But there seems still that spice of original discovery and exploration of the little-known, clinging to the trip to Lundy, which impels even the worst of sailors to commit himself to the symptoms of sea-sickness, for sake of an out-of-the-way experience: although, to be sure, the trip to the island is now a commonplace, everyday affair. [Illustration: LUNDY.] Lundy has ever been a place, if not exactly of mystery, at any rate of the wildest romantic doings. It appears to have been the “Heraclea Acte” of the ancients, and is, in effect, a huge mass of mingled granite and slate rock, nearly three and a half miles in length, by about three quarters of a mile broad. It has nine miles of rugged and extremely indented coast-line, here and there rising in abrupt cliffs considerably over four hundred feet high. There is only one good landing-place; on the south-east, where the height of Lamator and the lump of rock known as “Rat Island,” shelter a little curving beach from the heavy Atlantic wash. The isle contains 1046 acres, chiefly of barren upland, covered with rough grass, gorse, heather, and bracken, and inhabited at the present day by some thirty-five persons. Mentioned in the Welsh legends of mystery and magic, the _Mabinogion_, Lundy was known to the Welsh as Caer Sidi. Its present title is due to Scandinavian settlers, who named it from the “Lund,” or puffin that then, as now, frequented it in great numbers. The real, as opposed to the legendary, history of Lundy begins in 1199, when King John gave it to the Knights Templars. It at that time belonged to the de Marisco family, and was, consequently, not really in the king’s gift, but such small considerations as those of private ownership were very frequently overlooked by the Norman sovereigns. Moreover, the Mariscos appear to have been at the time in rebellion against the Crown. But William de Marisco the then lord, by no means agreed to this disposal of his island home, and as the king had merely given it to the Templars, and had not enforced the surrender by armed intervention, he succeeded in keeping possession. He did even more, for he turned pirate, and was still in undisturbed possession of the place in 1233. He had a considerable stronghold on the heights of Lamator, overlooking the landing-place. The remains of it, still known as “Marisco Castle,” are at the present day incorporated with some cottages and Lloyd’s signal-station.