Block Island

“ BLOCK ISLAND AND THE PALATINE Block Island, or Manisees, is an uplift of clayey moorland between Montauk and Gay Head. It was for sailors an evil place and "bad medicine" for Indians, for men who had been wrecked there had been likewise robbed and ill treated—though the honest islanders of to-day deny it—while the Indians had been driven from their birthright after hundreds of their number had fallen in its defence. In the winter of 1750-51 the ship Palatine set forth over the seas with thrifty Dutch merchants and emigrants, bound for Philadelphia, with all their goods. ”

“ It is 103 quite hilly, with an occasional rocky shore, contains a number of salt water ponds, and is covered with a scanty growth of trees and other vegetation. The male inhabitants, numbering only a few hundred souls, are devoted exclusively to the fishing business, and they are as amiable and honest at heart, as they are rude and isolated in their manner of life. Block Island sailors frequently find their way to the remotest quarters of the globe, though few who were born upon the island ever become entirely weaned from its ocean-girt shores. ”

“ Thus he coasted along the shores of Long Island, and “discovered an island in triangular form, some ten leagues from the main land, in size about equal to the Island of Rhodes.” This was Block Island, and we mention the circumstance here, in order that the reader may appreciate the fact that Verrazano first visited New York, and [12] that he properly describes the coast. Block Island is distinctly a triangular island. Then he went to a harbor in the main, identified as Newport Harbor. [5] The natives who appeared in the harbor, it will be noticed, had some thirty small boats (barchettes) . ”

“ John Block declared; “that wretch Borupt must have altered the Flag’s course and made for waters where he will be most likely to escape punishment, and where he and his gang will play pirates! So I think that we were a long way out of our proper course when this boat was cut adrift. But I wish we might strike some island in these seas—even a desert island would do! We could live all right by hunting and fishing; we should find shelter in some cave. Why shouldn’t we make of our island what the survivors of the Landlord made of New Switzerland? ”

“ Adrian Block was one of the earliest fur traders to visit the island [Pg 57] after Henry Hudson returned to Holland with the news of his discovery. The "Tiger" took fire in the night while anchored in the bay, and Block and his crew reached the shore with difficulty. They were the only white men on the island. Immediately they set about building a new vessel, which was named the "Restless."
Next door, at No. 39, President Washington lived in the Macomb's Mansion, moving there from the Franklin House in 1790. Subsequently the house became a hotel. ”

“ John Block exclaimed. “There is a harbour somewhere! All we have to do is to steer for it, with the wind whistling through the yards. Good Lord! If I were the Creator I would show you half a dozen islands lying all round us, waiting our convenience!”
“We won’t ask for as many as that, bo’sun,” the passenger replied, unable to refrain from smiling.
“Well,” John Block answered, “if He will drive our boat towards one of those which exist already, it will be enough, and He need not make any islands on purpose, although, I must say, He seems to have been a bit stingy with them hereabouts!” ”

“ I named it Half-way Island. It is scarcely more than a mile in circumference, but appears to be increasing both in elevation and extent. At no very distant period of time, it was one of those banks produced by the washing up of sand and broken coral, of which most reefs afford instances, and those of Torres' Strait a great many. These banks are in different stages of progress: some, like this, are become islands, but not yet habitable; some are above high-water mark, but destitute of vegetation; whilst others are overflowed with every returning tide. ”

“ Queens are not common apparitions in any of the Channel Islands, and least of all in little Sark. It is a difficult place to get to even for common people. The island, which is only three miles long, is walled by a line of splendid cliffs over three hundred feet high. Its only harbor is a strip of beach, defended by a tiny breakwater, from which a steep road is tunnelled up through the rocks to the interior of the island. ”

“ This island was not a refuge for smugglers and pirates only; it also was a refuge for the early settlers of Mere Point on the mainland. 68 The settlers would be driven from the mainland by vicious attacks from the Indians, and they would flee to their blockhouse on Shelter Island. This blockhouse was built for this exact purpose, so you can imagine what you might find on this island in the way of buried treasure; not only artifacts from the early settler days, but also relics from the old days of smuggling and privateering. ”

“ For I suppose there was never a modester man than Captain Blokes.
August 10th. All Money-Matters being arranged, we disposed of our Prisoners. We burnt down the Village for some Impertinence of the Head Man (who was a Half-caste Indian) ,—but no great harm done, since 'twas mostly Mud and Plantain thatch, and could be built up again in a Week,—and got to Windward very slowly, there being a constant current flowing to Leeward to the Bay of Panama. 13th we saw the Island of Gallo; the 18th we spied a Sail bearing W.N.W. of us, when we all [96] three gave chase, and took her in half an hour. ”

“ The beds increase in thickness as the islands are followed northward, and reach their maximum development on Davieau island and northward to McTavish island, where they have a thickness of fifty feet. These measures can be traced southward from the Nastapoka chain in the outer islands lying along the coast for upward of 150 miles, being last seen on Long island just north of Cape Jones, where they are overlaid by a considerable thickness of trap. ”

“ The situation of the islands is wholly isolated; the nearest land is Staten Island, distant 250 miles by chart—they are 350 miles from Terra del Fuego, and 400 from the coast of Patagonia in direct lines, countries either uninhabited, or peopled by savages, without port or shipping—and there is no small shipping trade in or about the Falklands. By means of the semaphore, a communication can be kept up every ten minutes between the extreme western point of the West Island and Port Stanley on the extreme east of the group—consequently the naval force stationed there need be very trifling. ”

