Magazine, Vol. 82
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| Stand: | 2015-08-04 03:50:33 |
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Excerpt from Magazine, Vol. 82: July December, 1857 Following Borlase´s directions, I soon came upon a towering altitude of stones, in solitary isolation on the shore. A less erudite eye would have seen here nothing but a pile of stones; but the forewarned mind descried in their symmetrical arrangement, ledge upon ledge, crag upon crag, the rude architecture of early days, especially when weglanced at the stone-hedges or stone-cot-tages near at hand, which assuredly were built by human architects, and showed a less symmetrical arrangement than the towering pile. Then, again, the rock-basins, in which the pure water of heaven was received, who could doubt that their oval form, and smoothly chiselled sides and bottoms, were the work of man? If the cairn of stones left vague doubts, these rock-basins veritably were Druidical remains; and thus fortified against scepticism, I indulged in the emotions which naturally accompanied the belief of being in the presence of remnants of a great human epoch long since passed away. Having indulged in these emotions, and extracted from them all the pleasure they could yield, it was with acquiescent equanimity that I afterwards learned now little probability historical scepticism allowed to these Druidical remains. It appears that the cairns are simply cairns, and not temples. The architecture is Nature´s; and, indeed, the forms are repeated in almost every cairn along the shores. Moreover, those rock-basins, which looked so convincingly human in their design and execution, are proved by Science to be the result of the disintegrating action of winds and waters, the uniformity of the causes producing that uniformity of result which seemed the betrayal of design. There is something almost pathetic in an acute and erudite man like Borlase (a naturalist too, and inventor of the strange worm which bears his name, Nemertina Borlasia), wandering among these rugged rocks, and finding in them the traces of an ancient religion; noticing the oval basins, and believing them to be human work; inventing a plausible explanation of their uses, admiring their design, and feeling a sacred awe in their presence: whereupon arrives the geologist with his disintegrating explanation, and the whole erudite fabric falls to pieces. Had Borlase lived in our time, imagine the ineffable scorn with which he would have looked down upon my Druidical authority Norma; yet, you see, he is, with all his learning, quite as unveridical as Giulia Crisi, and not half so beautiful. If Norma is not a good historical authority, it is at least a delightful one; and, with Voltaire, I exclaim - "On court, helas, après la verite; Ah! croyez-moi, Perreur a son mérite." Scepticism refuses admission to these Druidical remains altogether, so that I need not occupy space with the description of them. But here is a story safe from the assaults of scepticism, and thrilling enough it is to deserve a place among moving accidents. On the 16th November 1840, the French brig Nerine, under Captain Pierre Everdert, with a cargo of oil and canvass, sailing from Dunkerque for Marseilles, was forced to heave to in a gale about ten leagues south-west of the Scilly Islands. The crew consisted of seven, including the captain and his nephew, a boy of fourteen. At seven in the evening, a heavy sea struck the vessel, and completely capsized her - turning her keel upwards. The only man on deck at the time was drowned. In the forecastle were three men, Vincent, Vantaure, and Jean-Marie: the two former, by seizing hold of the wind-lass-bits, succeeded in getting up close to the keelson, and so kept their heads above water. The unfortunate Jean-Marie probably got his feet entangled - at any rate, after convulsivelygrasping the heel of Vantaure for a few seconds, he let go his hold and wasdrowned. "The other two, finding that the shock of the upset
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