In all ages and with all sea-going races there has always been somethingespecially fascinating about an island amid the ocean. Its very existencehas for all explorers an air of magic. An island offers to us heightsrising from depths; it exhibits that which is most fixed beside that whichis most changeable, the fertile beside the barren, and safety afterdanger. The ocean forever tends to encroach on the island, the island uponthe ocean. They exist side by side, friends yet enemies. The islandsignifies safety in calm, and yet danger in storm; in a tempest the sailorrejoices that he is not near it; even if previously bound for it, he putsabout and steers for the open sea. Often if he seeks it he cannot reachit. The present writer spent a winter on the island of Fayal, and saw in astorm a full-rigged ship drift through the harbor disabled, having losther anchors; and it was a week before she again made the port.There are groups of islands scattered over the tropical ocean,especially, to which might well be given Herman Melville's name, "LasEncantadas," the Enchanted Islands. These islands, usually volcanic, haveno vegetation but cactuses or wiry bushes with strange names; noinhabitants but insects and reptiles--lizards, spiders, snakes,--with vasttortoises which seem of immemorial age, and are coated with seaweed andthe slime of the ocean.
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