“ So nicely has Nature dispersed the Bahamas that they afforded neutral water to within fifty miles of the American coast, and no sooner was the blockade declared than the advantages of Nassau as a basis of operations were recognised and embraced. The harbour was alive with shipping, the quays were piled with cotton, the streets were thronged with busy life. So far grown and established indeed did I find the business of blockade-running, that I was seized with a sense of being late in the field and with a desire to rush in and reclaim lost time. ”

“ It is also known by the name of Nevil's Island and Johnston's Island; and it has been hitherto considered by navigators and others as uninhabited. This is not surprising; as we were told by the natives, that no white man had ever visited the place; though it seemed, from the pieces of iron in their possession, and from other circumstances, that they had had some communication with the Spaniards and Portuguese in that quarter of the world. [4] Like many other islands in those seas, this is surrounded by a coral reef, which is from an eighth to one half of a mile wide ”

“ Frontenac Island used to be called Round Island, I guess because it wuz kinder square in shape. It is a handsome place with a immense hotel [A] settin’ back most a quarter of a mild, and jined by a long railed balcony with another, makin’ room enough, it seemed to me, for an army. The broad, handsome path leadin’ up to it wuz bordered with beautiful flowers and shrubs, lookin’ lovely against the vivid green of the lawn. ”

“ The length of the island from north to south is under 20 miles, the extreme width 7 miles, the distance from the borders of Maine, 9 miles, and from Campobello, 12 miles. The steamer lands at North Head, the principal port of the island with unpretending hotel accommodations. Here the bluffs rear sky-ward with the vigour of Blomidon. Behind the town is a cemetery filled with graves of the ship-wrecked. The west coast opposes to the mainland a wall several hundred feet high which affords only one refuge for fleeing vessels. ”

“ The island had but very few inhabitants—perhaps ten or twelve men and double that number of women and children. No ship, they told us, had ever entered the lagoon but Bully Hayes' brig, and that was nine years before. There was nothing on the island to tempt a trading vessel, and even the sperm whalers, as they lumbered lazily past from Strong's Island to Guam, would not bother to lower a boat and "dicker" for pearl-shell or turtle. ”

“ Islands, which the action of submarine fires has raised above the waters, are by degrees clothed in rich and smiling verdure; but these new lands are often laid waste by the renewed action of the same power which caused them to emerge from the bottom of the ocean. Islets, which are now but heaps of scoriae and volcanic ashes, were once perhaps as fertile as the hills of Tacoronte and Sauzal. Happy the country, where man has no distrust of the soil on which he lives!
Pursuing our course to the port of Orotava, we passed the smiling hamlets of Matanza and Victoria. ”

“ This form of heiau has no resemblance either to the marae of Tahiti or the ahu of Easter Island; and the art of building never seems to have approached the excellence reached in the latter. Mr. Gordon, the British Consul, gave us much pleasure by taking us in his motor, accompanied by Dr. Brigham, to see the remains of one of these 324temples on the eastern side of the island. ”

“ The insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island is a human rat-trap. It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out. ”

“ The charming island of Rock Island, three miles long and half a mile wide, belongs to the United States, and the Government has turned it into a wonderful park, enhancing its natural attractions by art, and threading its fine forests with many miles of drives. Near the center of the island one catches glimpses, through the trees, of ten vast stone four-story buildings, each of which covers an acre of ground. ”

“ On the Gulf side of these islands you may observe that the trees—when there are any trees—all bend away from the sea; and, even of bright, hot days when the wind sleeps, there is something grotesquely pathetic in their look of agonized terror. A group of oaks at Grande Isle I remember as especially suggestive: five stooping silhouettes in line against the horizon, like fleeing women with streaming garments and wind-blown hair,—bowing grievously and thrusting out arms desperately northward as to save themselves from falling. ”

“ As I write these lines I lift my eyes and look seaward. I am on the beach of Waikiki on the island of Oahu. Far, in the azure sky, the trade-wind clouds drift low over the blue-green turquoise of the deep sea. Nearer, the sea is emerald and light olive-green. Then comes the reef, where the water is all slaty purple flecked with red. Still nearer are brighter greens and tans, lying in alternate stripes and showing where sandbeds lie between the living coral banks. Through and over and out of these wonderful colours tumbles and thunders a magnificent surf. ”

“ I have not as yet noticed by far the most remarkable feature in the natural history of this archipelago; it is, that the different islands to a considerable extent are inhabited by a different set of beings. My attention was first called to this fact by the Vice-Governor, Mr. Lawson, declaring that the tortoises differed from the different islands, and that he could with certainty tell from which island any one was brought. I did not for some time pay sufficient attention to this statement, and I had already partially mingled together the collections from two of the islands. ”

“ There was a man of the Island of Hawaii, whom I shall call Keawe; for the truth is, he still lives, and his name must be kept secret; but the place of his birth was not far from Honaunau, where the bones of Keawe the Great lie hidden in a cave. ”

“ Alexander Smollett, master; David Livesey, ship's doctor; Abraham Gray, carpenter's mate; John Trelawney, owner; John Hunter and Richard Joyce, owner's servants, landsmen—being all that is left faithful of the ship's company—with stores for ten days at short rations, came ashore this day and flew British colours on the log-house in Treasure Island. Thomas Redruth, owner's servant, landsman, shot by the mutineers; James Hawkins, cabin-boy—
And at the same time, I was wondering over poor Jim Hawkins' fate. ”

“ Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell’s Island? I said I could and I would. And I did. ”

“ In the immediate nearness of the gold, all else had been forgotten: his promise and the doctor's warning were both things of the past, and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the treasure, find and board the Hispaniola under cover of night, cut every honest throat about that island, and sail away as he had at first intended, laden with crimes and riches. ”