Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic

Tales of the Enchanted Islands of
the Atlantic

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Title: Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic
Author: Thomas Wentworth Higginson
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ENCHANTED ISLANDS OF ATLANTIC ***

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TALES OF THE ENCHANTED ISLANDS OF THE ATLANTIC
BY
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
TO
General Sir George Wentworth Higginson, K. C. B.
_Gyldernscroft, Marlow, England_

THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED, IN TOKEN OF KINDRED AND OF
OLD FAMILY FRIENDSHIPS, CORDIALLY PRESERVED INTO
THE PRESENT GENERATION
THESE LEGENDS UNITE THE TWO SIDES OF THE ATLANTIC
AND FORM A PART OF THE COMMON HERITAGE OF THE
ENGLISH-SPEAKING RACE

Preface
Hawthorne in his Wonder Book has described the beautiful Greek
myths and traditions, but no one has yet made similar use of the
wondrous tales that gathered for more than a thousand years about the
islands of the Atlantic deep. Although they are a part of the mythical
period of American history, these hazy legends were altogether
disdained by the earlier historians; indeed, George Bancroft made it a

matter of actual pride that the beginning of the American annals was
bare and literal. But in truth no national history has been less prosaic as
to its earlier traditions, because every visitor had to cross the sea to
reach it, and the sea has always been, by the mystery of its horizon, the
fury of its storms, and the variableness of the atmosphere above it, the
foreordained land of romance.
In all ages and with all sea-going races there has always been
something especially fascinating about an island amid the ocean. Its
very existence has for all explorers an air of magic. An island offers to
us heights rising from depths; it exhibits that which is most fixed beside
that which is most changeable, the fertile beside the barren, and safety
after danger. The ocean forever tends to encroach on the island, the
island upon the ocean. They exist side by side, friends yet enemies. The
island signifies safety in calm, and yet danger in storm; in a tempest the
sailor rejoices that he is not near it; even if previously bound for it, he
puts about and steers for the open sea. Often if he seeks it he cannot
reach it. The present writer spent a winter on the island of Fayal, and
saw in a storm a full-rigged ship drift through the harbor disabled,
having lost her 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, "Las
Encantadas," the Enchanted Islands. These islands, usually volcanic,
have no vegetation but cactuses or wiry bushes with strange names; no
inhabitants but insects and reptiles--lizards, spiders, snakes,--with vast
tortoises which seem of immemorial age, and are coated with seaweed
and the slime of the ocean. If there are any birds, it is the strange and
heavy penguin, the passing albatross, or the Mother Cary's chicken,
which has been called the humming bird of ocean, and here finds a
place for its young. By night these birds come for their repose; at
earliest dawn they take wing and hover over the sea, leaving the isle
deserted. The only busy or beautiful life which always surrounds it is
that of a myriad species of fish, of all forms and shapes, and often more
gorgeous than any butterflies in gold and scarlet and yellow.
Once set foot on such an island and you begin at once