CHAPTER II. MOUNT DESERT ISLAND. "There, gloomily against the sky, The Dark Isles rear their summits high; And Desert Rock, abrupt and bare, Lifts its gray turrets in the air." WHITTIER. Islands possess, of themselves, a magnetism not vouchsafed to any spot of the main-land. In cutting loose from the continent a feeling of freedom is at once experienced that comes spontaneously, and abides no longer than you remain an islander. You are conscious, in again setting foot on the main shore, of a change, which no analysis, however subtle, will settle altogether to your liking. Upon islands the majesty and power of the ocean come home to you, as in multiplying itself it pervades every fibre of your consciousness, gaining in vastness as you grow in knowledge of it. On islands it is always present--always roaring at your feet, or moaning at your back. Islands have had no little share in the world's doings. Corsica, Elba, and St. Helena are linked together by an unbroken historical chain. Homer and the isles of Greece, Capri and Tiberius loom in the twilight of antiquity. Thinking on Garibaldi or Victor Hugo, the mind instinctively lodges on Caprera or Guernsey. An island was the death of Philip II., and the ruin of Napoleon. In the New World, Santo Domingo, Cuba, and Newfoundland were first visited by Europeans. [Illustration: MAP OF MOUNT DESERT ISLAND.] The islands of the New England coast have become beacons of her history. Mount Desert, Monhegan, and the Isles of Shoals, Clark's Island, Nantucket, The Vineyard, and Rhode Island have havens where the historian or antiquary must put in before landing on broader ground. I might name a score of others of lesser note; these are planets in our watery system. On this line many peaceful summer campaigns have been brought to a happy conclusion. Not a few have described the more genial aspects of Mount Desert. It has in fact given employment to many busy pens and famous pencils. I am not aware that its wintry guise has been portrayed on paper or on canvas. The very name is instinctively associated with an idea of desolateness: "The gray and thunder-smitten pile Which marks afar the Desert Isle." [Illustration: SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN.] Champlain was no doubt impressed by the sight of its craggy summits, stripped of trees, basking their scarred and splintered steeps in a September sun. "I have called it," he says, "the Isle of Monts Déserts."