, which supplied a brilliant light. But recently it was found to be in need of much repair, so it has been placed on the “retired list,” and its work of warning and guidance is now given over to the new tower erected on Peninnis. In past times the inhabitants of St. Agnes were frequently cut off from all communication with the outer world for weeks together, and had to depend very much on their own resources. They had to grind their own corn with round stone hand-mills, or “querns,” and often they ran short of bread altogether, and had to make up with potatoes. They had no fuel but the dried bracken, fetched in boat-loads from the neighbouring isle of Annet unless a chance wreck provided them with firewood; and fish-oil and seal-oil, prepared by themselves, were all they had for artificial light. One old lady still speaks feelingly of the privations of her early days. “I never could abide potatoes for breakfast,” she says, “but there was often nothing else to be had.” The seals’ blubber for candles was boiled down out of doors, for the smell was too abominable to have in the houses. Seals weighing six or seven hundredweight and “nearly as big as bullocks” have been caught round the islands. Nowadays any that are caught are sold to the Governor at 5s. a head, large and small alike. [Illustration: A FLOWER-HOUSE ON ST. AGNES] Early potatoes are still grown on St. Agnes for export, and now a good deal of business is also done with the flowers. As the launch draws near the landing-place in Perconger during the flower-season, you may see a long string of carts and barrows following each other down the hill to the sea-shore. These contain the wooden boxes of flowers which are to be loaded on the barge and towed back to St. Mary’s ready for the next day’s steamer. We found very comfortable quarters on the island with the wife of the pilot’s son who so distinguished himself when the “T. W. Lawson” was wrecked, as described in another chapter. The accompanying illustration shows their little three-year-old girl trying to help her parents in the tying-house. The very names on St. Agnes seem to be suggestive of the wild and rocky character of the island--names such as Camperdizl Point, Campergurling, and the Carns of Kestillier. And is not Wingletang Down a picturesque and suggestive name?