Faroyar / Faroe Islands -

" SHIPS ~ CRUISE OF THE YACHT MARIA AMONG THE FEROE ISLANDS IN THE SUMMER OF 1854."

MNH ~ Miniature Sheet !

SG MS #464.

About the motif

While selecting before a map a pleasant cruise for the past summer, our eyes fell on the Feroe Islands; and it occurred to us, that they might be as well worth seeing as many more frequented places. In the absence of a better source of in­formation, we referred to a very old edition of the “Encyclopaedia Britannica” which happened to be in the library.

There we read:

“They are a cluster of little islands lying in the Northern Ocean. They belong to Denmark. There are seventeen which are habitable, each of which is a lofty mountain rising out of the sea, divided from the others by deep and rapid currents. Some of them are deeply indented with secure harbours, Providence seeming to have favoured mankind with the safest retreats in the most boisterous seas. All are very steep, and most of them faced with tremendous precipices.”

The account went on to represent the surrounding seas as rilled with whirlpools, and the air with whirlwinds, called by the Danes, Oes; which latter, it said, “catch up a vast quantity of water, so as to leave a temporary chasm on the spot on which they fall, and carry away with them to an amazing distance any fishes which may happen to be within reach of their fury. Thus great shoals of herrings have been found on the tops of the highest mountains.”

This account, though evidently too imaginative to be implicitly relied upon, was so curious, that we determined to learn more about the Islands, and with some difficulty procured two other works on the subject, neither of them very recent.

We, accordingly, chose the Feroes as the destination of our cruise; and our next step was to endeavour to find some person who had been there, and could furnish us with later information than was contained in any of the written accounts. The search for such an individual, however, proved wholly unsuccessful. No one seemed to know anything, or care at all about them; and neither in the great yachting nor commercial ports could we find anybody who had done more than pass the Islands in the distance. The cause of the Feroese being thus left out of the intercourse of nations will appear clearly enough hereafter.

Those were the words of the two English gentlemen Samuel Rathbone and E. H. Greig, in the introduction to the narrative of their cruise on the yacht “Maria” among the Faroe Islands in the summer of 1854.

The narrative contains some wonderful lithographs, which are shown on the stamp sheet.

Year: 2004.

(Flkm Bx)