CHAPTER VIII
LUNDY - HISTORY OF THE ISLAND - WRECK OF THE MONTAGU - LUNDY OFFERED AT AUCTION - DESCRIPTION
To visit Lundy from Ilfracombe is one of the favourite excursions with adventurous holiday-makers. Lundy (no one who has any pretensions to correctitude speaks of Lundy " Island " : the terminal " y " originally " ey," itself signifying an isle) lies twenty-three miles to the north-west, almost mid-way between the coasts of North Devon and South Wales, where the Atlantic surges meet the waters of the Bristol Channel. The excursion-steamers that visit the island frequently in summer are broad in the beam, of large tonnage, powerfully engined, and in every way well-found ; but there are always those among the company who are seen to be more or less uneasy upon " the sea, the open sea, the ever fresh, the ever free." These are not true sons and daughters of Britannia, you think, as, gazing upon their pallid faces, the story of how " the captain cried ' heave,' and the passengers all heft," recurs to your reminiscent mind.
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 sea-sickness, for the sake of an out-of-the-way experience; although to be sure the trip to the island is now a commplace affair. '
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