Rodrigues itself is an island of unusual attractions, not the least of which is its inaccessibility. There are only two practicable ways to reach it: you can go on the supply boat from Mauritius, which makes the trip three or four times a year and stays about three days, or you may visit the island on a private yacht.
Although the island is only 42 square miles in area, it is densely populated. Most of the 16,000 people are of African or Malagasy racial stock, many are descended from slaves brought in from Mauritius by the French, while others trace their ancestral lines back to Breton or Scottish families.
Mauritius is the hub of their universe and the supply ship, also named Mauritius, is the connecting link. “Have you ever visited Mauritius?” Barbara asked one of the teachers in the Port Mathurin school.
“Oh, yes!” she answered eagerly. “We go on board every time it comes!”
There are no newspapers on Rodrigues, no telephones, no radio stations, no banks, no movies; there is no airport or commercial shipping, no harbor, no railway, no buses, and no taxis. There were, however, five horses (“three cobs and two mules”), a number of bicycles, and two jeeps. The jeeps, one of which belongs to the magistrate and the other to the Catholic priests, are recent acquisitions and have already accounted for one traffic fatality. Within the first week a cyclist tried to go between the headlights of an oncoming jeep, in the mistaken impression that they were the lights of two bicycles. By the way of instilling caution and avoiding further accidents, there is now a large, hand-lettered sign over the gate that leads from the schoolyard onto the road. STOP! LOOK! LISTEN! JEEP!
Each night we had dinner at a different house, but always with a nucleus of the same group: the magistrate and his wife, the two doctors, the meteorologist, and various members of the Cable and Wireless installation on Rodrigues.
As they came to know us better, the Rouchecoustes in particular became more frank in their eagerness to learn all they could about America and Japan while Exhibits A and B were available. M. Rouchecouste confided that, although he had studied for several years in Europe, we were the first Americans, as well as the first Japanese, that he had ever met—and the first of either, to his knowledge, ever to visit Rodrigues.
“Tell me, Madame Reynolds,” he asked, “would you say you were a typical American woman?”
Barbara, obviously nonplused, looked helplessly at me.
I came to her rescue. “I should imagine,” I stated judicially, “that she’s certainly the typical American woman who goes around the world on a Japanese-built yacht.”