Five days out of Cape Town, the majority of passengers became silently contemplative as Tristan da Cunha came into view. Their quest was over. While others might view the island as an anachronistic and insignificant remnant of the British Empire, the eighty travellers on board the Royal Mail Ship St. Helena, considered that the remotest inhabited island in the world, clearly symbolized more.
This is perhaps because it is difficult to read of the isolation of this island and its long history of privation and self-sufficiency without marvelling at the grit of its inhabitants. Noted for its treacherous weather and difficult seas known as the “roaring forties”, Tristan, situated at 37 degrees south latitude, lies in the South Atlantic, roughly midway between Africa and South America. Its isolation was once so great that it was a full four years before islanders were informed that World Word I had ended.
And here we were, members of a more modern world anxious to communicate with three hundred people or so who seemed to have little need for that world. That point had already been made following the 1961 evacuation of all Tristanians to England when their island, essentially a volcanic cone, erupted. All but five returned to Tristan when it was safe to do so two years later.
Our assorted members from three continents wanted to experience first hand the island and its people first hand. Some seemed to hold romantic, albeit patronizing notions about the Tristanians and their solitary existence. Others were intent on viewing rockhopper penguins, petrels, and albatrosses. For others, the very remoteness of the place was in itself justification for the long journey. For all, however, there was something indefinably personal and alluring as the island took shape through the early morning mist.
Almost a perfect circle of about 60 square kilometers rising from the sea to its over 2200 metre cone, Tristan’s only populated area is on a small plateau known as the Settlement of Edinburgh, so named after a visit from the first Duke of Edinburgh in the 1800s. With a population of about 250, the eighty families there house themselves in homes made for the most part of soft volcanic stone blocks, the former flax roofing now replaced with corrugated metal.
The distinctive eight meter Tristan longboats covered with oiled and painted canvas have equally given way to more modern launches which motored out to greet us while anchored in the open off an island which provides neither harbour nor shelter for arriving ships. Disembarkation, frequently hazardous in the usually rough seas, was made from the main deck by a rope ladder into the launch. This ordeal is not for the faint hearted. Notwithstanding a safety harness, uncertainty, fear, and hysteria were, to varying degrees, the hallmarks of those disembarking.
Apart from the immigration official who had earlier boarded the ship, this was our first introduction to Tristanians. Our chances were once in seven that we knew any particular man’s family name. Almost all are descended from a handful of settlers or shipwrecked sailors primarily of British, Italian, Dutch, and American origin. The man helping us into the launch had to be one of Mr. Glass, Green, Hagan, Laverello, Repetto, Rogers, or Swain.
Whoever the gentleman was, he masked his excitement, if any, in welcoming the only scheduled supply ship of the year. Although fishing and naval vessels occasionally call briefly other times of the year, the RMS St. Helena was in 1997 in effect the island’s lifeline for most supplies, mail, and the exchange of a handful of expatriates who provide medical care and other specialized services. This particular voyage also brought the Governor of the Dependencies of St. Helena, Ascension Island, and Tristan da Cunha on his annual tour of inspection on behalf of the Queen.
The restrained reaction we first received characterized for the most part all our dealings with Tristanians encountered over almost three days. Polite and helpful to a fault, they also seemed to project, at least by our standards, a certain shyness. Although made welcome, we were clearly intruding into what was essentially a very private world. It was important to remember our role as guests.
One rather is left with the impression that the brand of English spoken on Tristan has changed little since the island was first settled in the early nineteenth century. Distinct expressions and methods of pronunciation set the Tristanian English apart from that spoken elsewhere. Described by some as an exotic variety of archaic English, the most unusual feature of the dialect is the insertion of the letter “h” in front of any word beginning with a vowel. As a result, conversation with several Tristanians in the island’s small bar required a little more listening effort than usual by we “houtsiders”.
The history of the island seems to have played out in intervals of about a century and a half. The first known sighting was in 1506 by Admiral Tristao da Cunha, a Portuguese navigator, who gave the island its name. Although the Dutch briefly landed on the island in 1643, the first settlement was not until 1810 when three Americans of dubious background arrived, their leader hoping to make a business of provisioning passing whalers and merchant ships. Those hopes were short lived following the arrival of the British who claimed the island in 1816 as part of a strategy to defend faraway St. Helena Island during Napoleon’s captivity there. Although the British garrison withdrew within a year, one of its members, William Glass, remained with his family. That was the genesis of the island’s permanent settlement occasionally supplemented by other settlers or survivors of shipwrecks. The island’s last historical cycle was the volcanic eruption of 1961.
One unusual feature of Tristan life is Ratting Day, a public holiday celebrated in April of each year. To the west of the Settlement is arable land known as the Potato Patches. Plots for growing potatoes, long a staple of the island, are divided by stone walls, a favourite haunt of rats. On Ratting Day, the island’s many dogs are encouraged to sniff out rats’ nests within the walls. Walls are temporarily taken down to lend assisance and prizes are awarded for feats of ratting superiority.
Names given to features and landmarks on Tristan are often representative of past events. Two particularly striking names are Ridge Where the Goat Jump Off and Down Where the Minister Landed His Things. The most dramatic location, however, remains unnamed. That is the black mass of solidified lava to the east of the Settlement. Walking through this significant legacy of the event that made islanders voluntary exiles for two years, a visitor is again reminded of the vulnerability and loneliness of the place.
Strangely, there was also something very comforting about Tristan’s remoteness. It represented the quintessential escape from a more frenetic world, its very isolation effectively making it off limits to all but a few. That and the very nature of the place seemed to lend itself to personal reflection that was particularly intense and satisfying. Of necessity, contemplative moments eventually yielded to the reality of yet another five days on the water for the return trip to Cape Town. Conventional life, far removed from Tristan, resumed.
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