THE LOW ARCHIPELAGO

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 160, 8 July 1922, Page 26

THE LOW ARCHIPELAGO

EIGHT YEARS' TRADING. AN ISOLATED EXISTENCE.

(By T.L.8.)

It is a curious fact that in these days of much travel, hustle and competition In trade, comparatively few people, even in near-by New Zealand, know what and where are "The Puamotus." In order that this article might not be unduly long, it may 'be said ai once that it i= the name given to a group of low coral islands, some fifty or more in number, owned by the French and situated right in the direct route of mail steamera running between Wellington and San Francisco, about 2500 miles from New Zealand. They are not really islands, but atolls of various sizes, most of the lagoons being wholly surrounded by coral reefs, the hitter varying from a quarter to a mile in width —some of the atolls, however, contain navigable passages from the outer ocean to the lagoon inside. The atoll upon which the -writeT lived has two such channels, each more than a quarter of a mile wide, ■with an average depth of six fathoms, and with the safest of anchorages inside. This lagoon is 40 miles by 20 in size, quite large enough to float the British Navy even prior to disarmament days. Yet with the chief essentials possessed by this atoll for promoting and facilitating trade, namely, accessibility to ocean mail routes (San Francisco and Panama to New Zealand and Australia), safe harbour and as-sured freights in the .form of natural products—copra and pearl ehell —there ia not, and never has been, a port of entry there, nor indeed in the whole of this Archipelago, or at present in the Marquesas. The practice is that which has been in vogue ever since the Puamotus first beean to produce, namely, to send the produce to a port of entry in the Society Islands, hundreds of miles away, there to be dumped on the wharf to await a steamer to carry it to San Francisco or New Zealand. In most cases it goes to the former port, which means that the cargo is carried back over the same route on its way to San Francisco, the eteamer conveying it passing within eight of the place where the product was grown and first shipped. HIGHEST GRADE OF COPRA. The encircling reefs which surround the lagoons are practically all covered by sand, to which nature has contributed in agee a further covering of decayed seaweed, Ehell, etc., and in this mixture (it cannot be called coil), cocoanuts thrive and grow in abundance. But nothing else,, either useful or ornamental, will grow there. True it is that occasionally one sees a few banana end breadfruit trees in the villages, but these are grown in soil brought from volcanic islands hundreds of miles away, or else fron» the phosphate island of Makatea. Uprooted trees rarely die in this sand, even -where the roots are -wholly exposed and dead aa Julius Caesar. The leavee and roote of course die off, but the trunk takes fresh root at its "head" (the top of the trunk), and in a few months it will be found ehooting upwards with the virility of a young plant. Many trees uprooted in "the gale of 1906 are to-day bearing fruit. The cocoanut grown in this eand, impregnated as it is with carbonate of lime, are probably the largest in the world, 4000 of them making a ton of the driest of copra. Dr. Smith in his interesting book "The Consols of the East," says that it takes quite 6000 nuts to make a ton of copra in the chief producing countries of the Phillipines, Malay States, and the Malabar Coast. Not more than one half the aggregate plantable area of the Puamotus, however, is at present growing cocoanut trees, the rest of the land being covered by "kaka" and other uselees growth. The natives who own the lands have sufficient income from the trees already there, and being Polynesians, are not fond of work. It is clearly a case where a tax on unimproved lands would have a beneficial effect. Quite three-fourths of the producing trees in ithe Puamotue have grown up with out any human assistance whatever. The only planting that the writer observed during his long stay there was done by the old natives, who cannot expect to personally reap any benefit from their work. But insignificant as this spasmodic planting is, it ie an evidence of thrift, a habit that the young native has not acquired. Hence the unfortunate circumstance is strikingly apparent that a very large area of this archipelago is ■unproductive. The yearly output of copra is not quite 7000 tons, but if properly planted, and cultivated, the yield should reach quite 20,000 ions annually. PEARLS AND PEARL SHELL. Pearl shell is the only other product exported from "The Puamotus," but this industry is at present confined to those lagoons which are totally enclosed, without any passage from the outer ocean. Pearl is to be found, however, in all lagoons in the group, but the natives will not dive in those which are open to the sea, because these have the fearsome reputation of 'being the rendezvous of hnJf the man-eating sharks of the Pacific. Hikueru is the chic-f centre of pearl diving, and in the season (August to December) it has a population of 5000 people as against 100 natives during the remainder of the year. Pearl buyers from Europe and America go there in great numbers, and keen rivalry exists amongst them for pearls suitable for the London, Paris and New York markets. Picture shows and amusements of many varieties in addition to the usual traders find very lucrative business in Hikueru in the diving season, sufficient, it is said, to keep those connected with these concerns in idleness until the next season comes round. The divers own all shell they raise, but are under contract, for the season only, to sell to the firm or schooner which finances them in the unproductive part of the year, the market price being fixed before diving commences. All shell must be opened not less than 1000 feet from the shore, and the oyster thrown back into the sea. This is a srood law, both in the interests of sanitation ashore as well as preserving as much of the spawn as possible. A stood diver will raise, on an average, 2001b weight of shell per day, and the best of them have been officially timed to remain under water 3 J minutes. Diving gear is not permitted, chiefly for the reason that by its use the lagoons may soon become exhausted. This theory, however, is not shared by experts, ,who know that shell exists in almost every lagoon in the archipelago, ana so far, not a quarter of them have ever teen dived." Moreover, Hikueru £-•«£«£-£•--

writer visited Hikueru one of his former native boys who was making his first attempt at diving on his own account landed a beautiful specimen before he had been a week at his new work. The pearl was taken to a buyer who offered SOOO francs for it. But the boy had an old diver with him who knew the value of pearls quite a.s well as the buyers, and after offering it to several others, finally disposed of the pearl for 29,500 francs, equivalent at the then rate of exchange to about £700. Divers make very big money, but are an extravagant people, and at the end of the eeason the majority of them come out in debt to the trader.

