When the boat had been drawn up to its place we sang the doxology, lingered a little, and then, conducted by the inhabitants, filed up the steep rocky road to the top of the cliff and on to the grassy common. The scenery was very fine, towering mountains in the background, the settlement below with its quaint little stone, thatched houses, and the sea with its white-crested waves. We were taken to Betty Cotton's house, the first to be reached. She was there to give us a welcome. We had to bend our heads as we entered the porch, but to our surprise were led into quite a spacious room with two windows.
[Illustration: BETTY COTTON'S HOUSE (FRONT), OUR NEW HOME]
[Illustration: BETTY COTTON'S HOUSE (BACK)]
A large number followed us in. I felt a little shy, so many eyes were upon us, and all the conversation had to emanate from us. After a time there was a movement: the men in whose boat we had come went off to change their wet clothes.
Betty, who was seventy-six and very active, began to prepare the table for tea, and I must say the prospect of tea was most welcome. There were spectators of that meal and of many ensuing ones. Later on our friends came to see us again, and the room was packed all round. I could hear much whispering among the women in the passages: no doubt anxious discussion was going on as to our sleeping accommodation. Betty decided to sleep out; Mr. Dodgson's room was assigned to us, and the adjoining room which had no window and was more like a cupboard, to Ellen.
My husband had some talk with the people, telling them what had drawn him to Tristan and of his mother's shipwreck, and then closed with a few verses from the Bible and prayer. We were tired after our day of adventures, and thankful to retire to rest.
CHAPTER III
We woke up next morning realizing that we were at last, after more than a year of anticipation and months of travel, amongst the settlers on Tristan da Cunha.
The present settlement dates from 1816, when a garrison was sent by the Cape Government to occupy the island, as it was thought that Tristan might be used as a base by Napoleon's friends to effect his escape from St. Helena. In February 1817 the British Government determined to withdraw the garrison, and a man-of-war was dispatched to remove it. Three of the men asked to remain, the chief being William Glass of Kelso, N.B., a corporal in the Royal Artillery, who had with him his wife—a Cape coloured woman— and his two children. Later, others came to settle on the island, three by shipwreck; and some left it; the inhabitants in 1826 being seven men, two wives and two children.
Five of these men, who were bachelors, asked the captain of a whaler to bring them each a wife from St. Helena. He did his best and brought five coloured women—one a widow with four children. Of these marriages only one, I believe, turned out happily. A daughter of this marriage was Betty Cotton, our landlady. She was the eldest of seven daughters, and had five brothers. Her father, Alexander Cotton, was born at Hull, and was an old man-of-war's man, and for three years had guarded Napoleon at Longwood, St. Helena. Thomas Hill Swain, another of the five, came from Sussex and served in the Theseus under Nelson. He married the widow, and used to tell his children, of whom there were four daughters living on the island when we were there, that he was the sailor who caught Nelson when he fell at Trafalgar. This old man was vigorous to the last. At the age of one hundred and eight he was chopping wood, when a splinter flying into his eye caused his death. The result, of course, of these marriages was a coloured race. Some of the children are still very dark in appearance, but the colour is gradually dying out.