thouse is a very powerful one, and every single one of
these stuffed birds had committed suicide against the thick glass of
the lantern. The lighthouse keepers told me that during the migratory
periods, they sometimes found as many as a hundred dead birds on the
external gallery of the light in the morning, all of whom had killed
themselves against the light.

From 1830 to 1871 there were public gaming-tables in Heligoland, and
the Concessionaire paid such a high price for his permit that the
colonial finances were in the most flourishing condition. In 1871,
Downing Street stopped this, with disastrous effect on the island
budget. Fortunately, Germans took to coming over in vast numbers for
the excellent sea-bathing, and so money began to flow in again. The
place attracted them with its glorious sea air; it had all the
advantages of a ship, without the ship's motion.

I paid a second visit to Heligoland three years later, when I was
Attache at our Berlin Embassy. Sir Fitzhardinge Maxse, the uncle of Mr.
Leo Maxse of the National Review, was Governor then. Sir Fitzhardinge
had done his utmost to anglicise the island, and the "Konigstrasse" and
"Oststrasse" had now become "King Street" and "East Street." He had
induced, too, some of the shop-keepers to write the signs over their
shops in English, at times with somewhat eccentric spelling; for one
individual proclaimed himself a "Familie Grozer." How astonished the
Governor and I would have been to know that in twenty years' time his
much-loved island would be transformed into one solid concreted German
fortress! Sir Fitzhardinge had a great love for the theatre. He was, I
believe, the only person who had ever tried to write plays in two
languages. His German plays had been very successful, and two one-act
plays he wrote in English had been produced on the London stage. He
always managed to engage a good German company to play in the little
Heligoland theatre during the summer months, and having married the
leading tragic actress of the Austrian stage, both he and Lady Maxse
occasionally appeared on the boards themselves, playing, of course, in
German. 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