1 88 ST. HELENA 



but what is brackish. If wells could be sunk we should 

 think it the most pleasant and healthiest part of the 

 island . . . the Hutts was called the wood's end. But the 

 wood is so destroyed that the beginning of the great wood 

 is now a whole mUe beyond that place. The destruction of 

 the wood, though often spoken of and regretted, seemed to 

 continue until a large portion of it received the name it 

 now retains of Deadwood. 



It was treated as a common ; planters were allowed to 

 pasture their cattle and obtain fuel from it. In 1789, 

 Governor Brooke proposed to carry water to Longwood in 

 an open drain. At the close of the last century the forest 

 both at Deadwood and Longwood liad entirely disappeared, 

 but in August, 1745, it is stated that 317,000 young gum 

 trees had been planted at Longwood up to 1720. The 

 cost to the Company of fencing this property was £5,400 

 and in 1778 a further sum of ;f5,ooo was estimated as the 

 cost of renewing the fence at Longwood with a stone wall 

 of three miles in circumference. Until the arrival of 

 Napoleon, the house on it was used as a residence for the 

 Lieutenant-Governor. In 1815, Governor Wilkes names a 

 carrying of water to Longwood as one of liis improvements, 

 that 3,226 yards of drain and lead pipes had been laid from 

 Wells to Longwood at a cost of £1,231. Longwood had 

 then become the residence of Napoleon and staff. The 

 grounds were used as a Company farm, and in June, 1823, 

 Governor Walker says " that the farm buildings at Long- 

 wood are in a ruinous condition, and their reconstruction 

 would be attended with great expense " — he therefore 

 proposed to appropriate the old dwelling house at Longwood 

 used by Napoleon as farm offices, as they could not be 

 consigned to a more useful or a more necessary purpMDse. 

 This was practical and it did not then occur to any one it 

 would be a desecration to turn the room in which Napoleon 

 died into a threshing bam, or his bedroom into a horse 

 stable. 



In 1857 the enclosure called the " Old House " was con- 

 veyed by Her late Majesty's Government to Napoleon III, 

 and it is now restored so as to resemble (as nearly as pos- 

 sible) its appearance as it was in 1815 to 1821. 



MuNDENS was named from Sir Richard Munden, who recap- 



