ISLAND FOR SALE!

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 829, 25 November 1929, Page 11

ISLAND FOR SALE!

The desire to be the sole owner of an island is a common one, but there are scarcely enough islands to go around. The opportunity to secure one is now available, and if its loca-

tion is somewhat difficult, that drawback is largely compensated by its natural beauty and the unusual history that goes with it, says a London exchange. In the Outer Hebrides, where solitude may be had in wholesale quantities, lies the tiny i 'and of Eriskay, about three miles long and two miles wide. It was in July, 1745, that Charles Stuart landel on this rocky spot, and, feeling the ground of his family’s ancient kingdom under his feet for the first time, exclaimed: —“I am come home.” He brought with him from France some seeds of the pink convolvulus, and sowed them in commemoration of his landing and of the sanctuary he had received in France. This plant still grows on Eriskay, and it is believed not to exist anywhere else in the British Isles. The people of the Hebrides ascribe a more modern claim to fame to Eriskay, and one that will appeal to vastly greater numbers than its Stuart tradition. They believe that when Barriesought a fitting place in which to locate his play, “Mary Rose,” he chos< Eriskay. Certainly the island is lonely I enough to justify the setting.