It looked curious
seeing a bill of the "Theatre Royal on Heligoland," announcing
Shakespeare's tragedy of Macbeth, with "His Excellency the
Governor as Macbeth, and Lady Maxse as Lady Macbeth."
There is a fine old Lutheran Church on Heligoland. It is the only
Protestant church in which I have ever seen ex votos. When the
island fishermen had weathered an unusually severe gale, it was
their custom to make a model of their craft, and to present it as
a thank-offering to the church. There were dozens of these models,
all beautifully finished, suspended from the roof of the church by
wires, and the fronts of the galleries were all hung with fishing
nets. The singing in that church was remarkably good.
It was a pleasant, unsophisticated little island; a place of fresh
breezes, and red cliffs with great sweeping surges breaking
against them; a place of sunshine, and huge expanses of pale
dappled sky.
Lady Maxse told me that it was impossible for any one to picture
the unutterable dreariness of Heligoland in winter; when little
Government House rocked ceaselessly under the fierce gales, and
the whole island was drenched in clouds of spindrift; the rain
pounding on the window-panes like small-shot, and the howling of
the wind drowning all other sounds.
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