Islander

“ For to this day there still survives a relic of the long winter evenings when the sailors of the great Armada crouched about the hearths of the Fair-Islanders, the planks of their own lost galleon perhaps lighting up the scene, and the gale and the surf that beat about the coast contributing their melancholy voices. All the folk of the north isles are great artificers of knitting: the Fair-Islanders alone dye their fabrics in the Spanish manner. ”

“ Turning to more scientific evidence, we find that the Islanders have always been judged to be of Polynesian race, as indeed would naturally be expected from the easterly position of the island in the Pacific Ocean. ”

“ The atoll, like the ship, is soon taken for granted; and the islanders, like the ship’s crew, become soon the centre of attention. The isles are populous, independent, seats of kinglets, recently civilised, little visited. In the last decade many changes have crept in; women no longer go unclothed till marriage; the widow no longer sleeps at night and goes abroad by day with the skull of her dead husband; and, fire-arms being introduced, the spear and the shark-tooth sword are sold for curiosities. ”

“ A foreign power, despised perhaps, but now grown strong, sprang at their throats so suddenly that it took the Islanders completely by surprise. The blackened walls, the charred rafters, thirty feet below ground, preach their sermon to those who care to read. ”

“ Every European seaman must admire the skill of the Caroline-Islanders, who succeed in traveling with such sureness over the length and breadth of their group, through spaces in which one of the islands may be more than eight hundred miles from its neighbor. ”

“ If I should say, I saw such islanders, For certes these are people of the island, Who though they are of monstrous shape yet, note, Their manners are more gentle-kind than of Our human generation you shall find Many, nay, almost any. ”

“ The term 'Savage' is, I conceive, often misapplied, and indeed, when I consider the vices, cruelties, and enormities of every kind that spring up in the tainted atmosphere of a feverish civilization, I am inclined to think that so far as the relative wickedness of the parties is concerned, four or five Marquesan Islanders sent to the United States as Missionaries might be quite as useful as an equal number of Americans despatched to the Islands in a similar capacity. ”

“ In the middle of the Irish Sea there is, as every one knows, an island which for many ages has had its own people, with their own language and laws, their own judges and governor, their own lords and kings, their own customs and superstitions, their own proverbs and saws, their own ballads and songs. ”

“ Now, here and there in this vast region there are certain sheltered spots where some grass grows, valleys that have escaped the overflow of the molten rock, or the thrust of the glacier; and during the ninety years that Iceland had been inhabited, every now and then a churl who got tired of service, or a murderer afraid of his life, ran away into the centre of the island, and lived a precarious existence on the wild birds, their eggs, and on the fish that abounded in the countless lakes. ”

“ Islands have always exercised a peculiar fascination over Englishmen, perhaps because, accustomed as they are to a sense of security induced by the surrounding sea, they never feel more comfortable than when the sea is on all sides at a measurable distance. It has been the ambition of many an Englishman to possess an island, however small, of his own. But England is not particularly blessed in this matter, and we may look with envy at the fringe of islands, large and small, precipitous and flat, scattered along the rugged shores of the west coast of Scotland. ”

“ Two English vessels are approaching the island. At first the crews do not see it, but as evening draws on, the look-out man in the larger ship gives the signal that he has caught sight of land. “Land ho, land!” passes from mouth to mouth among the sailors. What land can it be? No island, no rock even, is marked on the chart, and the officers gather on deck to look over the darkening sea toward that darker point where the new land lies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If England by this time do not know of what sort this her "sister island" is, if she do not understand either her disease or her cure, all may be given up as lost, for until "the elements shall melt with fervent heat," the earth disclose her slain, and the "sea give up her dead," can any more that is forbidding, revolting, and even terrific, be held out to the world, than has that island presented for ages gone by; and if she is loved, why not cherish her? ”

“ In a short time a course to Iceland was marked out by the early rovers of the North Sea, who, before the close of the ninth century, planted a colony on the bleak coast of this icy island, the most westerly land hitherto discovered by the fearless seamen of Scandinavia. ”

“ Swarthy Spanish sailors put in sometimes, and fair-skinned, black-eyed Greeks, and broad-shouldered Norwegians, all as ripe for love as any other sailor, but that they should carry away an Island girl to their outlandish places over sea is a thing almost unheard of. The Island girls are courted by their own blue-jerseyed fisher-lads—and what a place for love-making, with the ravines and caves in the cliff-sides, and the deep glens in the heart of the Island, so lonely except for the lord's red deer and little fierce black cattle. ”

“ One of them in particular visited different parts of the island, and reports that it is a very rich country, abounding in all good things. It is a little smaller than Iceland but more fertile. In the middle of it is a very high mountain, in which rise four rivers which water the whole country.
“The inhabitants are a very intelligent people and possess all the arts as we do; and it is believed that in time past they have had intercourse with our people, for he said that he saw Latin books in the king’s [47] library, which they at the present time do not understand. ”

“ EILEAN (Gadhelic) ,
EALAND (A.S.) ,
EYLANDT (Dutch) ,
INSEL (Ger.) ,
an island, cognate with the Lat. insula. The Gaelic word is generally applied to smaller islands than innis; e.g. Eilean-sgiathach or Skye (the winged island) ; Eilean-dunan (the isle of the small fort) ; Eilean-na-goibhre (of the goats) ; Eilean-na-monach (of the monks) ; Eilean-na-Clearach (of the clergy) ; Eilean-na-naoimbh (of the saints) , often applied to Ireland; Eilean-nam-Muchad or Muck (the island of pigs) , in the Hebrides; Flannan, in the Hebrides, i.e. Eilean-an-Flannan (of St. Flannan) ”

