growing states, and in a secondary way it served greatly to promote the growth of New England and New York. It is true it in good part laid the foundations of the American slave trade, on which the culture of cotton built a vast structure, but at the same time it served to promote the growth of our race on this continent in a very important way, for it provided the means for an extended trade with the old world, and thus gave a degree of wealth to the new.

The effect of the Appalachian axis on the development of the English people might also be traced in the protection which it afforded against the more powerful bodies of the aborigines. The tribes which originally dwelt between the sea and the mountains were relatively weak; although they held some intercourse with their western kinsmen, they were so far separated from them that at no time did the eastern peoples, save in the valley of the Mohawk, have to meet any considerable body of warriors who were bred in the inland parts of the continent. Hence the struggles of the earlier settlers on the Atlantic coast with the savages was a relatively unimportant matter; though it more than once brought the feeble colonies into great jeopardy. But for the Appalachian barrier, the English, owing to their rude ways of contact with the savages, would necessarily have met the hostility of a vastly greater body of warriors. A Pontiac or a Tecumseh would have effected what the feebler King Philip vainly essayed. It may well be doubted whether the Puritans of New England or any other of the settlements, except perhaps the Quakers, could have held their own against the aboriginal folk of this country, but for the protection this barrier afforded.

It is in good part to the commercial growth of the British colonies in America that we owe the speedy overthrow of the French empire, which at the beginning of the eighteenth century seemed likely to control North America. The New England settlements developed

rapidly and were pushed up toward the north, and from them as a base it was easy to capture the strongholds of the St. Lawrence Valley, and thus make the great scheme of France impossible.

The settlement of the Mississippi Valley by the English people was first accomplished through Virginia and its western extension beyond the mountains in the then district of Kentucky. It is at this part of the Appalachian system that we find the most practicable path for a wagon road from the coast to the navigable waters of the Ohio. Following up the great valley of Virginia, that known as the Shenandoah, thence to the broad open basin of the upper Tennessee, thence over the low gap in the Cumberland Mountain to the westernmost of the Alleghanies, it was easy to take pack animals, and with a very little labor to make a wagon road from the Virginia settlements to the most fertile portion of the Mississippi district. The process was easy because this country is south of the glacial belt, and thereby not encumbered with bowlders, and also because a succession of breaks in the mountains make a natural way, the sole moderately easy passage from the Virginia district to the centre of the continent. Thus it came about that the first settlement in the Mississippi Valley, the settlement which gave character to a large part of that basin, came from Virginia and took with it the institution of slavery into the Mississippi Valley, establishing the black line on the banks of the Ohio. If the conditions had been slightly different, if the way from the Hudson or from Pennsylvania to the west had been as easy to traverse as that from Virginia to the Ohio Valley, the fertile fields of Kentucky and Tennessee might well have been occupied by people from New England and New York; in which case the boundaries of the slave-holding States would have been drawn much further south, if indeed the institution had ever obtained a firm foothold in the southern portion of the Mississippi Valley.

I

N the very thoroughfare of summer travel there is a snug little island, until recently unknown to fame, which is unique in physical conformation, rich in tradition, admirable in morale, tenacious of individuality, and in patriotism without a peer.

Not far from where the rivers Elbe, Weser, and Eider pour their waters into the North Sea-yet invisible from any coast the island of Heligoland looms boldly up, to the vertical height of two hundred feet. So small is it that a sentry might walk around its natural battlements, and take no longer than forty-five minutes to complete his beat. But three-fourths of a mile in extent, and of no great use to any country, this bare, red rock-a little Frisian captive in German waters has belonged to the English for more than eighty years.

VOL. VIII-36

It is not much of a possession after all, its very existence, probably, being unknown to half the realm until in June last it was proposed by the British Government to cede it to Germany in exchange for concessions in Africa. Still, if there had been need, the whole British navy would have been ordered to its defence.

Heligoland may be reached on a summer's day, with time to spare, from Hamburg or Bremen. Both lines of steamers touch at Cuxhaven, which has also railway communication with Hamburg. The sail down the ever-widening Elbe is by far the prettiest route. Hamburg's busy harbor, with its thicket of sail from the four corners of the globe, affords a fine view of the city itself, and we catch a glimpse across the river of its military neighbor, Altona. Further on the north bank is rather

tame, but the south shore presents many vistas of gentle landscape and villa-crowned, wooded heights. Cuxhaven, a pleasant watering-place near the river's mouth, whose ancient castle is distinctly seen, is the last port on the mainland. Only the island of Neuwerk and a few light-ships now lie between us and our Mecca.

