The Islanders of Tristan D' Acunha.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 204, 21 May 1887, Page 3 (Supplement)

The Islanders of Tristan D' Acunha.

The islanders of Trisan d'Acunha, although isolated in the South Atlantic, have received the distinction of having a Bluebook devoted to them and their concerns. According to the latest report there arc now on the island nineteen families, comprising ninety-seven souls— namely : -Aged men, 3 ; aged women, 5 ; men twenty years of age and over, 11 ; boys from fourteen to twenty years of age, 9 ; married women 3 ; Avidows (with large families), 16 ; girls over fourteen years of age, 20 ; children under fourteen years of age, 30 of b)th sexes ; total, 97. Some time since they sustained a disastrous loss, the whale boat m which fifteen of their men put to sea to intercept a passing vessel being lost and every one being drowned. Reduced in number in this way, they have been put to great straits. A plague of rats has also invaded the island, and done great destruction to the potato crop. The vermin landed from a shipwrecked vessel, which came ashore on the coast. The Government has considered the question of conveying the islanders to the Cape or Australia, but in the meantime they have contented themselves with instructing a ship of war to pay an annual visit to the island. The islanders have a rule after the Republican fashion, but they regard themselves as under the English Crown. Peter W. Green, who was shipwrecked on the island about fifty years ago, is at the head of the community*