The Remotest Island

Solving the riddle of the flightless moorhen of Tristan da Cunha

Table of contents

Introduction

Part 1. Tristan da Cunha, a Dream

1. A dream

2. Just a Moorhen

3. A brief sketch of the islands

4. Early shipping around Tristan da Cunha

5. King Jonathan

6. Dugald Carmichael

7. The London Museum

8. Blenden Hall

9. August Earle

10. Willem Luijke

11. Brides on the beach

12. The Stoltenhoff brothers

13. The Challenger expedition

14. Ancestral mothers and fathers

15. A national anthem

16. Reverends and teachers

17. Atlantisia

18. Wooden shoes

19. Allan Crawford

20. Gough Island

21. Crisis in Utopia

22. A schoolboys' expedition

23. Moorhens rediscovered on Tristan

Part 2. To Tristan at last

24. Competition

25. Agulhas

26. The Settlement

27. Sandy Point

28. Shipwrecks

29. Fishing Day

30. The wedding

31. The Ponds

32. The Caves

33. Hoil'n Cock

34. Queen Mary's Peak

35. The Molly study plot

36. Theories

37. Going home

Part 3. Tristan again

38. Atlantic Odyssey

39. South Georgia

40. Saint Helena

41. Ascension

42. Quincentenary

43. Operation Argus

44. The latest shipwrecks

45. Christmas on Tristan

46. Stamps

47. End of the Quest

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Appendix 1 Birds of the Tristan da Cunha archipelago

Appendix 2 Shipping prior to 1800

Appendix 3 Shipwrecks of Tristan da Cunha

Appendix 4 Observations of the extinct Island Cock of Tristan da Cunha

References

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