Jamestown, St. Helena
By late morning the isolated oceanic island of St. Helena (pronounced Heleena by the residents) was in view, and at noon the Endeavour dropped her anchor off of the major island settlement of Jamestown. Just 500 years ago, on the feast day of St. Helena, the Portuguese Admiral João da Nova anchored in this same spot, made the first landing, named the island, and built a small chapel in a deep V-shaped valley that is now the site of Jamestown. Although St. Helena was successively claimed by the Portuguese and the Dutch it has been, since 1659, British soil (with as brief interlude of Dutch rule in 1673.) It seems out of the way to us today in the age of jet travel, but in an earlier time it was an important place for sailing ships to take on fresh water, meat, fruits and vegetables, and to drop off infirm sailors. One can read about St. Helena in the journals of Captains James Cook and William Bligh, and in Charles Darwin’s account of the voyage of the Beagle.
Shortly after lunch we boarded Zodiacs and, timing the swell carefully, we stepped ashore on the jetty (since rebuilt) where Napoleon Bonaparte made his last landfall, but more of him tomorrow. Our afternoon included a vocal concert by children from Prince Andrew School in the very colonial-looking Consulate Hotel, and then a walking tour of Jamestown. Included in the tour was a stop at the base of Jacob’s Ladder: 699 (or is it 700?) steps rising 602 feet from Jamestown to the fortification above. It was built in 1829, supposedly to take manure from the stables of the Jamestown garrison to agricultural fields in the wetter highlands, above. Soldiers of the fort developed a unique way to carry tureens of soup to their counterparts below: sliding down the two metal railings that flank the stairs, using one foot for a brake, and balancing the soup on their bellies. This skill is still practiced today by young men of St. Helena, but without the soup.