“ Some that have visited foreign countries, have returned home so impressed with their experience of the great and busy world; that they have infused a spirit of activity and inquiry into the whole circle where they move. They tell of one man, an Icelander, who got off to the continent, and went through all the wars of Napoleon, 294and after many years returned to his native land. He was so glad to see his own good island, that he fell down and embraced the earth, and declared, in the words of the national proverb, “Iceland is the best country the sun shines upon.” ”

“ In the southern parts of the island there is apparently a considerable Irish infusion; and we often remark the “potato face” and the peculiar eye, with grey-blue iris and dark lashes so common in outer Galway, and extending to far Tenerife.
It has been the fashion for travellers to talk of “our Scandinavian ancestors in Iceland,” to declare that the northern element is the “backbone of the English race,” and to find that Great Britain owes to the hyperborean “her pluck, her go-ahead, and her love of freedom.” ”

“ Coming now to Continental Islands we consider first those of most recent origin and offering the simplest phenomena; and begin with the British Isles as affording the best example of very recent and well known Continental Islands. Reviewing the interesting past history of Britain, we show why it is comparatively poor in species and why this poverty is still greater in Ireland. By a careful examination of its fauna and flora it is then shown that the British Isles are not so completely identical, biologically, with the continent as has been supposed. ”

“ In the far north there is an island so cold and dreary that from time immemorial it has been called Iceland—the land of ice and snow and frosts. Here are no spreading forests or fields of flowers, but only here and there hardy evergreens and a few pale blossoms, that come, perhaps, just to show how beautiful the place might become if only the short Icelandic summer lasted as long as the sunny months farther south. ”

“ One island is much larger than the other, and the larger island lies between the smaller and the Continent. The larger island is so placed as to receive primaeval immigration from three quarters—from France, from the coast of Northern Germany and the Low Countries, and from Scandinavia, the transit being rendered somewhat easier in the last case by the prevailing winds and by the little islands which Scotland throws out, as resting-places and guides for the primaeval navigator, into the Northern Sea. ”

“ At that time I did not distinguish the Icelandic from the Danish but I knew the tune, America, and I mingled the good English words of Dr. Smith with the lisping gutturals of the Scandinavian. Norse and Yankee are [48] well met in this Icelandic sea and I doff my cap to the descendants of those sturdy mariners who discovered Iceland, Greenland and America before Columbus was born, who Anglicised Celt and Britain and eventually made possible our own dear New England.
The morning vapors are scattered. The ocean is a thing of life. ”

“ O it’s a nice little Island.
Now they all have the hip,
And at sea scarce a ship.
Let ’em go and build more upon dry land;
While our conquests increase,
Till the blessings of peace
Shall glad every heart in the Island.
O! it’s a nice little Island,
A right little, tight little Island.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ Every island, says Sir Edmund Head, and truly—for the name of almost every island on the coast of England, Scotland, and Eastern Ireland, ends in either ey or ay or oe, a Norse appellative, as is the word island itself—is a mark of its having been, at some time or other, visited by the Vikings of Scandinavia. ”

“ We cannot tell—it is highly improbable that we ever shall know—from whence came the original inhabitants of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. Men living on the sea-coasts of the great quadrant of continental land which fronts these islands, would, when the art of navigation got beyond the raft and canoe, venture to cross the narrow seas, and form insular settlements. ”

“ The island, though scantily peopled, enjoyed immense advantages for study. It had taken the first great step in civilisation, SLAVERY, and while carl and thrall tilled the field, Jarl, clerk, and franklin found ample leisure for literature. The long rigorous winters, when neither farming, fishing, fighting, nor sea{237}faring was possible, proved highly favourable for reading, writing, and reciting; and hence the phenomenon that the history of mediæval Iceland is more complete than that of any European country. ”

“ Sometimes a passing ship would leave one or more of her crew, who were ill, that they might be restored by the vegetables and fruits, the pure air and clear water of the island.
It happened once, nearly ninety years after the first discovery, that an English crew landed for refreshment, and wandering about the island approached the little church. They believed themselves the only human beings on the island, and were therefore greatly surprised to hear a voice singing within the church. ”

“ First, we have evidence that in those remote times when the northern half of the island had just become a home of men, the land was forest-covered, like the woody regions of North America, and that its inhabitants were rude savages unacquainted with the metals, but possessed of a few curious arts which an after age forgot,—not devoid of a religion which at least indicated the immortality of the soul,—and much given to war. ”

“ It proved to be an island, naked, rocky, and seemingly uninhabited. On turning a promontory, however, what was their joy to see a boat pushing out to meet them! and they were received by the natives with every mark of kindness and compassion. The seamen were distributed among the half-subterraneous abodes, and received a portion of the frugal and scanty fare on which the inhabitants subsisted. After recruiting their strength, they set sail for the coast of Iceland, and after a tedious voyage, reached Akureyri, the capital of this quarter of the island. ”

“ As the result of my letter I had the pleasure of seeing a vessel enter the harbour with a valuable cargo from New York, which we received in exchange for British manufactures and other goods. Having established my authority at head-quarters, I found it advisable to make a tour of the island. Though nearly destitute of trees, Iceland is perhaps the most picturesque country in the world, by reason of its great inequality of surface and its ridges of precipitous mountains capped with snow and ice. The main support of the people is derived from sheep and the fisheries. ”