Peel Island, Cumbria with of woodland, in 1932. Peel Island is considered to be one of the origins of the fictional Wild Cat Island in the 1930 book "Swallows and Amazons" and its sequels, by Arthur Ransome. Taqui Altounyan, sister of Roger Altounyan and inspiration for one of the characters in "Swallows and Amazons", described Peel Island in her semi-biographical novel "In Aleppo Once" as "like a green tuffet, sitting in the water, the trees covering the rocks". The island also features in W. G. Collingwood's novel "Thorstein of the Mere, A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland". Ransome, at the age of
Dahomey Amazons bayonet charge. For the loss of 86 Regulars and 417 Amazons, the Dahomey only managed to kill 6 French troops in the melee. The troops were disbanded when the kingdom became a French protectorate. Oral tradition states that some surviving amazons secretly remained in Abomey afterwards, where they quietly assassinated a number of French officers. Other stories say the women pledged their services in protection of Agoli-Agbo, the brother of Béhanzin, disguising themselves as his wives in order to guard him. Some of the women married and had children, while others remained single. According to a historian who traced the