Belle-Île

“ The river itself is very beautiful there, with its many green islets, its tumbling rapids sweeping down among rocks and foaming over ledges, and its side-dams thrown out like arms to draw the waters into their tranquil embrace. My eye, ranging over this scene, rested on that fair hill; and I thought that, surely, no pleasanter or more healthful spot could have been selected for an encampment of prisoners; But it is unsafe to trust the enchantment of distance; and after seeing Libby and Castle Thunder, I set out to visit Belle Island. ”

“ We are abreast of South Belle Isle, high lands fronting the ocean, with huge precipices, the fashion of most of the eastern coast of Newfoundland. With all their sameness, their rugged grandeur and the ceaseless battle of the waves below make them ever interesting. Imagine the Palisades of the Hudson, and the steeper parts of the Highlands exposed to the open Atlantic, and you will have no imperfect picture of these shores. They have no great bank of earth and loose rocks heaped up along their base, but step at once into the great deep ”

“ Behind us lay the dark gray-blue sea and the darker sky, flecked by pale pink clouds. Before us, the sun was shooting forth broad streaks of orange and vermilion on a ground of Venetian blue. Towards the horizon the colouring paled to tender pinks and lemon-yellows. As the little steamer ploughed on, Belle Isle rose into sight, a dark purple streak with tracts of lemon-gold and rosy clouds. The nearer we drew the lower sank the sun, until at last it set redly behind the island, picking out every point and promontory and every pine standing stiff against the sky. ”

“ In the eyes of those to whom the past furnishes a perspective more fascinating even than the promise of the future, the little isle adjacent, which is itself a finely marked basaltic cone, rising over a thousand feet high and well called “Holy Island,” is even more worthy of the visits of the reflecting scholar. It holds an attraction even greater, in human interest, at least, than the wonders of geology, or the numerous witnesses to antiquity in the form of upreared stones. ”

“ We passed by "Ellen's Isle," as it is called, the most exquisite little island ever formed, a perfect oval, and all covered with the purple heather, the golden gorse, and all sorts of flowers and exquisitely beautiful trees. O, what a little paradise it is! A number of little row-boats, with fine-looking Highland rowers and gay companies of ladies and gentlemen, were visiting the island as we passed. They show the oak tree to which they say Ellen fastened her boat. ”

“ Its shores are indented every here and there with the loveliest of bays and sounds, forming the most exquisite little harbors to be found anywhere in the world. The climate of the Island, especially its summer climate, is delightful. Such bright, bracing airs as come from the sea on one side, and from the snow-capped mountains of the mainland on the other, are seldom met with on either hemisphere. Given a July day, a pleasant companion or two in a crank little boat, whose oars we use to make silvery interludes in our talk, and I should not envy your sailor on the Bosphorus. ”

“ We go across the sands amid piles of seaweed, picking up lovely trophies of the deep in mother-of-pearl and pink shells, until we reach the black wooden torii at the base of the island. What a picturesque entry into the island it is, for we walk through the quaintest and narrowest village street, where the upper stories of the houses nearly meet, and where below, there is that strange medley of the every-day life of a people carried on in full view of the public eye. Up we climb, pass the shops full of shells, corals and marine curiosities, until we reach many winding flights of mossy steps. ”

“ The islands are clustered together at its narrowest part, by far the largest being Belle Isle, a finely wooded island with a mansion in the centre, and a noted stronghold of the Royalists during the Civil War, at which time it was in the possession of the ancient Westmorland family of Phillipson. We did not walk alongside Windermere, but passed by the head of the lake to the old-world village of Hawkshead, and called at the quaint old-fashioned inn known by the familiar sign of the "Red Lion." ”

“ The idea of an island, especially a quite little island, a miniature and separate world, shut off all by itself, is dreadfully enticing to the infant mind—at once a geographical entity and a cunning sort of toy. And Faircloth's Inn, with the tarred wooden houses adjacent, was situated upon what, to all intents and purposes, might pass as an island since accessible only by boat or by an ancient paved causeway daily submerged at high tide. ”

“ Thus, leaving the pier and the steamers behind them, through the streets and into the hotels, the houses, the cars, and the trains go, the new comers, and the newspapers, and the letters from England, all hot and active, bringing word of the main land, with its hub-bub and hurly-burly, to the island that has been four-and-twenty hours cut off from it—like the throbbing and bounding globules of fresh blood fetching life from the fountain-head to some half-severed limb. It is an hour of tremendous vitality, coming once a day, when the little island pulsates like a living thing. ”

“ But with its imposing groves of oak, its golden wealth of orange-trees, its odorous lanes of oleander.
its broad grazing-meadows yellow-starred with wild camomile, Grande Isle remains the prettiest island of the Gulf; and its loveliness is exceptional. For the bleakness of Grand Terre is reiterated by most of the other islands,—Caillou, Cassetete, Calumet, Wine Island, the twin Timbaliers, Gull Island, and the many islets haunted by the gray pelican,—all of which are little more than sand-bars covered with wiry grasses, prairie-cane, and scrub-timber. ”

“ Lying nearly forty miles west of Grande Isle, it was nevertheless far more populated a generation ago: it was not only the most celebrated island of the group, but also the most fashionable watering-place of the aristocratic South;—to-day it is visited by fishermen only, at long intervals. Its admirable beach in many respects resembled that of Grande Isle to-day; the accommodations also were much similar, although finer: a charming village of cottages facing the Gulf near the western end. ”

“ A traveler in 1854, thus describes this interesting locality, "Everything on the island is a curiosity, the roads or streets that wind around the harbor or among the grove-like forests of the island, are naturally pebbled and macadamized, the buildings are of every style, from an Indian lodge to an English house, the island is covered with charming natural scenery, from the beautiful to the grand, and one may spend weeks constantly finding new objects of interest, and new scenes of beauty. ”

