feet of difference between the two "lands," and the visitor must climb two hundred and three steps, if he would reach the upper town from the seashore. On this "Ober-land" stands the Government House, the church, the batteries and their magazine, and, higher than all, the splendid lighthouse, the lantern of which is two hundred and fifty-seven feet above the sea-level. This lighthouse not only serves as a warning from the rock on which it is built, but is of use to vessels entering the Elbe or the Weser. the Eyder or the Jade. There are about three hundred and fifty houses on this high ground, and eighty on the lower portion of the island, called the "Unter land," holding between them a couple of thousand inhabitants. These dwellings are so neat and clean, that their wooden walls and red roofs help to produce an indescribably comic effect of the whole place having been just taken out .of a box of children's toys, and neatly arranged in squares and rows. But the combination of English comfort with Dutch cleanliness and German propriety is very agreeable to the eye.
The church is a curious building, and contains, suspended from the ceiling, several models of ships under full sail, presented, ex voto, from time to time. The women sit by themselves down-stairs, in pews marked with their family names; the men sit in a gallery up-stairs, round which has been painted, by no mean artist, a series of scenes from the Old and New Testaments. Some years ago the clergy. man wished to paint these pictures out, which would have been a great pity; for, although the mode of treating the subjects has not been perhaps strictly ecclesiastical, they deserve to be retained as relics of a past age. It is to be hoped that some loving hand may even yet be found to copy or photograph these quaint old designs, ere time or progress deals still more hardly with them. The font, too, is especially curious. It is held up by figures so ancient that cognoscenti declare they must be the remaining supports of some ancient altar to a heathen deity. When a christening takes place there is a preliminary ceremony of filling this font, and it is pretty to see fifty or a hundred children advancing up the aisle in a procession, each bearing a little mug of water. The service is Lutheran. The clergyman reads from the communion-table, and above it is placed a little box from which he preaches. Besides this he possesses a pew of his own, exactly opposite that appropriated to the governor's use, with the communion-table between. Both these pews are precisely like opera-boxes. and have windows to open and shut. it is not so long ago since prayers used to be offered up in this very church for wrecks; and it was an established custom, if the rumor of one arrived whilst service was being performed, for the clergyman to shut his book, seize the long hatchet-like pike placed in readiness for such an emergency, and lead his flock to their boats. But the mission was scarcely a Christian one, for no survivers were ever permitted to return and tell the tale of what sort of welcome they had received on these inhospitable rocks.
We must remember, however, in mitigation of such hard and cruel facts, that from father to son for many and many a bygone generation the trade and profession of each male inhabitant of Heliogoland had been that of a wrecker, with a very little exercise of the pilot's or fisherman's more gentle craft during the brief summer months. Indeed it has taken the strong repressive measures insisted on and strictly carried out by the present governor, to at all subdue this inborn tendency to act on the saying of what is one man's extremity being another man's opportunity. The great improvement in wrecking morals and manners which has been accomplished with so much difficulty is, however, but skin deep, and will even now collapse on the smallest chance of escaping detection. Whilst the "Sunbeam " lay in one of the two good harbors of these islands, she was the object of much curiosity and interest. Amongst her numerous visitors were some of the coastguard. They had been duly shown round the yacht, and during this process some wag inquired of the coxswain of their gig what he would like to take first if the vessel were "sitting on the rocks." This is a euphemistic equivalent in Heliogoland for a vessel being cast away. A half-regretful gleam came into his bright blue eyes as the man answered wistfully, "I hardly know, sir; but there is a good deal of copper about." As a matter of fact, we had already observed that the ventilators and bright brasswork of our little ship attracted special notice and many expressions of half-envious admiration. But it is only fair to add that we ind other more peaceful and less professional visitors from among the islanders and the Bäde-gäste, and I often found beautiful bouquets of flowers and graceful messages of thanks awaiting me on board when we returned from a long day on shore.
