This island will afford a day of sport to the disciple of Colonel Hawker—or of information to the industrious antiquary—or amusement to a pic-nic party; and indeed, to all visitors in search of health, pleasure, or the picturesque, who may be sojourning at Beaumaris. It is nearly a mile from the shore, to the edge of which it slopes in verdant turf on each side from its lofty central eminence. In shape it resembles a lemon, extending a mile in length and half a mile in breadth. Near the centre are the ruins of an old square tower, supposed to have been a portion of a religious house, once subordinate to the priory of Penmon; which, from “the odour of sanctity” thrown around it by popular tradition, attracted many devotees, and penitents, and dying persons, to its sacred shrine, either as the subjects of pilgrimage or prayer, or to obtain interment within its holy walls. Giraldus says, “the island was inhabited by hermits, living by manual labour and serving God.” The superior reputation which this monastery enjoyed, induced the Welsh princes, Llywelyn and David, and (after the conquest of the country) Edward the First, to grant to it the revenues of Penmon. Prince Owen Gwynedd, who lies buried here, was the founder; and its sanctuary became the refuge at once of the oppressor and the oppressed, in that lawless age to which it belonged. Little remains to attest the presence of the crowds of devout men that thronged it, or of the noble, the wealthy, or of the poor, that once were interred in its consecrated cemetery. A colony of rabbits has usurped their territory; and swarms of cormorants, stormy petrels, curlews, and _puffin auks_, and, even though but comparatively seldom seen, peregrine falcons hasten to these shores in the summer months, to breed and nurture their young. There is a small house on the island for the man who attends a signal staff erected here in 1826, to form part of the telegraphic communication between Liverpool and Holyhead.
A pleasant aquatic excursion may he made from Garth Point to Puffin Island, passing through the picturesque bay of Beaumaris, the distance being nine miles.
A melancholy interest attaches to this neighbourhood from a most calamitous event which occurred in the bay of Beaumaris, on the night of the 17th August, 1831. On the morning of that day, the _Rothsay Castle_ steamer left the pier-head, Liverpool, for Beaumaris, the number of passengers and seamen being between 120 and 140 souls. After passing the floating light, stationed about 15 miles from Liverpool, the sea became very rough and the wind adverse; and some of the passengers, apprehensive of danger, in vain urged the captain, Lieutenant Atkinson, to return. Between the Great and Little Ormeshead the vessel was beating about for three hours, and soon after passing the latter, night had come on, the sea running high, and the tide ebbing. It was near twelve o’clock when she arrived at the mouth of the Menai Strait, about five miles from Beaumaris. When opposite the tower on Puffin Island, suddenly the steam got so low that the engine would not keep the vessel on her proper course; and she struck on what is called the spit of the Dutchman’s Bank, where she remained immovable till she went to pieces. At least one hundred persons are known to have perished, and twenty-one were ascertained to be saved.