34
enjoys few of its advantages. As to security of pro-
perty, his poverty and the waves around him are a
sufficient protection ; as to general comunication, no
beaten road leads to the halligs. As to the diffusion
of knowledge, there seldom finds its way to him any
volume but the Bible and Psalm-book ; as to the
liberal arts, art does not penetrate to his hut. He
scarcely seems to enjoy even the society within his
reach. He is silent for the most part, lives to himself
contentedly on his wharf, and though he has great re-
spect for his pastor, or priest, as he calls him, it is not
easy for the latter to win his familiar confidence. The
pastor must acknowledge that between him and his
flock, especially the female portion of it, there is no
common point of sympathy, except on the subject of
religion ; and his High-German dialect still further
separates him from his congregation who speak only
Frisic. Indeed, it is only upon these islands that the
Frisic, which is closely allied to English, and to which
the German philologist would do well to direct his at-
tention more than he has hitherto done, retains its
original characteristics nearly entire, while on the main-
land coast it seems about to degenerate into a medley
of tongues.
One of these halligs, of which we have here endeav-
ored to give a general and truthful description, is the
scene of the following narrative. It was in the sum-
mer of 1824 inhabited by about fifty persons in nine
huts, placed upon six wharves, scattered over a sur-
face of scarcely a square mile, and who supplied them-
selves sparingly with the bare necessaries of life by
