The Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte must have had an overwhelming feeling of grief as his British ship brought him to his permanent exiled home of St. Helena Island in 1815. From the sea, this volcanic island. which is only 42 sq milies in size, rises about 1000 feet, with sheer cliffs along its impregnable coastline. The absolute surprise however was how the island revealed its inner beauty to all of us, and charmed us for a glorious day, and gave us an appreciation for how graciously Napoleon was imprisoned here. Last year we visited his birthplace, of Corsica, France and so it was such a wonderful and rare opportunity to complete the circle and visit the place where he lived his last 6 years and where he was originally buried after his death in 1821 at the age of 51.
This was a tender port, and Max, Mal, Barry and I, decided we'd chance finding a private taxi on this island of 6000 people, and so we got off on the first tender and met Penell , a retired man, who took advantage of our ship, to use his vehicle as a taxi for the day and offered to squire us around. We had all dressed for a cool day, which turned out to be a mistake, as the predicted partly cloudy sky turned into a vividly clear blue one, but it enhanced our feelings of the vistas that we saw.
Jamestown is the only town, and it is a mix of very early stone and cement buildings that must have been here during Napoleon's time, and some more recent, but all of them very modest.
We quickly escaped to go to a lookout spot, that overlooked the home where Napoleon was first housed on his arrival for a few months then to Napoleon's tomb and his home of Longwood. We beat the tour buses, thank goodness. The single road is an extremely switchbacked one, that is bordered on the cliff side by a low stone wall, that must have taken immense labour to build as the road snakes at extreme angles up and over the mountainous terrain. Once out of the town, you could appreciate the lushness of the island, as the forbidding stone cliffs that we had seen from the sea, were suffering from a recent lack of rain, and therefore were barren, and had hidden the glory of the island from view. Much of the land is covered by white flowers that I think was called whitewood, and is a pest in Australia, but gives off a beautiful fragrance, thick undergrowth and great swaths of flax that covers the mountains from valley to peak. Flax was once a thriving industry but it collapsed with the popularity of sisal, recently. Too bad as it obviously does well here. British Bobbies were everywhere, as were local volunteer guides who were out in full support of the hordes of visitors from our ship, which is only the second one to visit this year, and there won't be another till November. The people get their supplies from a supply ship that sails, now, from Cape Town, South Africa to St. Helena, then to Ascension Island (our next stop) and back, leaving out it's previous port of Southampton, England. The people mostly have their own small gardens to supplement the necessary imports, and we certainly did not see any markets with fresh food. It is also a favourite stop these days for what the natives call "yachties", who sail their large expensive yachts around these waters. The people are a mix of many races, including the original Portuguese discovers, British, African slaves, indentured Chinese, imprisoned Boers, and Polynesians. There are about 18 different religions here !! The main industry now is road repair - understandable once you drive around, but it must be a real drain on Britain.
When Napoleon arrived here, he had already escaped from the island Elba, where the British had first put him in exile. This island is 1000 miles west of Africa and 1500 miles from Brazil, so he had a fairly poor chance of escaping from here. He brought a large retinue of 21 in his entourage, most of whom remained with him during his 6 years. He died of stomach cancer, which was the cause of death of most of his family, so there may have been a genetic reason, but it was a horribly painful death for him. It may also explain why he is often pictured with his hand clutching his chest or stomach, which always seemed an affected pose. His body was embalmed and was on display at Longwood for 4 days, before he was buried down a beautiful grassy path in a hollow that is today surrounded by lovely gardens tended by a caretaker. During the 150th anniversary of his death, his body was exhumed and returned to France, and Britain granted that the tomb area and the grounds of Longwood would be part of the French Republic, within the British Protectorate, so the tomb has the French flag flying nearby. It took us 10 minutes to walk down the hill, and about 25 minutes to climb back up. Thank goodness for my exercise regime. (Comment from Barry - coming back from the tomb it was a long mile walk up a fairly steep incline)
By now we were smitten with the island, but upon our arrival at Longwood, we were totally enamoured. This one story home sits on a high hilltop with a commanding view of the sea, surrounded by very well maintained and beautiful gardens, which must be glorious in the spring. The furnishings which were original to the home, are currently in France for restoration, so the rooms are all furnished with period furniture, but not original. The wall paints and wall coverings (wall paper and fabric) are all replica's of the originals and the canopy bed where he died is in its last place, which is a room closer to the outdoors. He had by this time divorced Josephine, married Marie Louise, Austrian Duchess of Parma, (who divorced him) and had at least one affair with a Polish woman who bore him an illegitimate son. He told this son to always remember that he was born a prince. Two other children were also born, from his marriage to Marie Louise, one of whom died very young. Upon his exile, the illegitimate son was handed his monarchy, but we know nothing of what came of that. It was very poignant to see where he spent his last days, but we came away feeling that he had been treated very well, indeed like a monarch, and that while his freedom was obviously his greatest loss, he had been fortunate to be in such a gorgeous setting.
Our next stop was a magnificent vista, known as Lot's Wife - where there is a tall spike of a rock on a spine of mountain that shows how she was turned to salt, when she looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah. Down we descended to the current Governor's Home which is a very beautiful blue British style manor, overlooking a tennis court who's placement was rather ill-conceived, and the extensive vegetable gardens, and out to sea. On the grounds wander the famous long lived Tortoise - Jonathan- who is somewhere over 140 years old and some of his mates.
By now we were starving and after a quick stop at another famous point of interest - an extremely steep incline of 799 steps from Jamestown to the top of a cliff, which many of our guests climbed (including Karen).
We wended our way down to Jamestown to find a spot to have the famous fish and chips. We finally landed at Annie's Place, which was started in the last 10 years or so for those yachties. We didn't find any battered fish, but the fish and fries and Nambian beer were divine. We spent our final hours wandering the town, which seemed to mostly consist of little grocery stores all selling the same canned goods, the post office, where we bought the rate first edition stamps, and finally Maxine and I sampled the very famous local coffee.
The owner of the coffee plantation, Bill was serving and he told us that the original plants were brought from Yemen in the late 1790's and that his coffee is the most expensive in the world and has won several prizes. We bought a quarter of a pound, and enjoyed a cappuccino and a latte under his umbrellas, before boarding the tender back to the ship. Maxine and I were tired and didn't feel like the dining room, so Mal and Barry ate there, while we had a shower and enjoyed a glass of wine at the sail away, and the truly beautiful evening and sunset before a bite in the Lido and an early bedtime.
On to Ascension Island after a day at sea.
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