Three Years in Tristan da Cunha | Page 5

ones. Later on our
friends came to see us again, and the room was packed all round. I
could hear much whispering among the women in the passages: no
doubt anxious discussion was going on as to our sleeping
accommodation. Betty decided to sleep out; Mr. Dodgson's room was
assigned to us, and the adjoining room which had no window and was
more like a cupboard, to Ellen.
My husband had some talk with the people, telling them what had
drawn him to Tristan and of his mother's shipwreck, and then closed
with a few verses from the Bible and prayer. We were tired after our
day of adventures, and thankful to retire to rest.

CHAPTER III
We woke up next morning realizing that we were at last, after more
than a year of anticipation and months of travel, amongst the settlers on
Tristan da Cunha.
The present settlement dates from 1816, when a garrison was sent by
the Cape Government to occupy the island, as it was thought that
Tristan might be used as a base by Napoleon's friends to effect his
escape from St. Helena. In February 1817 the British Government
determined to withdraw the garrison, and a man-of-war was dispatched
to remove it. Three of the men asked to remain, the chief being William

Glass of Kelso, N.B., a corporal in the Royal Artillery, who had with
him his wife--a Cape coloured woman-- and his two children. Later,
others came to settle on the island, three by shipwreck; and some left it;
the inhabitants in 1826 being seven men, two wives and two children.
Five of these men, who were bachelors, asked the captain of a whaler to
bring them each a wife from St. Helena. He did his best and brought
five coloured women--one a widow with four children. Of these
marriages only one, I believe, turned out happily. A daughter of this
marriage was Betty Cotton, our landlady. She was the eldest of seven
daughters, and had five brothers. Her father, Alexander Cotton, was
born at Hull, and was an old man-of-war's man, and for three years had
guarded Napoleon at Longwood, St. Helena. Thomas Hill Swain,
another of the five, came from Sussex and served in the Theseus under
Nelson. He married the widow, and used to tell his children, of whom
there were four daughters living on the island when we were there, that
he was the sailor who caught Nelson when he fell at Trafalgar. This old
man was vigorous to the last. At the age of one hundred and eight he
was chopping wood, when a splinter flying into his eye caused his
death. The result, of course, of these marriages was a coloured race.
Some of the children are still very dark in appearance, but the colour is
gradually dying out.
Another well-known islander, Peter William Green, came nearly
twenty years later. He was a Dutch sailor, a native of Katwijk, on the
North Sea, whose ship in trying to steal the islanders' sea elephant oil
got in too close and was wrecked. He settled down and married one of
the four daughters of the widow, and became eventually headman and
marriage officer. Queen Victoria sent him a framed picture of herself,
which, unfortunately, has been taken away to the Cape. He died in 1902
at the age of ninety-four.
In the next decade came Rogers and Hagan from America; and in the
early nineties the two Italian sailors Repetto and Lavarello of Comogli,
who were shipwrecked.
I believe the population has never numbered more than one hundred
and nine. At the time of our arrival it was seventy-one, of whom only

ten had ever been away from the island. The language spoken is
English, but their vocabulary is limited.
The soldiers pitched their camp at the north end of a strip of land
stretching about six miles in a north-westerly direction, where it is
crossed by a constant stream of the purest and softest water. It is said
they built two forts, one commanding Big Beach and Little Beach Bays,
and one further inland to command what was thought the only
approachable ascent to the mountain heights. The position of the first
fort is known, the raised ground for mounting two guns being distinctly
visible on the top of Little Beach Point; but the islanders do not think
the second fort was ever built.
The settlers naturally chose this camp as the site for their settlement,
and there they built their houses. When we arrived there were sixteen,
three of which were uninhabited. They all face the sea; and run east and
west. On account of the very high winds the walls are built about four
feet thick at the gable ends, and about two feet at the sides. Most