From the Falm or road skirting the edge of the precipice from the head of the stairs to Government House, one of the loveliest views in all the world lies before our eyes.  Immediately beneath are the winding stairs, with their constant stream of broad-shouldered seamen, or coquettish girls, or brown boys, passing up and down, while at each resting-place some group is sitting on the green-red-white seats gossiping over the day’s business.  Trees and plants nestle in the stair corners, and almost conceal the roadway at the foot.

Lifting one’s eyes away from the little town, the white pier sprawls on the, sea, and countless boats at anchor spot with darkness the shining water.  Farther away, the Duene lies like a bar of silver across the view, ribbed with emerald where the waves roll in over white sand; and all around it, as far as the eye can reach, white sails gleam in the light, until repose is found on the horizon where sea and sky meet in a vapory haze.  At night the Falm is a favorite resort of the men whose houses are on the Oberland.  With arms resting on the broad wall, they look down on the twinkling lights of the houses far beneath, listen to the laughter or song which float up from the small tables outside the cafe, or watch the specks of light on the dark gleam of the North Sea.  It is a prospect of which one could hardly tire, if it was not that in summer one has in Heligoland a surfeit of sea loveliness....

Heligoland is conjecturally identified with the ocean island described by Tacitus as the place of the sacred rites of the Angli and other tribes of the mainland.  It was almost certainly sacred to Forsete, the son of Balder the Sun-god—­if he be identified, as Grimm and all Frisian writers identify him, with Fosite the Frisian god.  Forsete, a personification to men of the great white god, who dwelt in a shining hall of gold and silver, was among all gods and men the wisest of judges.

It is generally supposed that Heligoland was first named the Holy Island from its association with the worship of Forsete, and latterly in consequence of the conversion of the Frisian inhabitants.  Hallier has, however, pointed out that the Heligolanders do not use this name for their home.  They call the island “det Lunn”—­the land; their language they call “Hollunner,” and he suggests that the original name was Hallig-lunn.  A hallig is a sand-island occasionally covered with water.  When the Duene was connected with the rock there was a large stretch of sand covered by winter floods.  Hallig-lunn would then mean the island that is more than a hallig; and from the similarity of the words to Heligoland a series of etymological errors may have arisen; but Hallier’s derivation is, after all, only a guess.

[Footnote A:  From “Heligoland and the Islands of the North Sea.”  Heligoland, an island and fortress in the North Sea, lies thirty-six miles northwest of the mouth of the Elbe—­Hamburg.  It was ceded to Germany by Great Britain in 1890; and is attached to Schleswig Holstein.  As a fortress, its importance has been greatly increased since the Germans recovered possession of the island.]