„T HE Wight" is one of the few examples of an
island having the kind of symmetry which the old map- makers gave to their conception' of the earth, and of the placing of its rivers and its seas. It is of the shape of an ace of diamonds, with its long axis pointing up and down the Channel. Much of the same orderly arrangement is found in the placing of its cliffs, its rivers, its strata, and its bays and promontories ; and though the balance is not exactly even, the chances are that any striking natural feature at the west end of the island will be found repeated on the east. Each corner is nearly cut off from the main island by a river, the one entering the Solent at Yarmouth, and the other at Bern- bridge; and both of these rivers bear the name of " Yar." The dazzling precipices of Scratchells Bay and Sun Corner find their counterpart at the east end in the Culver Cliffs, each having as its permanent inhabitants the falcon and the raven; and the remarkable series of uptilted strata of sands and earth of many colours in Alum Bay on the west finds its match on the east at the base of the beautiful curve of coast to which the neighbouring precipice gives its local name. Round the cliff to the right rise the sheer precipices of chalk. To the left the land drops gradually away to the foreland ; at the feet of the cliff lies a long reef of limestone, just beneath the wash of the tide, and between the foreland and the precipices is a micro- cosm of the lands and waters, the bird and plant life, and the various fisheries of our largest Southern island. Seen from amidst the furze on a high jut of the red sand which forms one of the series of uptilted strata in the long, light evenings of the early spring, the bay looks like the beauteous frontier of some undiseovered island, waiting for the coming of the first voyagers from across the glass-green sea. Not a sail is
on the bay, not a figure upon the shore, not a ploughman in the fields on the back of the rolling downs. Only a faint lowing of sheep comes on the dying evening breeze, such as Ulysses and his crew heard faintly across the thyme-spread Mountains where the Titan herdsman fed his flocks within sight of the Mediterranean waves.
The hour marks the pause between day and twilight, and, in a larger way, the scene marks the interlude between the fisheries of the winter and the spring. For the moment the waters of the bay lie unbroken, silent, and alone. Only from the margin comes the waft of soothing rippling sound, the curl of the little waves upon the curves of the brown Pebble bank, and the tinkling slide of the unnumbered grains of ocean's beaded shore, the Ma,* seams allapsus, sleep-com- pelling, such as, wafted from the stream of Lethe, kept Morpheus ever in the land of dreams. From the foot of the cliff upon the right, the Gibraltar of the bay, the tide sweeps fast and broken over the underlying reefs, prolonging the curve of the land, until the smooth and gently heaving waters within resemble some vast translucent gem of polished aquamarine in a setting of rustic silver. In the centre of the bay are two fishers, both birds, and the larger a scarce one. It is the great Northern diver, one of the largest of its tribe, elegantly shaped, and able to dive or fly in rivalry with any bird, which combines the power of swift motion deep below the surface of the sea and in the regions of air. In the morning it may have been fishing off the Nab Light, and in its subaqueous chase have encountered the terrifying sight of the lost submarine, lying like a dead whale on the sea- bottom, with human divers, in strange and hideous armour, staggering like gigantic crustaceans in the tide that raced around the spindle-shaped coffin of steel. In the quiet waters of the bay the bird enjoys its fishing undisturbed ; yet its immersions are long, and its prey either scarce or passing swift; for the bird' remains below for two, or even three, minutes at a time in breathless pursuit of its evening meal. The other fisher is a razorbill, solitary and lonely, but which will soon join hundreds of other razorbills, and thousands of puffins, on the "Main Bench" cliffs of Freshwater.
Out on the left, where the reef is emerging, a score of wild ducks are quietly feeding, swimming over the shallow pools where the sea-wrack and zostera are floating, and dabbling, like farmyard ducks, for snails and the eggs of fishes and the larvae that feed upon the weed. By the time that the last of the black strings of cormorants has passed, which are following each other to their roosting-place in the cliffs across the mouth of the bay, all these ducks will fly inland to the fresh- water marshes, to drink, feed, and wash their feathers .clear of the stain of salt water, and free their throats, from the flavour of the brine. The lobsters have not yet come. up in any number from the deeper reefs out further in the hay. They dislike the cold, and in heavy frosts are some- times found, like the rock-fish and the conger-eels, numbed and torpid when the tide recedes. When the sea's tempera- ture rises they will soon come in from the outer ledge and burrow among the sea-turf beds and submarine lawns which the tides cover, and enjoy their summer " outing ", by the shore.
In one respect the fishes of the sea are like the fowls of the air. Some have fixed homes from which they never stray far. The rock-fish, the lobsters, the crabs, the prawns, the congers, and the sand-eels are among the number, and, all these are permanent dwellers i n the rock-planted jungles and crags which prolong below the water either arm of the hay. Others, and especially the " shoal " fish, such as herrings, mackerel, and sprats, are rovers round the coast, and as our bay lies somewhat far out in the channel, these multitudinous visitors, the " trippers " of the sea society, seldom visit its blue waters even in summer or autumn. Yet as we look over the azure arc while its waters grow more trans- parent and more azure still as the cold white sun of early spring sinks to its couch in the clearing West, a dark, cloudlike shadow appears moving steadily behind the long .ripples to the shore. It might be a mass of seaweed were it not so large, and it drifts on like seaweed too, till it reaches the back of the third wave from the beach, and there remains, gradually widening. By what seems an accident, a single fishing-boat appears round the corner of the bay, and on the summit of one of the sand cliffs a man appears and stands gazing down into the waters below.. He sees the cloud beneath, and signals with his arms to the distant boat. To pass from the general to the particular, this watcher bad come by land, while the boat drifted round with the tide, to signal whether be saw such a cloud as that just noticed in the bay below. It is a shoal of grey mullet, which have come in with' the tide, and are now feeding, scarcely the toss of a biscuit from the pebbles, on the seaweed which has washed in at the flood. The boat made for the point signalled, and as it came in the watcher scrambled down the cliff, a steep " chine," set in the furze and bramble, and took the land-line brought by a booted fisherman splashing through the waves. The boat rowed rapidly round, and the other end of the seine was brought to shore. The net was then drawn until the mullet began to be sensible of the danger. One after another the brilliant fish charged the net, some overleaping it, others falling backwards ; for mullet will not " mesh" themselves ; either they will jump over the seine, or else they must be dragged ashore. As the back of the net was within a few yards of the meeting of sea and shingle, two fishermen leaped from the boat, and standing up to their chests in water, held the net like a wall before their faces, while those on land made the last draught, and hauled scores of leaping mullet upon the pebbles.
When this unfrequented bay is revisited after months or years of absence one fact is ever noted,—the steady and pro- gressive changes of the earth and the unaltering " oneness" of the sea. The chalk cliffs crumble by slow degrees, or the waves wear them down at their base, while frost and wind consume the faces of the precipice. The sand-walls dis- integrate into myriads of grains, while the land-springs, after twelve months of rain, make the chalk and the marl into thick streams down-fldwing to the shore. But the sea is the same for ever, changing in its moods, but otherwise unalter- able. The voices of the deep sound as they have sounded for a million years ; over its waters the sea wind, "shrill child," sings the same sea-song; and so king as its waters reflect the image of the sun by day, and of the stars by night, so long shall its elemental force abide, and its power be unabated.
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