“ The rugged island, to which nature had granted nothing but its noble situation, and which seemed condemned to perpetual sterility, is now become a region of rich gardens and white groups of houses—the very rocks are turned to beds of flowers, and the tangled swamps of ivy clinging about the stinted shrubbery, into smooth lawns, embellishing and embellished by the sprightly forms of playful lads and lasses, escaped from the city to enjoy a summer afternoon of rural happiness. ”

“ Isle Royale is forty miles long. The east end broken up into points is like the fingers on a man’s hand. Blake’s Point, which forms the long middle finger, extends far out into Lake Superior. It is here that sturdy fishermen mumble a prayer on nights of storm and fog, for the roar of breaking waves is like the roar of the sea, and great gray walls seem to reach out hands to drag them in. ”

“ June 26.—Off to Henley Harbor, sixty-five miles, at the head of the Strait of Belle Isle. Belle Isle itself—sandstone, rich, the Professor said, in ancient fossils—lay in view. The anchor went down in deep water, close beside the notable Castle Island. [Pg 45]
There were some considerable floes in the harbor, the largest one aground in a passage between the two islands by which it is formed. And now came the blue of pure floe-ice! There is nothing else like it on this earth, but the sapphire gem in its perfection ”

“ Within the bay Ellis' Island is near the Jersey shore; Bedloe's Island is not far from its centre, and is the selected site of the colossal statue of Liberty which France has presented to New York; while Governor's Island, the largest of the three, lies to the right, between New York and Brooklyn. Each island is fortified, the latter containing Castle William and old Fort Columbus.
The bay is dotted with the shipping of every nation. Ocean steamers are setting out on their long journeys, or just returning from foreign shores. ”

“ Among these suzerains of chateaux and belfries, the most powerful, the richest, the most popular, was M. Fouquet, seigneur of Belle-Isle. Even in the country, even within sight of that mysterious isle, legends and traditions consecrate its wonders. Every one might not penetrate it: the isle, of an extent of six leagues in length, and six in breadth, was a seignorial property, which the people had for a long time respected, covered as it was with the name of Retz, so redoubtable in the country. Shortly after the erection of this seignory into a marquistate, Belle-Isle passed to M. Fouquet. ”

“ Oh, there are a lot more cherry-trees all in bloom! This Island is the bloomiest place. I just love it already, and I’m so glad I’m going to live here. I’ve always heard that Prince Edward Island was the prettiest place in the world, and I used to imagine I was living here, but I never really expected I would. It’s delightful when your imaginations come true, isn’t it? ”

“ The land, as it recedes back from the sea, rises to a considerable height, and is dressed in the brightest green foliage; the sandy beach, washed by the never-ceasing rollers, with the neat white houses quietly reposing beneath the thick shade of the myriads of cocoanut, orange, and94 banana trees, renders it the most beautiful island we have ever beheld. As we stood viewing it from the ship, while drawing nearer and nearer, we could but imagine it to be some Eden of happiness, where yet the passion of man had not stepped in to mar and spoil its beauty. ”

“ Foremost along the coast, reaching southwest into the straits of Belle Isle, is Cape St. Charles, a brown promontory, rising, as it recedes from the sea, into rocky hills tinged with a pale green, the moss-pastures of the reindeer. Beyond the cape is a bay with mountain shores, not unlike those of Lake George. The fine smoke-like shadow along their sides is dappled with olive-green and yellowish tracts of moss and shrubbery. The annual expenditure of nature, on those poor mountains, for clothing and decoration is very small. ”

“ The rocky isle in front, with its neat farm-houses at the eastern point, and its high bluff at the western extremity, crowned with the telegraph—the middle space occupied by tents and sheds for the cholera patients, and its wooded shores dotted over with motley groups—added greatly to the picturesque effect of the land scene. Then the broad, glittering river, covered with boats darting to and fro, conveying passengers from twenty-five vessels, of various size and tonnage, which rode at anchor, with their flags flying from the mast-head, gave an air of life and interest to the whole. ”

“ Do you never take a vacation? If you could visit our Grande Isle in the healthy season, you would enjoy it so much! An old-fashioned, drowsy, free-and-easy Creole watering-place in the Gulf,—where there is an admirable beach, fishing extraordinary, and subjects innumerable for artistic studies—a hybrid population from all the ends of heaven, white, yellow, red, brown, cinnamon-colour, and tints of bronze and gold. ”

“ Leaving the city behind us, we sail along the shores of the island, and are charmed with their picturesque beauty. The long line of elevated coast sweeps in and out, projecting and receding, with bays stretching inland, at the end of which one catches glimpses of soft valleys sloping upward to the hills, behind and above which is the mountain-ridge which forms the backbone of the island. ”

“ The Gulf stream, approaching near to its coast, imparts to the climate a delightful temperature, that exempts it from the rigors incident to a northern latitude; surrounded by the ocean, it rarely suffers from intense heat or droughts; it is almost under the shadow of the towers of New York, and enjoys every facility of access to its market. Under such circumstances, the Island should exhibit the aspect of one prolonged cultivated farm, and orchard, and garden, smiling throughout its whole area, in that exuberance of beauty and culture, which so eminently mark some sections of its territory. ”

“ Holy Island was perhaps a hundred yards long, and about half as many broad; it was covered with trees and a dense growth of rhododendrons; somewhere in the jungle was a ruined fragment of a chapel, smothered in ivy and briars, and in a little glade in the heart of the island there was a holy well. We landed, and it was obviously a sore humiliation to Philippa that not a sound was to be heard in the spell-bound silence of the island, save the cough of a heron on a tree-top. ”