feel exhilarated by the novelty of everything as much as by
the strong warm sea wind which meets you wherever you go. When you
return, the novelty has worn away, but the sense of enjoyment has
deepened. As you meet friendly faces and feel the grip of friendly
hands, so you also exchange salutations with Nature, as if she, too,
were an old Heligoland friend. You know the view from this point and
from that; but, like the converse of a friend, it is always changing,
for there is no monotony in the sea. The waves lap the shore gently, or
roar tumultuously in the red caverns, and it is all familiar, but none
the less welcome and soothing because of that familiarity. It is not a
land of lotus-eating delights, but it is a land where there is little
sound but what the sea makes, and where every face tells of strong sun
and salt waves. No doubt, much of its charm lies in its contrast to the
life of towns or country places. Whatever comes to Heligoland comes from
over the sea; there is no railway within many a wide mile; the people
are a peculiar people, with their own peculiar language, and an island
patriotism which it would be hard to match....

From the little pier one passes up the narrow white street, no broader
than a Cologne lane, but clean and bright as is no other street in
Europe, past the cafes with low balconies, and the little shops--into
some there are three or four steps to descend, into others there is an
ascent of a diminutive ladder--till the small square or garden is
reached in front of the Conversation House, a spacious building with a
good ball-room and reading-room, where a kiosque, always in summer full
of the fragrant Heligoland roses, detains the passer-by. Then another
turn or two in the street, and the bottom of the Treppe is
approached--the great staircase which winds upward to the Oberland, in
whose crevices grow masses of foliage, and whose easy ascent need not be
feared by any one, for the steps are broad and low.

The older flight of steps was situated about a hundred paces northward
from the present Treppe. It was cut out of the red crumbling rock, and
at the summit passed through a guard-house. Undoubtedly the present
Treppe should be similarly fortified. It was built by the government in
1834. During the smuggling days, it is said, an Englishman rode up to
the Oberland, and the apparition so shocked an old woman, who had never
seen a horse before, that she fell senseless to the ground.

From