Enchanted.
A group of them. Each with its own name, its own character. Some with
settlers; most visited, at one time or another, by sailors; sailors
who may, for one reason or another, be unable to depart once they'd
been cast ashore, or who may have chosen to stay, attracted by the
isle's free ways i.e. its lawless nature. Some isles more hospitable;
some more barren and hostile, suited only to its reptilian natives:
slow or fast crawling lizards and ponderous tortoises. The latter
naturally bringing more mortal hunters to its shores, for their oil,
their meat, their shell. A most precious, and seemingly to the
hunters' eyes an inexhaustible, bounty. All isles can at least
provide if no more the necessary for temporary shelter: water, food,
fuel and bedding, and sightseeing if one is a sentimental voyager,
that looking for the romantic: the walks under groves of trees which
bear no fruit, and the tops of slopes that command great scenery; or
the historical: the evidence of buccaneers, their seats and storing
places.
Albemarle.
Narborough. Abington. James'. Cowley's. Jervis. Duncan. Crossman's.
Brattle. Wood's. Chatham. Barrington. Charles'. Norfolk and Hood's.
Though, on occasion, known by other names or linked to other persons.
The Dog-King, a Creole adventurer with his bodyguard of dogs; the
Spanish-Indian widow, Hunilla, with her 'heart of yearning in a frame
of steel'; or the European hermit Oberlus who sought to catch himself
some slaves with his pumpkins and potatoes.
All
at some point, if a ship is in their vicinity, call: to the sailor,
the runaways, the castaways, the solitaries. Where days will pass;
months, and go uncounted.
Picture credit: Sortavala Islands, 1917, Nicholas Roerich (source: WikiArt).
Journal
entry, July 2021. See The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles by Herman Melville.
