ST. MARY’S AND OLD TOWN.
We landed, as a matter of course, at Hugh Town, St. Mary’s, the largest and most important island of the group, with Star Fort situated on its eastern promontory, and Hugh Town on a narrow isthmus connecting this promontory with the main body of the island.
As I have already intimated, the first thing of interest to me, on coming ashore, was a vacant bit of real estate wherein to lie down and forget my past. So, after shaking myself awake, I walked up a hill and came in sight of the historic little church which is situated at the head of the bay of Old Town, formerly the chief town of the island. The church, a very quaint old structure, stands in an enclosure which rises in successive terraces on the hillside and is filled with a striking mixture of English and tropical vegetation.
Among the many interesting monuments in the churchyard, I noticed a granite obelisk, erected by Mr. Holtzmaister of New York, to the memory of his wife, who perished in the wreck of the ill-fated S. S. Schiller, May 7, 1875. The inscription reads: “In memory of Louise Holtzmaister, born at New York, May 15th, 1851, who lost her life in the wreck of the S. S. Schiller off the Scilly Isles, May the 7th, 1875. Her body rests in the deep. This monument has been erected to her memory as a mark of affection by her surviving husband.”
The memory fain would linger round some spot where the beloved take their last long sleep. Tennyson’s beautiful lines awaken a heartfelt response in every human breast:
“Oh to us
The fools of habit, sweeter seems
To rest beneath the clover sod,
That takes the sunshine and the rains,
Or where the kneeling hamlet drains