HELENA, ST., perhaps the best known of all the lonely islands in the world, is situ ated in the Atlantic, in lat. 15° 55' s., and long. 44' w. Greatest length of the island, 101 m. ; breadth, 7 area, 47 sq. miles. Pop. '71, 6,241. It is 850 in. from the near est land, the island of Ascen4ion, and about a half more from the nearest point of the African continent. The island was discovered in 1502. on St. Helena's day (May 22), whence its name, by the Portuguese navigator, Juan de Nova Castella. It afterwards became a Dutch possession, was ceded by Holland about the middle of the 17th c. to the English East India company, and made over by them to the British crown in 1833. Its value consisted in its being a convenient hahing-place on the homeward voyage from India—a value enhanced by the fact, that the cape of Good Hope had, ten years pre viously, been colonized by the Dutch. On the outward voyage, however, it was not available for sailing-vessels, which, under the influence of the easterly trade-winds, could reach it at last only after overshooting it for both to the w. and to the s.;
and this difficulty of access peculiarly fitted it to be the residence of Napoleon Bona parte, who here lingered in hopeless captivity from 1815 to 1821. The nature of the coast, too, would render a hostile landing next to impracticable, presenting, as it does, either a naturally scarped face of cliffs ranging from 600 to 1200 ft. high, or the mouths of ravines protected by forts and other military works. There is one good inlet, called James's bay, possessing a fine harbor. Here is situated James's town, the only place of any note in the island.
About 6,000 acres—one-fifth of the entire surface—are available for cultivation, but not more than 500 are actually under cultivation; while uplands of volcanic origin, rising in Diana's peak (in the center of the island) to the height of 2,700 ft, feed large numbers of goats. There are several plains, the largest of which is Longwood, where stands the house in which Napoleon lived. Supplies of provisions, properly so called, are mostly imported, more especially for the resident population.