AN ISLAND PARADISE.

It's clad in purple mist my land,
In a regal robe it is apparelled,
A crown is set upon its head,
And on its breast a golden band
Land, ho ! land. -T. E. Brown.

HERE shall we spend our holidays this year? This question is agitating the minds of many people at present. They would not hesitate to decide, however, if they knew the attractions of the Isle of Man. Nowhere are there better opportunities of spending a holiday fuller of variety of scene and occupation and healthful exercise. At a minimum of expense you can enjoy there yachting and rowing, bathing, coaching, motoring, cycling, golfing, sea excursions, mountaineering, cricketing, river, bay and deep-sea fishing.-Salford Reporter.

THE Isle of Man, to the observant eye, is a little Fairyland. There are watery caves which are even more than fairies' homes. Once they were the haunts of smugglers. Even now an old coin or some other relic suggests a tale of past adventure. And the coast . . . the hills . . . the stretches of pine woods. . . . But the visitor must explore for himself. Thus he may understand why every Manxman's ambition is to finish his life's work and settle there in happiness, no matter where he is now.--Daily Dispatch.

THIS (June) is the time for visiting the Island. All is beautiful and fresh, the air clear and bracing, and the gorse in heaps of gold. And there is plenty of room to move about. Since we arrived last Friday the sea has been as calm as a lake, but on the top of Snaefell on Tuesday we could scarcely stand on our feet.- Mr. J. K. Brunton, in The Burnley News.

IT is a perfectly delightful Island, and along the 48-miles' road which forms a circle round it you will find some superb island views-mountains, valleys, open country, rivers, pretty seascapes, which appear suddenly on either side of you, and sometimes all round you, wild and barren rockland, and a hundred-and-one different vistas all around this small but magic circle. Daily Mail.

THIS evening the sun is shining across Douglas Bay, one of the most beautiful in home waters, whether you see it by day or night, when its two miles of front are fringed by twinkling lights.--Daily News.

AT night, if you run out to Onchan, as we did, and look back at Douglas--or what in the dusk represents Douglas-you will see a picture of enchantment with which even the view of Monte Carlo from parts of the Corniche Road cannot compare. You look down on a great snake of light which extends for several miles along the finest sea-front in the world. There must be millions of lights, and goodness knows what Douglas's electricity bill is like, but as seen from afar, they turn the place into a fairyland. They are sufficiently powerful to reflect on the water in the bay, turning it into a great casket of diamonds. -Daily Mail.

ACKNOWLEDGED to be taciturn and unapproachable while on his own native heath, the bracing champagne air of Douglas, when it penetrates his leather lungs, causes the Scot to become the breeziest of companions and most roystering of holiday makers. This popularity of Douglas in the eyes of the Scotch visitor has been the source of discussion on Clydeside as to its cause,---Empire News.

THE holiday maker at Douglas is a creature of infinite zest. Having put the sea between him and care, he is gayer than elsewhere in the north, not excepting Blackpool.- Daily Mail. BUT it is evening that Ambrose delights in. Dimly he can see the tiny castle-like Tower of Refuge in the harbour, whence anyone can imagine him rescuing a princess. The lights entrance him. The fine bay is lit by a rope of pearly lights two miles long, and emerald and ruby gleam on the jetty, and in the trees behind the town stars shine. To and fro on the arcshaped promenade till close on midnight tread the light-hearted crowds with bursts of laughter and snatches of . . . song.-Ibid.

IN the months of July and August . . . there are lovely resorts in other parts of the Island which are never visited . . . At Ramsey, Peel, or Castletown, the crowds of Douglas are soon forgotten, while Peel, Port Erin, or Port St. Mary minister to those who prefer Arcadian repose. The Island is an extremely interesting one. The scenery is very diversified There is Snaefell mountain to climb for those who are never happy except when climbing. The Manx people themselves are an interesting study, and their laws and their way of Government are worth knowing.-Ladies' Field.

