The Diaries
 
November 26th 2008
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11/01 - 11/02 & 11/03 - 11/04 - 11/05- 11/06 - 11/07 - 11/08 & 11/09 - 11/10 - 11/11 - 11/12 - 11/13 - 11/14 - 11/15 - 11/16 - 11/17 - 11/18 - 11/19 - 11/20 - 11/21 - 11/22 - 11/23 - 11/25 - 11/26 - 11/27 - 11/28
11/29 - 11/30
12/01 - 12/02
- Ideas and elbow grease -  

Yann drawn by Sylvain
Photo : Jean-François REBEYROTTE

Yann was drawn as a Father Christmas by Sylvain, it should be said that the bread, some treats and some bottles of rum, that he brought us, warmed up the atmosphere.

We are confronted this morning with a problem, it is obvious that while putting side all the blocks of coral gathered at the same place, we will be missing sand near the site to embank the buildings. It is without taking into account the imagination and the energy of the team. We find a wheelbarrow at the weather forecast and set up a taxiway with all that falls under our hands to link up a place where sand is available in quantity (obviously of which we won’t be missing) and the places to be embanked.
The exercise is passably physical, but we now have the training necessary.

An assembled path of all parts
Photo : YVH

The most important of the site is recovered in the end of the afternoon. It will be necessary for us to put the finishing touch tomorrow and clean the accesses in preparation for the visit of the Prefect of the TAAF and the Ambassador of France in Maurice which are announced to us for the day of the relay.
By looking at each other pushing the wheelbarrows, I think of another transport which our slaves had to accomplish every day to go to scoop out some water from the well and to bring it back to their place of dwelling.
There is a path which goes around the island, it is a small path which was cleaned of all the blocks of coral, to make it possible to walk there quietly or, like the most courageous, to go for a jogging.
But by reading the tale of the ornithologist Layard, who disembarked on the island in 1856, one finds mention of this path, here’s the sentence: “Giving up our speculations, we directed our steps to regain our boats while following a broad way, released from all stones, and thoroughly levelled. For which reason did the poor survivors build this path? Perhaps their commander, a warned man, thinking that idleness did generate, in such a situation, dark thoughts, had put his men at work to release this path, but to transport what? Wood coming from trees thrown to the coast, the stones thrown by the waves to build their house, what! It had certainly been used because we found the broken wheel of a gun carriage, lying on a heap of stones. ”
It is, at least, that the part of the path which goes from the place of dwelling to the well, and which was in the south east of the island was arranged by the slaves.

The mention of the wheel of carriage makes us think of a wagon to transport water, certainly manufactured starting from a gun carriage (one of them had been drawn out of the water by the crew from “l’Utile” with a canon to try to draw the attention of a ship passing nearby).
The only mystery which remains to be clarified is to know in which container the water was transported. In the lead basins? In this case, a carriage was not too much.