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It IS not a very unusual summer e.xcurs!on; and comfortable
lodging being to be had at several of the
farm liouses, families occasionally reside there for a
few weeks. Few however of the inhabitants of Je rsey
have visited Serk: and I never met with one
English resident who had. What a retreat would
Serk offer to the professional, or the literary man,
from the din of the metropolis ! What a contrast between
the crowd, and bustle, and noise, and mists of
•leet-Street,—and the repose, and free air of Serk,
with its deep still dells, and flowery knolls, and quiet
bays, and monotonous sounds.
I liave said nothing of the climate of Serk, and the
health of the inhabitants; and perhaps I cannot give
a better proof of the healthfulness of the Island than
this, that there is no medical man on it. There are
female accoucheurs indeed,—and one or two individuals
who profess to set bones : but excepting in these
casualties, medical and surgical aid must both be obtained
from Guernsey. On an average of ten years,
the mortality is not quite one in a hundred; and in
the years 1816 and 1820 there was not one death in a
population of 500 persons. Query; are ten years
added to one’s life, an equivalent for a life spent in
Serk ?
H E R M .
T h is is but an islet, and must not be permitted to occupy
much space. Herm lies about midway between
Guernsey and Serk, and is of considerable service to
the security of the shipping in Guernsey roads, by
protecting them from the violence of the north-east
winds. I have read somewhere, that Herm is very
fruitful in corn and potatos, and that its produce is
greatly larger than its consumption. This I can well
believe ; for it would be indeed singular if an island
nearly four miles in circumference, and containing
some hundred acres of cultivated land, did no more
than support the score of people who reside on it.
Herm is however but indifferently cultivated, and
could be made greatly more profitable than it is.
There is a good deal of land susceptible of cultivation
which is at present covered with furze ; and the crops
of barley which I saw, were scanty and evidently ill
managed. Some attempts however, were making, to
redeem land from the empire of furze, and wild mint,
which everywhere grows in the greatest abundance ;
and I observed some stone enclosures newly raised.
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