The Puamotus is not a tourists' trysting place, comprising as it does a monotonous series of low coral islands, ten feet or less above sea level, without scenery, and without indigenous animal or bird life, save the cosmopolitan seagull. Yet it is well worth a traveller's visit, despite those unattractions, for the curious and beautiful corals he may get there, and to view the living luminous bede in all their primitive grandeur. One may paddle hie canoe over the gorgeous gardens that abound in the lagoons and marvel at the structure of these wonderful plant-a.nin>als, and at the exquisite and variegated colours in then , submarine luxuriancy. A perfectly calm day, however, is necessary to effectually view the splendour of these extraordinary creations. But calm days are a rarity in this low Archipelago, which catches every breeze that blows. Corals do not grow vigorously in less than 10 feet of water, though in some Pacific islands it is said they can be gathered from the ranoe The corals seen in museums, and in cabinet at home, do not give one an adequate idea of their beauty as seen in their primitive state; and the pity is that they cannot 'be packed and sent to friends abroad, to appear, when opened, exactly as they were when freshly plucked from their aqueous beds. Not only do they lose their blushing multicoloured tints after exposure to the air, but the branches and little radiations are co brittle that even when carefully washing the extraneous submarine matter off them some portion is almost certain to break off and thus lose their exquisite and perfect form. PEOPLE RESEMBLE THE MAORI. The natives of the Puamotus are akin to those of Hawaii, New Zealand, and the Society Islands, with straight hair and thin lips. Their language is extraordinarily similar to the Maori, and it is a curious faot that though the Society Islands are situated 'between the Puamotus and New Zealand, the language of the former place is less Maori than the Puamotus dialect. The Tahitian language, as spoken in the Society Islands, contains no G or X, letters that are prominent in the Puamotus and Maori languages. For example, Makatea is Matea, Kaukura is Anura, Kumera is Uroera, and so on in the Society Islands, whereas both the Maori and Puamotus spelling is with the "K." The Puamotuans are a handsome and proud people, very clean in all their habits and exceedingly gentle. They are hospitable to a degree, and one cannot pass a house at meal time without receiving a cordial invitation to join them. "Haere mai tamaa (Come and eat with us) is their idiomatic salutation invariably, and if one happens to accept, a very hearty welcome will be extended to him by theee hospitable islanders. And to strangers from other lands they are particularly gracious. Lord Bacon once said that a person who shews courtesy and hospitality to strangers is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, hut a continent which joins them. This is curiously fitting to these islanders, as well as to their Tahitian cousins, for according to the accepted theory Polynesia once formed a vast equatorial continent. Anyhow the Tahitians and Puamotuans are certainly continental in their natural manners, and nothing human seems foreign to them. The writer was very agrpeably surprised one day when an old native asked whether King George V. followed, as a ruler, all the precepts and teachings of his grandmother, Queen Victoria. When he was

answered in the affirmative, the old man said "Peretane maitai roa" (Britain is very good). The natives still sing a "himeue" composed in honour of "Afretl te tamani o te Viktori (Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, son of Victoria), who visited them 60 years ago. WEATHER CONDITIONS. Mention has been made of the Archipelago seldom experiencing perfectly calm. days. But tempestuous weather is also a rarity there. I>uring eight years' residence the writer never once knew the weather to be any more boisterous than that which prevailed on the New Zealand coast during the Wiltshire week recently. The Archipelago having no protection in the form of high jrround, catch s the breeze from all quarters, and even the trade winds which blow practically all the year around, seem much more boisterous than they really are, rushing by, as they do, just as if they had escaped imprisonment from the cave of Aeolus, and racing helter skelter, afraid of being caught. Still the average number of days in the year that schooners would not be able "to safely anchor in the lagoons could hardly be a dozen, certainly 4 or 5 per cent would exceed the number. And it is the prevalence of those winds, in conjunction with the percolating nature of tnc sandy soil, that makes the Puamotus the extraordinarily healthy place it really is. Few places in the world can show a "no deaths" record during the epidemic of influenza in 1918-19. Yet that is the authentic rr-cord of this Archipelago. In the Society Islands (of volcanic formation), and in the phosphate island of Miikatea, which is only 40 miles from the nearest island in the Puamotus, they lost 23} per cent of their population during that period. And strange to relate, two of the writer's native Puamotus boys, whr- had gone to Tahiti just before the outbreak, and were unable to get back, owing to the laying up of all schooners for three months by order of the authorities, returned sometime afterwards quite well. They had worked with the Red Cross succouring parties ripht through the whole period, without being affected. Tahiti itself lost about 26 per cent of the natives in the epidemic, and many whites.

Knowing this archipelago as the writer , does, he is convinced of the fact that very lucrative trade lies there awaiting development, end if capital be systematically and judiciously introduced by methods purely commercial ac distinct* from the old barter system, it would yield very handsome dividends. And the present is a favourable time for exchange of sterling. The days have long since passed when natives were content to barter their produce for blue beads, tomahawks and tobacco. But legitimate trade is there to be had for the taking, and native requirements are a. thousand times more numerous now (and being daily added to), than in the old Bully Hayes days. And although copra and pearl-shell are at present the only two industries, there are splendid opportunities for other enterprises also, the raw material, to the writer's own personal knowledge, being there in abundance, but up to the present time has not been exploitea. All that is necessary is capital and capable direction.