There can be few more uncomfortable places in the world
than the island of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic, a lonely outpost of the British Empire whose nearest neighbour is St. Helena, thirteen hundred miles away. Mr. Martyn Rogers, who with his wife was sent out there by the S.P.G. and spent three years ministering to the spiritual and material needs of the islanders, has been lecturing in London about his experiences. Why the 180 islanders do not escape from Tristan's inhospitable shores on the first opportunity is a mystery to the outsider. The hardships they suffer are intense. The island is overrun with rats. There is little vegetation and.feW trees ; wheat will not grow ; the cattle and sheep are miserable specimens and the potato crop is frequently spoilt. The chief articles of diet are fish and penguin's eggs which Mr. Rogers describes as tasting like "lumps of bad fat floating in castor oil.," This opinion of the eggs is challenged by a friend of mine who tells me that they are much like plover's eggs, only larger. Perhaps he would modify his views after a three-year's residence on Tristan da Cunha:' The suggestion -of moving the islanders lock, stock and barrel to the Union of South Africa has been made on several oecasioni. 'General Hertzog is stated to be interested in the seheme,. bitt so far nothing definite has been done. Since Mr. Rogers's departure no one has been found to succeed him and the little church is shut up awaiting for a - successor _who may never come. * *
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