New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-05-14

Williams; be it further
Rssoirsd, That a copy of these resolutions
be furnished by the secretary to the Louis
lana IntelHgencer, Baton Rouge strand Era.
New Orleans REPUBLICAN and LouiSian,0,t.
The scilIy Islands.
The terrible disaster of the steamer
Schiller, wrecked on the rocks of the Scilly
islands. and costing, according to the tele-
graphic reports. the lives of go persons, is
one of the most tragic in all the annals of
maritime calamity. The passengers, chiefly
Germans, had been safely carried over the
broad Atlantic, and must have been already
ongratulating themselves apon the almost
immediate rest from the tossing of the
waves in Plymouth harbor. Very many of
them, no doubt, had left their country poor,
and with 10 prospects of the success they
had achieved N the cities and villages and
farms OF America. They were returning
TO the home OF their childhood, proud with
legitimate pride Of the fruits of carefully
calculated enterprise or persistent and
honorable toll; and with them, too, there
must have been the offspring of Germans
born in America, who had heard of but
never seen Che traditional glories of the
Rhine who had been taught the history
of the old German empire, and had
reio.ced with the patriotism. which,
IN good IneI, death alone
extingu!sh in the victories of the new. For
all these, comparatively speaking, but a
few more hours OF travel upon the waters
would have made the scenes and the tales of
Germany living actualities. All danger,
they imagined, was past. all peril sur
mounted but II moment the vessel struck
upon the cruel granite crags near Bishop
Rock and. TO Judge from reports, its total
loss must have been almost instantaneous.
There could have been no gradual sinking.
no time for Intellectual efforts to get out the
boats all must have gone down into the
raging sea with one agorizing. universal
shrek. The tew survivors, said to be but
forty-three in number, owed their escape to
individual strength, or the fortunate ac-
cident of being cast up by the waves upon
ona or the other of the neigh boring islets.
The Scilly islands, upon which the Schil-
Ter grated and was (ost are many in num-
Der and but little known. They are about
twenty five OR thirty lilies west of Lands
End-the extreme point Of Cornwall. The
largest among them is st. Mary, with a
population of about 1000, whittier many of
the survivors were taken; next IN i'm.
portance come Tresco, St. Martin, st. Agnes
from which the first lifeboat seems to have
been sent. Rrysr and Little Samson. the
last, how ever, Inhabited by less than
score of people. 1t Is said that these dots
upon the ocean were the celebrated Cas-
kcTttlues LII 1sAduus, NECI0 tuS carly
Phenician mariners traded ages before
Christ. This, however, can scarcely be the
case, as they are composed almost entirely
of granite, and the Phenicians, who never
penetrated lar into England, probably
enough imagined that Cornwall itself was
simply another and a larger island, and
therefore included the peninsular county
and the Settles all in one group. Be this
as it may, the change from the beautiful
navnpcb;ro uu;t halYnS- olipata nj ifu
wealth of flowers, to rugged Cornwall is
very striking. Since England was nation,
tho Cornish miners, and their relatives the |
fishers of these rocky Scilly islets, have |
preserved distinctive characteristics. Stub |
born. brave and vehement, in their wrath /
they intensity the insular peculiarities of |
their fellow.c0untrymen. The land of the |
Pens aud the Tres, the two prefixes to the |
paronymic which in old Cornish families |
are far more highly valued than any title |
of nobility, is intensely clannish. Nc High
land ScOtchman, no Cladditch fisherman
even, ever held the rest of the world in
contempt more supreme than tnat which |
the genuine Cornishman or Scillian feels for
all whose chance It was not to be born with
in their limits. Their physical strength and
powers of endurance are immense, and they
scorn the slighter build and less muscular
limbs OF their neighbors in Devonshire,
and the tourists who visit their iron
bound coasts. But rude and rugged as
Lands End and it's otfshoots, the
Scilly islands, are, they are the scene
of the noblest romance in all English
story. Tennyson has woven into imperish-
able verse the legendary tale Of Arthur and
the Knights of the Round Table, aud it is
here that the last scene OF Arthur's life was
enacted. The strait running between the
mainland and the islands was once and is
IT'LL. we believe. called the Lithowson or
he LiOness, and in olden times was a ridge |
If dry, slaty land. The same geological |
,onvuIsions which divided Great Britain
rom the continent must have separated
Cornwall and the Settles, and it was upon
his ledge. or perhaps upon one OF the
,ciliies themselves, that King Arthur was
brought by Sir Bevedere to die. Tennyson,
4 the "Morte d'Arthur, gives US the very
ame of the Lioness. 1t was the last struggle !
f the Knights, or. as The poet writes
IS SO all day long the noise Of battle rolled
Among the mountains by the winter sea
Until King Arthur table, man by man
Had fallen IN Li0ness about their lore !
l. was then that Sir Beyedere bore ais
ying leader
To a c1apa. l!gh the field
a broken chancel with broken
fhat stood on dark strait of barren land
TN one side lay the ocean, and on one
Lay great water and the moon was full"
Sir Bevedere threw the grand Excalibar,
nd Arthur set out in the barge for his &
'ystic home 10y the island valley Of Avil- &
~ close to the spot where these three i
undred and fifty people bat day or two S
90 lost their lives. Had time been granted
lem. and Bevedere been by to hear their
at request, it might have been told in the
st words Tennyson has put into the :
outh of the king:
If thou shouldst never see my face again a
Pray for my soul More things wrought by | r
prayer
Than this world dreams o.. Whereupon let thy II
voice | n
3 Sc ike fountain for me night and dayr