Emerald Isle

“ The Kongspell—mirror of Kings—which was compiled in Norway about the year 1200, says that Ireland is almost the best of the lands we are acquainted with although no vines grow there. The Scandinavian Vikings and emigrants, who often contented themselves with such poor countries as Greenland and the islands in the north Atlantic, must, therefore, have especially turned their attention to the 'Emerald Isle,' particularly as it bordered closely upon their colonies in England and Scotland. ”

“ Many of the Irish resident in those localities have left for the shores of the Emerald Isle, but by far the larger number, unblessed with this world’s goods, have been compelled to remain where they are, and to anticipate the fearful event which was to engulf them in p. ”

“ But, of all foreigners, none amalgamate themselves so quickly with our people as the natives of the Emerald Isle. In some of the visions which have passed through my imagination, I have supposed that Ireland was originally, part and parcel of this continent, and that, by some extraordinary convulsion of nature, it was torn from America, and drifting across the ocean, was placed in the unfortunate vicinity of Great Britain. ”

“ We all agreed that we had never seen such a rich green color before. "Emerald Isle" (the green island) is a very appropriate name for Ireland, We saw many light-houses and beautiful castles hanging upon the rocky shores or standing proudly upon commanding eminences. Steamers keep so close to the shore in sailing from Queenstown to Liverpool, that the land is nearly always in sight. On Sunday morning, July 4th, the charming fields of Ireland had been exchanged for the lofty mountains of Wales. We passed Holyhead at 9:00 o'clock, and Liverpool came into sight at 1:30 p.m. ”

“ Emden (14) , the chief part of the province of Hanover, in Prussia, situated at the outlet of the river Ems; is intersected by canals; shipbuilding and brewing are the chief industries.
Emerald, a precious stone of great value, allied in composition to the beryl; is of a beautiful transparent green colour; the finest specimens are found in Colombia and Venezuela.
Emerald Isle, Ireland, from the fresh verdure of its herbage. ”

“ Here was a predicament—my house landed, all the transportation of the village ready to remove it, and an obstinate Irishman named Barney barring the way. He was immovable, however, insisting upon “his damages;” so the carts, and wagons, and trucks drove away, and the Irish character came under a lively discussion. The inhabitants of the Emerald Isle are certainly a magnificent race, especially when their biographer does not happen to own a house which has strayed on their land, and does want to run for alderman ”

“ Passing from the ultramarine deeps of the Rubicon Point, we round a sharply jutting promontory and glide into the jade-green waters of Emerald Bay, a long, oval-shaped inlet at the southern end of the lake. Surely, it is rightly named, for here green predominates, from the steep sides of the encircling hills to the very center of the shallow bay. At the upper end of the bay, rising almost sheer from the green water, is a rocky, scantily-wooded island where for many years an eccentric Englishman made his home. ”

“ They stated that when the rest of the world was sunk in barbarism, their Higher-land was the seat of intelligence, and virtue, and superior bravery. They asserted that their soldiers were the only soldiers that ever existed, and that their agricultural labourers were ‘the finest pisantry in the world.’ But there was certainly something very singular about them; and even their brick-layers’ labourers were odd men. The island was also called by the natives The Emerald Island, I believe because it sometimes produced Irish diamonds. ”

“ Far to the northeast of Charles's Isle, sequestered from the rest, lies Norfolk Isle, and, however insignificant to most voyagers, to me, through sympathy, that lone island has become a spot made sacred by the strangest trials of humanity. ”

“ Just in front of the headland can be seen the two peaks of the mountain of Rano Raraku, from which the statues were hewn and which is the most interesting place in the island; while on a clear day there can be obtained a glimpse of the northern coast and the sea beyond.
Such is Easter Island. It bears no resemblance to the ideal lotus-eating lands of the Pacific; rather, with its bleak grass-grown surface, its wild rocks and restless ocean, it recalls some of the Scilly Isles or the coast of Cornwall. It is not a beautiful country nor even a striking one, but it has a fascination of its own. ”

“ It will be observed from the advertisement that Merry-go-round Island, alias the Isle of Desserts, was now masquerading under a new name, which had been given it in the hope of obliterating all memories of its wandering past.
Being now a respectable stay-at-home island, stuck fast with each part of its coast true to its proper compass point, what more natural than that its roving youth should be treated as a closed book by its owners? There it sat in the middle of the glinting river, its sturdy understructure reposing upon Waring's reef. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the current charts of the South Pacific there are marked several archipelagoes and islands, the position of which is not a little doubtful. One of these — Emerald Island — is charted as lying almost directly in the course we had to follow to reach Hobart. Captain Davis, who took Shackleton's ship, the Nimrod, home to England in 1909, sailed, however, right over the point where Emerald Island should be found according to the chart without seeing anything of it. If it exists at all, it is, at any rate, incorrectly charted. ”

