The Giant

This is how the story has been narrated over the years:

…. “He was nine (9) feet six inches tall [more than 2.7 metres]….. and he died in the 1870’s. He was little more than a boy, but so strong that he could pick up a pirogue from the beach and carry it into the water. Many times he lifted a sack of rice with a little finger. As big as he was, he kept growing. People became frightened; it was feared that he would terrorise the island. So he was poisoned, but nobody knows by whom” [Thomas 1968:31]

Over a century or one hundred years later the giant  was sighted by a visitor walking up Bel Air Road, in the dark near the cemetery , as reported in a the colonial government paper:

“……..The sound of someone following me was disturbing, but of no account since the distance he kept was marginal. I kept a close watch out of the corner of my eye thinking, if you start any trouble I shall be a match for you. We proceeded as a close knit pair up the steepening road, I watching for any untoward move, when a frozen fear took hold of me.

I shouted and turned to the right, thinking instinctively that my attention was being held to the left while my assailant attacked from the right.

There was a huge figure of a man beside me! I yelled out and took to my heels……….”

(“Seychelles Bulletin”: May 4 1974).’

Source : Virtual Seychelles