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- 6586
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- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.413Z
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- voyages of this spot, he says—“My fancy led me to call it Cowley’s
Enchanted Isle, for, we having had a sight of it upon several points of
the compass, it appeared always in so many different forms; sometimes
like a ruined fortification; upon another point like a great city,”
etc. No wonder though, that among the Encantadas all sorts of ocular
deceptions and mirages should be met.
That Cowley linked his name with this self-transforming and bemocking
isle, suggests the possibility that it conveyed to him some meditative
image of himself. At least, as is not impossible, if he were any
relative of the mildly-thoughtful and self-upbraiding poet Cowley, who
lived about his time, the conceit might seem unwarranted; for that sort
of thing evinced in the naming of this isle runs in the blood, and may
be seen in pirates as in poets.
Still south of James’s Isle lie Jervis Isle, Duncan Isle, Grossman’s
Isle, Brattle Isle, Wood’s Isle, Chatham Isle, and various lesser
isles, for the most part an archipelago of aridities, without
inhabitant, history, or hope of either in all time to come. But not far
from these are rather notable isles—Barrington, Charles’s, Norfolk, and
Hood’s. Succeeding chapters will reveal some ground for their
notability.
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