The Argosy — page 64: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Channel Islands. 49 in every street, you may walk up and down and wander to and fro, and never meet a soul, see no face at any window. Perhaps it is not always so; it was so with us. A very different thing, this depressing desolation, from the grand, invigorating solitudes of Sark. These seemed to proclaim nothing but the: death of man, those the life, health-giving quietudes of nature. But the greater part of Alderney does not offend in this way. You may stroll over nearly all the island and see no trace of habitation. It is one mournful stretch of country; some of it cultivated, much of it nothing but hills and valleys, and downs of gorse and heather and grass. It is very melancholy and depressing: has in it very little i: . ie7 ~ Lo t gn 4 ; | - < a as T SIPS RE : : = at << wed ne ie ‘3 aS aw. S a 2 ‘¥ hag Sat # . At “ a 4? ~~ c-'< s — ST. ANNE’S CHURCH, ALDERNEY. beauty. Occasionally you come upon a ruined kiln, and the bare walls of a house that must once have echoed to the sound of human voices, and they look old enough to have passed into antiquities. But as a rule you see nothing but the bare country around you, and if you are not sure of your way, there is no one to put you right. Sign-boards there are none, and if there were, perhaps they could bear only one announcement : “‘ This way to Scott’s Hotel.” Scarcely there seemed any roads in the island. Half the time, in going from one point to another, we were walking over ploughed fields, trudging up and down heavy hill sides, getting into bogs and marshes un- awares—and for what reward? Certainly we grew inconceivably weary, for it was hard work getting about Alderney, but the beauties of nature were conspicuous by their absence. I cannot remember that we saw a single tree. The shady lanes of Sark, with their VOL, XXXVIII. E Gomichoo “Ss (E(©)