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Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 1823-1911

"Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic"

The moon and the evening star Were hanging in the shrouds; Every mast, as it passed, Seemed to rake the passing clouds. They grappled with their prize, At midnight black and cold! As of a rock was the shock; Heavily the ground-swell rolled. Southward through day and dark, They drift in close embrace, With mist and rain, o'er the open main; Yet there seems no change of place. Southward, forever southward, They drift through dark and day; And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream Sinking, vanish all away.XVIII. GUARDIANS OF THE ST. LAWRENCEFor authorities for this tale see "Voyages of Samuel de Champlain,"translated by Charles Pomeroy Otis, Ph.D., with memoir by the Rev. E. F.Slafter, A.M., Boston, 1880 (I. pp. 116, 289, II. p. 52). The incident ofthe disguised Indians occurred, however, to the earlier explorer, JacquesCartier. (See my "Larger History of the United States," p. 112.)XIX. ISLAND OF DEMONSThe tale of the Isle of Demons is founded on a story told first byMarguerite of Navarre in her "Heptameron" (LXVII. Nouvelle), and thenwith much variation and amplification by the very untrustworthy travellerThevet in his "Cosmographie" (1571), Livre XXIII. c. vi. The only copy ofthe latter work known to me is in the Carter-Brown Library at Providence,R.


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