Some 180 million years ago, when the ancient, super-continent of Pangea crumbled, a group of magnificent, break-away isles began to drift slowly across the face of a primeval ocean, a 1000 miles from what is, today, the east coast of Africa – a necklace of sparkling island jewels strung upon invisible threads of silver surf: The Seychelles.

Such was their isolation that they flourished, alone, for millennia, far from the turmoil of other, distant worlds, visited only by early Arab navigators who gave them poetic names – like Aldabra– in honour of their heart-stopping natural beauty.

Others may well have sailed past, or even stayed awhile; the Phoenicians of old or brave Polynesian seafarers en route to their new home in Madagascar. If they did, they left no traces of having been there. Later pirates discovered perfect hideaways among the isles – and sites where to conceal fabulous treasures whose names are still whispered.

It was the Portuguese navigator Juan de Nova who would make the first recorded landfall in the Seychelles in 1501 followed by a sighting of her Amirantesislands by the celebrated Vasco de Gama, in the following year, bequeathing to them his name for all eternity – The Islands of the Admiral.

Beyond these fleeting visits, mere specs in the hourglass of time, Seychelles slumbered still, unknown and undisturbed, for three long centuries. In 1770, following a succession of expeditions to the islands, the French established the first settlement with ‘15 whites, five Malabar Indians, seven Africans and a Negress’ – an assortment prophetic of the rich ethnicity of today’s Seychellois society for which harmony is, quite simply, a way of life. The Seychelles remained in French hands until Napoleon’s defeat under the British, upon which the islands were formally ceded to Britain under the 1814 Treaty of Paris – in this way acquiring, along the way, a love for French traditions, customs and language that lingers until today, particularly in the domains of architecture, language, music and Creole cuisine.

Under British administration the islands slumbered once more, as little more than a backwater colony whose population would reach some 7000 by 1825. This period witnessed the establishment of Victoria as the colony’s capital and the growth of grand estates of coconut, cotton and sugarcane. It also saw the repercussions from the abolition of slavery and as well as the hardships of a world at war.

In 1976, the Seychelles achieved independence from Britain and became an independent republic within the Commonwealth.  Today, the nation thrives as a multi-party democracy with Mr. James Michel as President and executive head of state.