Forty Norwegians Try to Settle the Atoll

1879

A party of 27 adults and 13 children sailed from Bergen to colonise Aldabra. The settlement failed quickly — there is essentially no soil, no reliable fresh water, and the limestone will not take a plough. No picture of the expedition itself survives; this is Vågen, the Bergen harbour they sailed from, crowded with the same class of small two-masted vessel.