CHAP. XIV 



ST. HELENA 



295 



yet the general aspect of the island is now so barren and 

 forbidding that some persons find it difficult to believe that 

 it was once all green and fertile. The cause of the change 

 is, however, very easily explained. The rich soil formed 

 by decomposed volcanic rock and vegetable deposits could 

 only be retained on the steep slopes so long as it was 

 protected by the vegetation to which it in great part owed 

 its origin. When this was destroyed, the heavy tropical 

 rains soon washed away the soil, and has left a vast 

 expanse of bare rock or sterile clay. This irreparable 

 destruction was caused in the first place by goats, which 

 were introduced by the Portuguese in 1513, and increased 

 so rapidly that in 1588, they existed in thousands. These 

 animals are the greatest of all foes to trees, because they 

 eat off the young seedlings, and thus prevent the natural 

 restoration of the forest. They were, however, aided by 

 the reckless waste of man. The East India Company took 

 possession of the island in 1651, and about the year 1700 

 it began to be seen that the forests were fast diminishing, 

 and required some protection. Two of the native trees, 

 redwood and ebony, were good for tanning, and to save 

 trouble the bark was wastefully stripped from the trunks 

 only, the remainder being left to rot ; while in 1709 a large 

 quantity of the rapidly disappearing ebony was used to 

 burn lime for building fortifications ! By the MSS. records 

 quoted in Mr. Melliss' interesting volume on St. Helena,^ it 

 is evident that the evil consequences of allowing the trees 

 to be destroyed were clearly foreseen, as the following 

 passages show : " We find the place called the Great Wood 

 in a flourishing condition, full of young trees, where the 

 hoggs (of which there is a great abundance) do not come 

 to root them up. But the Great Wood is miserably 

 lessened and destroyed within our memories, and is not 

 near the circuit and length it was. But we believe it does 

 not contain now less than fifteen hundred acres of fine 

 woodland and good ground, but no springs of water but 

 what is salt or brackish, which we take to be the reason 

 that that part was not inhabited when the people first 



1 St. Helena: a Physical, Historical, and Topographical Description of 

 the Island, d-c. By John Charles Melliss, F.G.S., &c. London : 1875. 



