Nowhere do the flowers bloom so early as on the sunny southern slopes of St. Martin’s Isle; and as one draws near from St. Mary’s one may see the varied colours of the flower-patches, from palest lemon through all the shades of yellow down to deep orange, clothing the face of the hills. It is a great advantage to St. Martin’s, this long series of slopes on the south, facing towards the roadstead, warm and sunny and sheltered. At one time the drifting sand from the flats had so covered the soil as to make much of it barren, but it seems fertile enough now. The sand-flats extend for a mile in the direction of St. Mary’s, and at very low water of a spring-tide it is possible to walk across them, and to wade through the remaining mile of separating sea. The Eastern Islands are well seen from the flowery slopes. They run in pairs of “Great” and “Little”--Ganilly, Ganinick, Arthur, and Innisvouls--there is a Great and a Little of each. Hanjague, the “sugar-loaf” island, away to the very east, stands quite alone--in name, and character, and situation. I remember being asked by a boatman soon after I first came to Scilly whether I knew “Ann Jigg.” I knew the sugar-loaf well by sight and its name on paper, but the orthodox pronunciation was strange to me, and I replied with puzzlement that I had never met the lady! The northern slopes of St. Martin’s, exposed to all the fury of the Atlantic gales, are almost uncultivated, possessing one little flower-farm only, at Pernagie. On this coast, “at the back of St. Martin’s,” there are caves which were formerly thought to be old tin-workings. It is a wild and beautiful and lonely coast, with rounded bays, shut in by rocky headlands, and slopes clad with heather and gorse between the patches of bare grey granite. The bold mass of St. Martin’s Head is nearly the highest point of the islands, and from it what old Leland calls “the very westeste point of Cornwalle” can often be clearly seen. The Cornish hills are plainly visible on a very clear day, even from an open boat in the roads. On the summit of St. Martin’s Head is the “Day-mark,” built in 1683 by Thomas Ekins, the first steward of the Godolphins to reside on the islands. It is a round tower with a conical top, painted all the way up with alternate bands of white and Indian red, and it is quite the most hideous object to be seen in Scilly! But we must forgive its ugliness, for no doubt it has done good service to seamen in times past; and though the neighbouring lighthouse on Round Island has made it less necessary, still it is a “land-mark,” and as such it must remain. It was used as a signal-station in the last French War, a century ago; near by are ruins of the houses occupied by the soldiers.