“ Through Emerson’s eyes we can see this little island ‘a prize for the best race,’ its singular people, chained to their logic, willing ‘to kiss the dust before a fact,’ strong in their sense of brotherhood, yet fond each of his own way, incommunicable, ‘in short every one of these islanders an island in himself.’ They have a ‘superfluity of self-regard’—which is a secret of their power ”

“ The narrator of the voyage takes this occasion to describe certain parts of the coast and waters of Newfoundland, the island of St. Catherine, Blanc Sablon, Brest, the Isle of Birds, and a numerous group of Islands called the Islets. But these memoranda are not connected with any observations or discoveries of importance. Speaking of Bird and Brest Islands, he says, they afford "great store of godwits, and crows, with red beaks and red feet," who "make their nests in holes underground, even as conies." Near this locality "there is great fishing." ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the train rushed relentlessly on, it did not even dawdle at the little stations as all the other expresses had done, and we felt sadder and sadder as each emerald field and hill and vale, each sparkling stream and peaceful lake that we passed took us nearer and nearer to the boat that was waiting to carry us out of sight of it all.
“It is a pity that you could not have spent at least six months out here!” said Colonel Deane. “As it is you have only an impressionist idea of New Zealand to carry away with you. ”

“ Had the lads but known it, their wisest course would have been to cross directly from the Grand Portage to the southwestern end of Isle Royale and then skirt the island to its northeast tip. But they had no map to tell them this. Indeed in those days the position of Isle Royale was but imperfectly understood. It had been visited by scarcely any white men and was avoided by the Indians. During the boys’ detention at the Grand Portage, rain and fog had rendered the island, some eighteen or twenty miles away, invisible. ”

“ Emerson, writing in his journal in 1842 of his impatience of superficial city life, during a visit to New York, alludes to the renewed comfort he had in the Lord of the Isles:
“Life goes headlong. Each of us is always to be found hurrying headlong in the chase of some fact, hunted by some fear or command behind us. Suddenly we meet a friend. We pause. Our hurry and empressement look ridiculous.... When I read the Lord of the Isles last week at Staten Island, and when I meet my friend, I have the same feeling of shame at having allowed myself to be a mere huntsman and follower.” ”

“ There is nothing more curious, my uncle observed, than the changes produced on the face{62} of the globe by the operations of the coral worm, a little creature so small as to be scarcely visible. New islands, he says, produced by its means, are continually rising out of the sea, and old ones are becoming united to others, or to the continent. In reading about something else, I met with a singular instance of this, in the account of Saugor Island, and Edmonstone’s Isle, in the Bay of Bengal, Edmonstone’s Isle appeared so lately as 1818 ”

“ 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." ”

“ So wrote, a century and a half ago, one of the earliest navigators to visit the Island of Easter in the South-east Pacific. Ever since that day passing ships have found it incomprehensible that a few hundred natives should have been able to make, move, and erect numbers of great stone monuments, some of which are over thirty feet in height; they have marvelled and passed on. As the world’s traffic has increased Easter Island has still stood outside its routes, quiet and remote, with its story undeciphered. What were these statues of which the present inhabitants know nothing? ”

“ From this point, which is the extreme west, to Foreland Farm, near Bembridge, which is the extreme east, the whole island measures only twenty-four miles in length; and its greatest breadth, which is from Cowes Castle to Rock End, near Black Gang Chine, is only twelve miles. It is, therefore, extremely creditable to this little island to have made such a noise in the world as it has done; and its celebrity shows that, small as it is, it contains a great many things worth looking at. ”

“ In Easter Island the past is the present, it is impossible to escape from it; the inhabitants of to-day are less real than the men who have gone; the shadows of the departed builders still possess the land. ”

“ The race preserves some of its better characteristics.
"They have a vigorous health and last well into middle and old age. The old men are as red as roses, and still handsome. A clear skin, a peach-bloom complexion, and good teeth are found all over the island."
English "Manners" are characterized, according to Emerson, by pluck, vigor, independence. "Every one of these islanders is an island himself, safe, tranquil, incommunicable." They are positive, methodical, cleanly, and formal, loving routine and conventional ways ”

“ The island lies in a lonely position, at the extreme west of the South Pacific series, and measures but thirteen miles in length and about seven in width. The hues of the land are sand and tawny; the sea is a faithful mirror of the turquoise sky; the dreamy heat of Polynesia endures throughout the year. Easter Island is lonely, lazy, unproductive, a little speck upon the broad breast of the Pacific. ”

“ Port Melville is on the north-west side of the island. A ship wishing to enter it ought to make the Sugar Loaf Peak, and steer between it and the cluster of islands to the northward, directly for the bottom of the bight, which lies between the Sugar Loaf and the north end of the island; here Herbert's Island will be seen close to the shore, run in towards its western end, anchor when it bears east one-third of a mile, and the Sugar Loaf west one-quarter north, barely shut in with a low dark green point of land; here you will have from seventeen to twenty fathoms. ”