I took my passage in the little steamer which runs from Hamburg, and arrived at my destination at 10 p. m.. In the dim light of the moon and stars the island bore a fantastic resemblance to the Monitor, a little magnified; the lights of the village answering to those of the hull, and the lighthouse to the lantern at the mast-head. The island presents this appearance only at a distance and in a doubtful light. When I walked over it the next morning I found that it was composed of a sand-bank lying under a red cliff. The sand-bank was covered with houses, which were divided by three or four streets; these were paved with wooden boards. Every house was a shop, an inn, or a lodging-house. The cliff is accessible on one side only, and is ascended by means of sinuous wooden staircases. When the summit is reached, one stands upon the real island, for the sand-bank below is an accident and an intruder. Heligoland proper may be described as a precipice-plateau, containing a small cluster of houses, a lighthouse, various pole-nets, springes, and other contrivances for catching woodcocks in their migratory flights, and a few miniature potato and corn fields. The extent of this plateau is not quite equal to that of Hyde Park. As soon as I had made this discovery I felt an intense compassion for all persons of the Teutonic race to whom sea-bathing once a year happens to be indispensable. However, if dull, it must at least be economical, I thought; but this illusion was dispelled when I found that there was a roulette-table in the dingy little Conversations-Haus, and when my landlord handed me in a bill which would not have disgraced any hotel in Bond Street or the Fifth Avenue.
How on earth, thought I, can these poor deluded creatures pass their time? They get up at some absurd hour in the morning; they sail to a neighboring sand-bank where they bathe and then take coffee in a whitewashed pavilion; they return to breakfast, and then—what can they do? There is nowhere to walk; there is nothing to read; and in the height of the season there must be a scarcity of elbow-room. Although every house offers accommodation to visitors, it has not unfrequently happened that persons have been obliged to sleep on board the steamers which brought them, and to return to the main-land. Imagine an island being full, like an omnibus!
Then a thought came upon me which wrung my heart. The Governor! How could this unfortunate man exist? With a precipice on one side of his house and a potato-field on the other, what could save him from despair and self-destruction? This question was answered for me when I heard that he was married.
My eccentric wanderings have at least served to convince me of this,—that a man's sole refuge from the evils of solitude is to be found in the domestic sentiments. There is, it is true, a solitude of genius; there are minds which must climb out of the common air and breathe alone. There is also the solitude of enthusiasm, which is more common, and which is found among a lower order of men, who become so possessed with a single idea that it leaves them neither by day nor night, but is their bride, their bosom friend, and their constant occupier. But what becomes of the ordinary man, if he is excluded from the busy regions of the world, and if his heart remains as solitary as his life? Everything dries up in him; he becomes uncouth, bigoted, selfish, egotistical, and usually ends by falling into a semi-torpid state, and by hibernating into death.
I remember that once I had contrived to creep into the centre of one of the most remote of the Cape Verde Islands. My mule suddenly turned into a by-path and broke into a cheerful amble. Experience has proved to me that, when a mule has thoroughly made up its mind, resistance is out of the question. I contented myself with asking my youthful companion what the animal's probable intentions were. The boy said that the mule was going to see the Judge, and pointed to a lovely little cottage which came in view at that moment. Then I recollected that I had heard this gentleman spoken of, and that I had a letter of introduction to him. The mule carried me into the stable from which I was conducted into a drawing-room. There, for the first time during many months, for I had been travelling in strange lands, I saw a number of the Revue de Deux Mondes. I plunged into it, and made an ineffectual effort to read every article at once. The Judge came in, and I at once perceived that I was in the presence of a remarkable man. After an hour's conversation we began to interchange confidences. He told me about his student dreams at Coimbra,—of the nights which he had passed in book-toil,—of his aspirations, his poverty, and his exile. Perhaps he saw a little compassion in my eyes when he had finished, for he added, "Those young hopes have all been crushed, and yet I am happier in this desolate spot than I have ever been in my life before." The door opened at that moment, and a beautiful woman came in, leading two little children by the hands.
"This is my happiness, sir," he said, as he introduced me to his wife. Then he looked at his children, and his eyes filled with unutterable love. "And these," he said, "are my ambition."
But before my visit to the island was concluded, I found that a governorship of Heligoland was very far from being a tranquil retreat. The present Governor, it seems, had founded a new constitution, and was charged with having assumed despotic powers, and with having perpetrated various acts of inhumanity. Governor Wall himself appeared in the light of a philanthropist as compared with this military ogre, who, having acquired a taste for blood in the Crimean War, had been sent to Heligoland to gratify his ruthless propensities. He was as bad as Eyre, for he had suspended a native politician from the Council. He was worse than Sir Charles Darling, who had defied a constitution; for he had destroyed one.
My curiosity having been excited by these complaints, I went to the proper sources of information, and in a few hours had mastered the political history of Heligoland.
In 1807 it was captured by Vice-Admiral Russell from the Danes. From that time until 1864 the government of the colony consisted of a Governor, six magistrates, and a closed popular body called the Vorsteherschaft, containing, besides the magistrates aforesaid, eight quartermasters and sixteen elders. The elders were the tribunes of the people; the quartermasters acted as pilot officers, and superintended all questions of pilotage and wreck; while the magistrates had the power of nominating persons to fill vacancies in the Vorsteherschaft, and appointed to them their own particular adherents, or else dangerous political antagonists. The Governor was a Doge.
A colony governed by pilots, lodging-house-keepers, and small tradesmen could scarcely be expected to prove a success. In 1820 there was a debt of £1,800; in 1864, of £7,200. Owing to the rapacity of the quartermasters, the pilot-trade fell into the hands of the people of Cuxhaven. And in the island itself the wildest anarchy prevailed. The six magistrates were unable to execute their own decrees; there was no prison in the island, and it seems to have been the custom for the authorities to kidnap convicted criminals and deposit them on the main-land. Petitions were being constantly presented to the Home Government from the magistrates, asking for more power; and from the people, demanding the right to elect their own representatives.