Sky Island

“ As Polychrome, the Rainbow's Daughter, lives in the sky, it is natural that Trot and Button-Bright meet her during their adventures there.
This story of Sky Island has astonished me considerably, and I think it will also astonish you. The sky country is certainly a remarkable fair land, but after reading about it I am sure you will agree with me that our old Mother Earth is a very good place to live upon and that Trot and Button-Bright and Cap'n Bill were fortunate to get back to it again. ”

“ In this country the women seemed fully as important as the men, and instead of being coddled and petted, they performed their share of the work, both in public and private affairs, and were expected to fight in the wars exactly as the men did.
Our friends learned considerable about the Pinkies during that afternoon and evening, for their hostess proved kind and agreeable and frankly answered all their questions. Although this half of Sky Island was no larger than the Blue Country, being no more than two miles square, it had several hundred inhabitants. ”

“ The Sunrise Tribe claimed that every day the sun greeted them first of all, which proved they were the most important; but on the other hand, the Sunset Tribe claimed that the sun always deserted the other tribe and came to them, which was evidence that they were the most attractive people. On Sky Island—at least on the Pink side—the sun arose in wonderful splendor, but also it set in a blaze of glory, and so there were arguments on both sides, and for want of something better to argue about, the Pinkies took this queer subject as a cause of dispute. ”

“ See?"
"Can't say I do," said Cap'n Bill, much bewildered. "It's a reg'lar mix-up."
"That's what it's meant to be," explained the young officer.
"An' seein' as we're Earth folks, an' not natives of Sky Island, I've an idea the slicing machine would about end us, without bein' patched," continued the sailor.
"Oh," said Button-Bright, "so it would."
"While you are in this country, you can't die till you've lived six hundred years," declared the officer.
"Oh," said Button-Bright. "That's different, of course. But who are you, please?" ”

“ We'd call this a small town in our country."
"Our Country is thousands of miles wide and thousands of miles long--it's the great United States of America!" added the boy earnestly.
Ghip-Ghisizzle seemed astonished. He was silent a moment, and then he said, "Here in Sky Island we prize truthfulness very highly. Our Boolooroo is not very truthful, I admit, for he is trying to misrepresent the length of his reign, but our people as a rule speak only the truth." ”

“ The islands are very quiet. One sees them lying about, clothed in their dark garments of leaves, in a great hush of silver and azure, where the sea without murmurs meets the sky in a ring of magic stillness. ”

“ 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 walked awhile among the rocks: the sky was perfectly clear, and the sun so hot, that I was forced to turn my face from it: when all on a sudden it became obscure, as I thought, in a manner very different from what happens by the interposition of a cloud. I turned back, and perceived a vast opaque body between me and the sun moving forwards towards the island: it seemed to be about two miles high, and hid the sun six or seven minutes; but I did not observe the air to be much colder, or the sky more darkened, than if I had stood under the shade of a mountain. ”

“ It sways like a tree in the wind during one of the terrific storms which sometimes beat upon it.
Altogether there are seven sea-lights to be seen [Pg 168] gleaming out round the islands after night has fallen. There is this of the Bishop, away among the western rocks; the new light on Peninnis; the ruby glow from Round Island; the light-ship moored by the Seven Stones; the “Wolf” Lighthouse, half-way between Scilly and the mainland; and the lights of Longships and Pendeen, off the Cornish coast. ”

“ To the south the bare peaks of Desolation Island, beginning from Cape Pilar, rose with terrific boldness, unscaleable shafts and towers of rock that recalled the shapes of the Coolin hills in Skye or the still loftier summits of the Lofoten Isles in Norway. To the north a mysterious fringe of islands and foam-girt reefs, grey and dim among their mists, hid the entrance to Smyth's Channel and the labyrinth of almost unexplored sounds and inlets along the Chilean coast beyond. ”

“ In the singularly varied landscapes of that region three distinct types of topography attract the eye of the traveller. These are best combined and most fully developed in the island of Skye. Throughout the northern half of that picturesque island, the ground rises into a rolling tableland, deeply penetrated by arms of the sea, into which it slopes in green declivities, while along its outer borders it plunges in ranges of precipice into the Atlantic. Everywhere, alike on the cliffs and the inland slopes, long parallel lines of rock-terrace meet the eye. ”

“ When Johnson and Boswell landed in Skye in the year 1773, there was not a road in the whole island practicable for a wheeled carriage. Locomotion, when not afoot, was either on horseback or by boat. The inland bridle-tracks lay among loose boulders, over rough, bare rock, or across stretches of soft and sometimes treacherous bog. The boats were often leaky, the oars and rowlocks unsound, the boatmen unskilful; while the weather, even in summer, is often boisterous enough to make the navigation of the sea-lochs and sounds difficult or impossible for small craft. ”

“ With such a rainfall as is claimed for Skye, one only wonders how it is that the inhabitants of the island seem not to suffer a whit because of it. As a rule, they are a robust and remarkably long-lived people; and, what is even more surprising, they are exceedingly good-humoured and cheerful—the pleasantest people in the world to meet with, whether at home or abroad. ”

