A longer stay in Hamburg might have
broadened my mind, but it would also unquestionably have broadened
my waist-belt as well.
The steamer accomplished the journey from Hamburg in seven hours,
the last three over the angry waters of the open North Sea. To my
surprise the steamer, though island-owned, did not fly the British
red ensign, but the Heligoland flag of horizontal bars of white,
green, and red. There is a local quatrain explaining these
colours, which may be roughly Englished as--
"White is the strand,
But green the land,
Red the rocks stand
Round Heligoland."
Heligoland is the quaintest little spot imaginable, shaped like an
isosceles triangle with the apex pointing northwards. The area of
the whole island is only three-fourths of a square mile; it is
barely a mile long, and at its widest only 500 yards broad. It is
divided into Underland and Overland; the former a patch of shore
on the sheltered side of the island, covered with the neatest
little toy streets and houses. In its neatness and smallness it is
rather like a Japanese town, and has its little theatre and its
little Kurhaus complete.
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