102 ST. HELENA 



The next year was remarkable for its trade depression, 

 as also for the marked decrease in the number of calling 

 vessels, and for the fact that there were in port at one time 

 four damaged vessels: the steamship Port Phillip on fire 

 (this vessel was taking emigrant girls to Australia), the 

 steamer Strathmore with broken shaft, The Madeline 

 Rickmers on fire, and the Howden (now a hulk in harbour, 

 and lately used as a quarantine station) leaking. 

 The year is also remembered as a time of great reduction 

 in the prices of imported goods, and also of reduction in 

 postage from 6d. to 2%d. per half-ounce. This was again 

 reduced in 1901 to id. per half ounce. 



In 1897, while shooting on the barn, some men made an 

 interesting discovery. Following a goat along a vein on the 

 west side, just on the verge of a precipice immediately over- 

 hanging the sea, they came suddenly on a hole or cave which 

 was built up, only leaving an entrance sufficiently large to 

 allow of a man squeezing through, and so very near to the 

 edge of the precipice that the slightest push from any one 

 standing in the doorway would land an intruder 300 feet 

 or more below. It is supposed that the cave is the much 

 talked of place of abode of an eccentric person called 

 " London's Ben," who was subject to occasional fits of 

 mania, and who would absent himself from civilization for 

 lengthened periods, living a wild and hermit -like life. It 

 was known that he lived on the barn, because, when he began 

 to feel what he termed " that way," he always said " the 

 white goat on the barn called him," and then made his dis- 

 appearance. He had been missed twenty-three years when 

 the cave was discovered. On entering the cave there was 

 found a bag containing about ten pounds of salt, a razor 

 perfectly good, and wrapped in flannel, a large quantity of 

 island tobacco nicely done up in rolls, quite good, some 

 cooking utensils, a chopper made from the heel of a scythe, 

 a whetstone, tinder-box, flint and steel, some jerked beef in 

 a perfect state of preservation, together with many other 

 things, including a bottle of water, which also-was good. The 

 bed was framed of rough stone, the top being of flat slate- 

 like stones, large quantities of which are found on the barn 

 in a beautiful smooth state. There was a pair of blue cloth 

 trousers, which fell in pieces when touched, and by the 