“ Last Island has gone! How it went I first heard from the lips of a veteran pilot, while we sat one evening together on the trunk of a drifted cypress which some high tide had pressed deeply into the Grande Isle beach. The day had been tropically warm; we had sought the shore for a breath of living air. Sunset came, and with it the ponderous heat lifted,—a sudden breeze blew,—lightnings flickered in the darkening horizon,—wind and water began to strive together,—and soon all the low coast boomed. Then my companion began his story; perhaps the coming of the storm inspired him to speak! ”

“ The black curagh working slowly through this world of grey, and the soft hissing of the rain gave me one of the moods in which we realise with immense distress the short moment we have left us to experience all the wonder and beauty of the world.
The approach to the south island is made at a fine sandy beach on the north-west. This interval in the rocks is of great service to the people, but the tract of wet sand with a few hideous fishermen's houses, lately built on it, looks singularly desolate in broken weather. ”

“ Let us visit the islands on an April day, and see for ourselves [Pg 13] this harvest of gold and silver. For once we will be day-trippers in fancy though we would scorn to be in fact.
Here in Scilly we find land and sea flooded with spring sunshine, while on the “adjacent island” which we have just left every one is lamenting the cold and the rain. The flower-harvest is nearly over, yet still there are wide fields of dazzling white and yellow, and many hundreds of boxes will yet leave the quay for the mainland. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fuller's Island, with its white sands and gleaming green lawns and clumps of wind-blown trees; the long strip of winding coast southward, like a ribbon laid down for the sea to wash, and far, far to the east, over the tumbling waves, still boisterous with the swell of last night's storm, the white riding sail of the lightship on No Man's Shoal. ”

“ Whether or not these stories have a foundation of truth, no one can say; but there is certainly a general resemblance in character and formation between Scilly and the Land’s End.
The whole of the islands are composed of granite, which is seen cropping up everywhere through the soil. Huge blocks and boulders of it lie scattered all along the coast, many of them of weird and fantastic shapes. The strangest have been given special names, more or less appropriate. On the peninsula of Peninnis, St. Mary’s Island, there is the “Tooth,” a slender conical rock 30 feet high ”

“ We feel the thrill, we see the glow of the signal lights they hold up, but we can’t quite ketch the words. We strain our ears through the darkness—listening! listening!
Right acrost from Alexandria Bay is Heart Island; you’d know it at night if you couldn’t see the island, for a big heart of flashin’ electric lights is lifted up on a high pole, that can be seen fur and near. As well as the big shinin’ cross of light that is lifted up every night on another island nigh by in memory of a sweet soul that used to live there, and is lookin’ down on it now, more’n as likely as not. ”

“ I believe that there does not live any single man who has actually explored all the isles of Scilly, stood upon every rock, climbed every hill, and searched on every island for its treasures of ancient barrows, plants, birds, carns, and headlands. ”

“ In the afternoon of the 6th, we perceived the northernmost land to be two small islands, which appeared to trend north-north-east and south-south-west; the main land lying a little to the westward of them. The easternmost of these two islands Lieutenant Ball named Sirius's-Island; it is situated in 10° 52' south latitude, and 162° 30' east longitude: the other was named Massey's-Island. We observed by the land, that a very strong current, or tide, set us fast to the northward. ”

“ The numerous patches of foul ground lying off the coast, between New River and Jacob’s River, were made visible by only a slight break on the rocks awash, and by the presence of some quaint-looking peaks in their midst. These dangers are chiefly to the eastward of Centre Island. This island is not of great height in any part, but it slopes from its summit gently to the north and east: and it is asserted that these islands in Foveaux Straits—Ruapuke, for instance—enjoy a better climate, and a more genial soil, than do some of the contiguous parts of the mainland. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The soil is a light red earth, and was so full of holes, which had been made by the birds, that walking was very laborious. A small valley runs the whole length of the island, in which, and on some of the hills, a few pines grow, but I think the whole island does not produce more than one hundred and fifty. I found no fresh water on the island, but probably there may be some, as I saw a number of hawks, pigeons, and parrots; but as I had only two convicts to row the boat, I left the island, and got to Sydney Bay in the evening. ”

“ These, with many others, were furnished me by the Reverend Dr Kaye;7 and, as a mark of my esteem and regard for that gentleman, I named the island, after him, Kaye's Island. It is eleven or twelve leagues in length, in the direction of N.E. and S.W.; but its breadth is not above a league, or a league and a half, in any part of it. The S.W. point, which lies in the latitude of 59° 49', and the longitude of 216° 58', is very remarkable, being a naked rock, elevated considerably above the land within it. ”

“ MAP OF THE SCILLY ISLES George Philip & Son Ltd
I
INTRODUCTORY A “COLOUR-BOOK” on Scilly needs no apology, so far as the subject is concerned, for there is no corner of Great Britain which more demands or deserves a tribute to its colour than do these little islands, scattered about in the Atlantic twenty-eight miles from the Land’s End.
For they are all colour; they gleam and glow with it; they shimmer like jewels “set in the silver sea.” No smoke from city, factory, or railway contaminates their pure air, or dims the brilliancy of their sunshine. ”