2020-05-01_Lonely_Planet_Traveller

NapoleononStHelena

StHelena’sisolationmadeitthe

perfectplacetoexileBritain’s

arch-enemy,Napoleon

Bonaparte,aertheBattle

ofWaterlooin1815.Hisfinal

homeatLongwood– where,

ironically,hespentsomeofhis

lastyearslearningEnglish– is

nowStHelena’smostvisited

attraction.Youcanalsovisithis

tomb,althoughtheEmperoris

nolongerthere– hisremains

wererepatriatedtoFrancein

1840,accordingtohiswishes.

Prickly pears were

introduced by sailors,

to stave o scurvy.

Below le: A portrait

of Napoleon in the

Consulate Hotel.

Opposite: Scenes

in Jamestown

shudders to a stop, and we step into a landscape
that’s almost lunar in its strangeness. A plain
of red rock sprawls around us, speckled with
spindly clumps of aloe and bulbous prickly
pears. Bubblegum-coloured boulders are strewn
around like meteorites. Tangerine hills loom in
the distance. A topographical mash-up of desert,
mesa, volcano and moonscape, it’s a view not
entirely of this world.
Stedson seems impervious to it, his eyes
scanning the ground. ‘Bingo!’ he exclaims in
a whisper, pointing at something scurrying
between the rocks. The bird is a black-banded
head, a white breast and a bundle of brown
feathers perched on spindly matchstick legs.
‘It might not look like much, but for twitchers
that’s St Helena’s Holy Grail. The wirebird is even
on our coat-of-arms,’ says Stedson, as we judder
down the pot-holed track towards his house,
watching the sun sink over an Atlantic almost
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