IT is said that the Isle of Man resembles in miniature the Riviera. This is true. There are innumerable glens, and a swift travelling overhead tramway that takes one from Douglas to Laxey, even up to the top of Snaefell, the largest mountain on the Island, and to Ramsey. The Island is a sort of paradise for anglers-for deep-sea fishing as well as for stream fishing. -Councillor Herbert Lee, in Wimbledon Borough News.

MANY go to Douglas but Douglas is not Man. It is Lancashire and Cheshire, Dublin and Belfast. To find the real Isle of Man you need to go to the little villages like Michael or Ballaugh. There the stray English holiday maker finds himself in a strange country, but the Irish visitor finds himself curiously at home.--R. J. P. M., in Freeman's Journal.

JULY 5th is a great day in Manxland. England has no counterpart to it. It is Tynwald Day. It is observed as a general holiday in the Island, and all roads converging on St. John's are agog with life. . . . All are bound for Tynwald Hill. The scene resembles the trek to Epsom Downs on Derby Day. But nothing so exciting as a horse race prompts the Manx pilgrimage. This swarming crowd has concentrated on St. John's to honour a hoary legislative custom. On this day the Manx Laws are annually proclaimed from Tynwald Hill.-Daily News.

TYNWALD COURT is a survival of the times when the Norse Kings and the Lords of the Island met their subjects face to face and adjusted their grievances.--Ibid.

BY their presence there the crowds are stretching their hands away back through the ages and grasping the ghostly hands of those fierce old Berserkers who instituted the Tynwald Ceremony.-Daily Herald.

" MY dear boy," said Lundy, " only a small percentage of the people who visit the Isle of Man see one of the finest spectacular beauties out of the many the pleasure island is blest with. To see it you must sail round the Island. The bulk of visitors have no idea of what a moving panorama of Nature's charms it reveals."--" The Old 'Un," Liverpool Express.

If you never see Douglas in August, you will have missed one of the most amazing sights in Britain. , . .--Miss Agnes Herbert's Isle of Man,

WE shot along straight roads, white as freshly ironed apron strings, past flower bowered cottages, with the Manx kipper taking the air in the backyards, over the shoulders and brows of mountains, prone elephants- covered with Ma Nature's patchwork counterpane . . . past eucalyptus. palms, veronica and fuchsia clumps, blooming gaily in the golden open . . . . - Miss Jane Doe, Daily Dispatch.

YOU can spend witching hours watching the dawn come up over the Hill of the Break of Day, and the sun setting on the Plains of Heaven . . . You can play golf on the mountain side; drink dandelion and burdock or a milk shake from tables set by the wayside in country lanes.-Ibid.

YOU can find the graves of Viking kings; climb Snaefell in a baby tramcar; you can visit the scene of the very first Derby, not far from the Pool of Death, a race which was instituted as a thanksgiving for having escaped death at the hands of a would-be assassin; you can see the dents in the outer wall of Rushen Castle made by Cromwell's men sharpening their spears, and a thousand-years-old portcullis.-Ibid.

THE, Isle of Man is all things to all holiday seekers. I wish I could spend the months of one whole year there. For I found her an exceeding quaint, mysterious, and adorable isle. -Miss Jane Doe, Sunday Chronicle.

SEEN from the sea it is a lovely thing to look upon. It never fails to bring me a thrill of the heart as it comes out of the distance. It lies like a bird on the waters. You see it from end to end, and from water's edge to topmost peak, often enshrouded in mists, a dim ghost on a grey sea; sometimes purple against the setting sun. Then as you sail up to it, a rugged rocky coast, grand in its beetling heights on the south and west, and broken into the sweetest bays everywhere. The water clear as crystal and blue as the sky y in summer. . . . There is nothing like it in the world. . . . Then you may go the earth over and see grander things a thousand times, things more sublime and beautiful, but you will come back to Manxland and tramp the Mull Hills in May, long hour in, and long hour out, and look at the flowering gorse and sniff its flavour, or lie by the chasms and listen to the screams of the sea-birds, as they whirl and dip and dart and skim over the Sugar Loaf Rock, and you will say after all that God has smiled on our little island, and that it is the fairest spot in His beautiful world, and above all, that it is ours.-Sir Hall Caine, in Little Man Island.

