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.