A Lonely Island in the Atlantic.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 157, 19 June 1886, Page 1

A Lonely Island in the Atlantic.

Belle Isle is a gigantic monolith towering high above the Atlantic. Its savage, beetle-browed head, with roaring cavern?, towers over one of the wildest eeas on earth. Ordinarily its shores are unapproachable ; but a calm enabled us to land at a little wharf propped up among enormous blocks of stone in the mouth of a gorge. And we climbed up the toi'some zigzaga to the lighthouse on the summit. Far away to the westward stretche9 the Strait of Belle Isle, and from the tower we cm see the lights at Cape Bauld and Cape Norman. Meanwhile the keeper has finished trimming hia lamps, and we deecend to the dwelling. This comfortable home is a surprise to such a eituation. Although kept by men only, it is tidy, e'ean, and convenient. The table is spread with good bread, pies, cakes, meat, and preserved berries. They had prepared for the coming of the steamer —their one yearly touch of a friendly hand. Their fancy work decorates the walls eewing, models of vessels, and paintiig of marine scenes. They disclaim any feeling of loneliness, and profess even a great attachment for this rock and their isolated life. They receive by the steamer each fall all that they need during the year, and haul it up with a horse and cart from the landing to the lighthouae. They get a cow to milk until she is fut enough to kill; Ihe milk i? frozen and packed in barrel?, to keep a supply until the goats give milk in the spring. *" In March and April the sealing schooners and steamers work their way from Newfoundland and the Gulf to Belle Isle. It must be a welcome sight to watch the advent of the=e first messengers from the civilised world The little armies of men swarm out of the vessels on to rho ice in the pursuit of seals, or come on shore to learn of their movements. The lighthouse then is packed with rough hearty men —a kind of human gale sweeps over his polar crag.