YOU can map out a complete change of programme every day. You can visit quaint little towns by the sea, or picturesque villages tucked away in sleepy valleys, where beliefs in the fairies die hard. You can view ancient castles and historic mounds and forts with histories of peculiar interest. You can stroll on magnificent promenades or thronged sands, or ramble over bracing moorlands and down into bewitching glens that emerge on to lonely shores. You can bathe gloriously in the pellucid waters of the Manx coast, or go boating, fishing, golfing, and all the rest, to your heart's content amid ideal surroundings. You can make your days one long round of pleasure at this Island resort.-Manchester Guardian.

OVER a desert of sand and shingle, a level spit stretching far into the sea, the lapse of ages laid a mat of soil and a carpet of grass intermingled with trefoil and thyme, and tiny flowers of faint hue, and tiny herbs of delicate fragrance. Over this there came a growth of dwarf gorse and heather, leaving only patches of the old turf. . . . Far as the horizon the waste extends in yellow and purple sweeps. The odour of gorse and heather and honey float on the fitful airs that struggle with the heat and calm, and when the breeze fingers the gorse flowers and rings the bells of the heather, the hum of the bees booms like far-away singing to the music of the fairies. Around it all is the gush and sigh of the tide on the shingly beach, breathing and uttering of the pathoses of eternal vicissitude and succession in human existence.

Far out where land and sea and sky are blended rises a white tower, blazing and trembling in a background of hot haze. . . . -The Rev. Canon John Quine, in Captain of the Parish.

WHAT struck me most at the Isle of Man ?
The inviolate youth and happiness of visitors. . . .
The wonderful clarity of the air. . . .
The high excellence of musical fare provided by Sunday Concerts. . . .
The whole-souled determination of everybody to feel in tune, and to make the world in general equally harmonious. . . . --J. M. Stuart Young, in Stockport County Express.

THE LONDON, MIDLAND AND SCOTTISH RAILWAY CO.

Will commence their Excursion Services to the Island early in May via Fleetwood and Liverpool from London, Rugby, Nuneaton, Tamworth, Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, Stafford, Crewe and the principal towns in the Midlands.

The tickets will be issued on Fridays and be available for a period of eight or fifteen days.

THE SERVICE via HEYSHAM WILL ALSO BE PUT INTO OPERATION DURING THE SUMMER MONTHS

London &North Eastern via Railway System LIVERPOOL
may be obtained on application at the Company's Stations, or from any of Messrs. Dean & Dawson's Agencies.

Excursion (8 or 15 days) Tickets will be issued to Douglas from principal stations during the summer.

Further particulars may be obtained on application at any of the Company's stations, or from The Superintendent of the Line,

Great Western Railway, Paddington Station, London, W.2 The Isle of Man for Holidays.

Have made arrangements to give cheap traevl facilities to the Isle of Man from Manchester, Northwich, Knutsford, Altrincham, Urmston, Stockport, West Timperley, Cadishead, Warrington, Farnworth, Widnes, Southport and other places in Cheshire and Lancashire.

One day Excursion Tickets will he issued, from Principal Stations to Douglas every weekday and 3, 8 or 15 days' Tickets every Saturday. Tourist Tickets available for 2 months will also be issued every weekday. Facilities for business people to spend Saturday or Sunday in the Island will be given by evening trains from the Booking Station to Liverpool on Fridays and Saturdays in time to connect with a late Steamer sailing from the Princes Landing Stage to Douglas at 12-50 midnight. These arrangements will enable passengers to spend 10 hours ashore on Saturdays, and 18 hours ashore on Sundays; those who cannot get away for a week or a fortnights holiday will appreciate the opportunity of having a healthy week-end trip which enables them to leave Manchester and other towns after business on Saturday and return in time to resume business as usual on Monday morning.

Full particulars of all Excursion Bookings to the Isle of Man may be obtained free of charge on application to the Manager, Cheshire Lines, Central Station, Liverpool.

Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received The Editor HTML Transcription © F.Coakley , 2011