At Sea – The South Atlantic Ocean
Discovered in the early years of the 16th century, St Helena was adopted by the British East India Company as a mid-ocean depot en route to the Cape of Good Hope, and fortified against attacks from rival Portuguese and Dutch claimants. When the French Emperor Napoleon surrendered in 1815, the island provided a ready-made fortress for his incarceration and safekeeping. British troops were brought in to extend the garrison, gun batteries and fortifications were modernized, and routes connecting the different parts of the island were upgraded to facilitate communications.
Included in the modernization was this remarkable slipway, carved from the cliff face flanking Jamestown, the island’s main port and settlement. Graded and reinforced with masonry, it was designed as a kind of railway to speed-up the transport of stores and munitions between the port and the cliff-top fortress high above. Over the years the slipway, known as Jacob’s Ladder, became a true stairway of 700 steps, providing the most direct pedestrian route from fortress to settlement. That is its main function today: up and down it pass school children, workers, churchgoers, shoppers and other folk who live on the hill but have business in town. The bottom step, the guidebooks tell us, has disappeared into the road, leaving only 699 to negotiate. All of us ashore from Endeavour admired Jacob’s Ladder, but only a few accepted its challenge. The hardiest ascended, the more circumspect descended: all agreed on the need for a stiff drink at the end to restore normal function to the knees. Particularly impressive were some of the local school children who, when the steps were clear, looped themselves across the iron railings and slid down less than a minute.
Discovered in the early years of the 16th century, St Helena was adopted by the British East India Company as a mid-ocean depot en route to the Cape of Good Hope, and fortified against attacks from rival Portuguese and Dutch claimants. When the French Emperor Napoleon surrendered in 1815, the island provided a ready-made fortress for his incarceration and safekeeping. British troops were brought in to extend the garrison, gun batteries and fortifications were modernized, and routes connecting the different parts of the island were upgraded to facilitate communications.
Included in the modernization was this remarkable slipway, carved from the cliff face flanking Jamestown, the island’s main port and settlement. Graded and reinforced with masonry, it was designed as a kind of railway to speed-up the transport of stores and munitions between the port and the cliff-top fortress high above. Over the years the slipway, known as Jacob’s Ladder, became a true stairway of 700 steps, providing the most direct pedestrian route from fortress to settlement. That is its main function today: up and down it pass school children, workers, churchgoers, shoppers and other folk who live on the hill but have business in town. The bottom step, the guidebooks tell us, has disappeared into the road, leaving only 699 to negotiate. All of us ashore from Endeavour admired Jacob’s Ladder, but only a few accepted its challenge. The hardiest ascended, the more circumspect descended: all agreed on the need for a stiff drink at the end to restore normal function to the knees. Particularly impressive were some of the local school children who, when the steps were clear, looped themselves across the iron railings and slid down less than a minute.
