Kiritimati was apparently uninhabited when Captain James Cook landed on Christmas eve 1777.
He named the desolate island “Christmas Isle” and stayed to hunt turtle and fish.
Yams, melons and coconuts were planted for the benefit of future visitors, and
on the 30th of December Cook and others went ashore to observe an eclipse
of the sun, check the clocks and establish longitude. Cook left on 2nd
January 1778 and it was 11 years before another British sea captain,
Thomas Gilbert, explored this and other Islands in the region
which became known as the “Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony”,
under British rule until 1979, when these and 17 other islands, became
the Independent Republic of Kiribati. Early last century Father Petrics Emmanuel Rougier,
a French priest, left his mark by overseeing the planting of half a million coconut palms
and giving names to some of the villages, in particular; London, Poland and Paris. This photo
was taken from London foreshore on the ocean side looking south, and Cook island is the low island
on the horizon. The low peninsula,with trees, which extends from the left side of this photo is
part of Kiritimati which ends at Benson Point.