The Freia is staunch and steady, so the North Sea's fretful temper need not be dreaded in the thirty-six miles which lie between the island and the main-a journey usually accomplished in two and a-half hours. Scarcely is the last painted buoy passed when an eager look-out begins. Glasses sweep the horizon until a speck appears on the throbbing bosom of the ocean. Hardly larger than a fisherman's dory at first, it grows with every moment. Even without a glass its form and colors are discernible soon after it appears in sight. As each new feature is disclosed one feels a growing sense of proprietorship in the little rock, and when it finally comes out in bold silhouette against its blue background, it becomes the very "substance of things hoped for."

Shaped like an inverted flat-iron-the broad end toward us-its sheer red walls are crowned with tender green. At its base a white line of narrow, sandy beach widens at the point nearest us to a considerable area, which is

called the "Unterland," and is crowded with white houses, whose red-tiled roofs are the color of the cliffs behind them. Here is the only landing-place. Another village, sociably huddled around the church and light-house, looks down from the "Oberland;" and can only be reached by a flight of stairs called the "Treppe," or by a "lift" of ample proportions. Half a mile to the eastward lies the Düne, a sister islet, upon which one sees a cluster of houses, a pavilion, and a little orchard of green bathing-machines, such as are used at English watering-places.

Heligoland has no harbor, and scarcely had the Freia cast anchor on the lee side of a spit of sand that serves the purpose of a breakwater, when she was surrounded by a swarm of large open boats, each flying the island's flag, and manned by eight men. On each boat was plainly marked the number of persons it was authorized to carry. A landsman needs a dash of courage to be transferred to such small craft in a boiling sea; but these stalwart oarsmen accomplish the feat with wonderful dexterity, and we were soon handed up a flight of stairs to a long pier, called, for obvious reasons, "Misery Walk," to encounter the jeering scrutiny of a staring throng, who perhaps seek the company which misery loves. When a face of especial pallor

betrayed the roughness of the voyage, one was heard to proffer service as a guide to the apothecary. The jest was condoned, however, in the grim reflection that its perpetrator must himself cross that same water again; for there were few natives in this harmless gantlet.

Picturesque, rosy-brown sailors relieved us of our hand-baggage, and carried our trunks on their broad shoulders with perfect ease. Horses and carts there are none. The wheel-barrow constitutes the only rollingstock of the island. Following our guide, we threaded our way through narrow, well-paved streets, past neat cottage restaurants, the Post Office, shop-windows filled with feather - wares and colored maps of the island, the Conversation House, the chemist's, the bookstore, and, refusing the lift with many a backward glance we mounted the winding steps of the Treppe.

Our first impression was a consciousness of color. Everything suggests the Heligolandish motto:

"Green is the Land,

Red is the Rock,

White is the Strand;

These are the colors of Heligoland."

up for caulking. Myriads of boats are darting about in the bay. Now and then, in the offing, a red sail crosses the foam-flecked blue. It is a pretty picture, Venetian in coloring, with wider than

Clean white houses, red-roofed and trimmed at door and casement with vivid green, repeat the colors of the island. Gay flags of green and red and white, fly from mast and flag-staff. The seats at the angles of the Treppe are the more inviting for their coat of patriotic paint. Once on the Oberland, we linger on the Falm, or narrow street which runs along its edge, for a long look across the roofs below, past beach and pier, beyond the Düne, to the vast, unbroken stretch of sea. Even the water near the strand is tinged with the all-pervading Pompeian red. Here and there the shore is dotted with black hulks, drawn

Venetian scope. Turn where we will, as far as the eye can reach on every hand is water.

The plateau of the Oberland gently slopes from west to east. A mile in length, it is but a quarter of a mile at its widest part. It is said that the slight irregularities of surface, unobserved by one not "to the manner born," are real hills and valleys known by their proper names to the Heligolander, who loves every foot of the soil. The upper hamlet is perched on the brink of the cliff, and the houses below are nestled close to its foot. There are no straggling cottages on the Oberland. All the land

Horn, past the light-house to the fogstation at the northern extremity of the island, is called "Kartoffel Allee," or "Potato Walk." The fog-station has neither bell nor steam-whistle to indicate, in case of necessity, the position of the island; but instead, rockets are sent up, as often as once in ten minutes, while the fog lasts. Close to the edge of the cliff, a wire fence girdles the entire plateau. The only residence of any pretension in Heligoland is the Government House. In a battery and its powder magazine there is just a hint of a once

Although the light-house is one hundred feet in height, and stands upon its rocky base two hundred feet above the sea, many a winter's storm dashes spray and sea-weed against the lantern. And yet the cold is less extreme here than elsewhere in the vicinity. There is a saying that when water freezes in Heligoland, the Elbe is frozen over.

There are no native trees, but even on the Oberland a few have been, with true Frisian persistency, forced to survive the storms. In the parsonage garden there is a mulberry-tree, whose fruit