ISLANDS OF MYSTERY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 125, 28 May 1932, Page 9 (Supplement)

ISLANDS OF MYSTERY.

SLUMBER IN INDIAN OCEAN. HOMES OF WILD DOGS, SNAKES AND TITRTI/ES. WHERE GHOSTS OF DEAD YEARS LINGER.

Strangest of all the lonely islands of the Indian Ocean is the Island of Dogs, which you will find marked on the jhart as Juan de Nova, off the Madagascar coast. As you approach this low, sandy island, shaped like a horseshoe, the most prominent object is a ship. No smoke comes from her funnel for she has been aground on those coral reefs for twenty years without breaking up—the Tottenham of London.

Bluff-bowed East Indiamen, Portuguese galleons, pirates of many nations used to fill their water-casks and gather coconuts and turtles at Juan de Nova. Dogs )f every breed, some from Europe, others from China, escaped from the ships and were left behind. To-day their descendants, a wild mongrel horde, are the rulers of the island. They have the place to themselves and boats' crews landing there for water have been fiercely attacked.

When they returned to savagery the dogs of Juan de Nova lost their barks. They call to each other on a weird note which is like no other sound. They droop their tails like wolves. Hunting in packs they seem to have divided the island to their own satisfaction. One pack never invades the territory of another. They scratch in the beaches for turtles' eggs, eat the turtles that crawl out of the sea and stalk sea-birds with the cunning of jungle beasts. For years these dogs have remained unmolested among the palms and bananas of their island kingdom. The Story of Tromelin.

In mid-ocean, between Madagascar and Mauritius, lies solitary Tromelin Island. It is out of all the usual sea-tracks and trade routes; for that reason it was one of the last islands of the Indian Ocean to be placed on the chart.

Nearly two hundred years ago the French Utile was sailing through the night bound for Reunion, her captain never dreaming that a mass of sand and coral lay across his course. When the look-out sighted breakers ahead it was too late. The Utile stove in her planking on a fringe of coral reef and foundered. About sixty sailors and a number of black women—"stowaways" the official record called them— reached the island in safety.

Fifteen years later the castaways of Tromelin Island sighted their first sail. By that time all the sailors had died, and their remained only seven women. On this little island only a mile long and half a mile wide, the survivors, scorched by the sun and fearful of cyclones, lived on fish and brackish water. Captain Tromelin, who rescued them, gave the island his name. Fraslin's Famous Fruit.

North of Madagascar are the Aldabra Isles and the Seychelles, last natural homes -of the giant "elephant"- tortoise* For centuries ships' crews have been raiding these jungle-clad isles and carrying off the tortoises as food. These reptiles stand exposure to all sorts of weather and live through the longest voyage. They form the ideal "live stock" for a sailing ehip and are regarded as a certain preventive for scurvy.

Praslin, another island of the Seychelles group, has a true atmosphere of mystery. On thie small island, and noivhere else in the world, grows the famous coco de mer —the heavy, double fruit with two nuts in one shell. The first of these nuts ever brought to Europe was found floating in the sea. For 200 years after that the home of the coco de mer—which is shaped like the lower part of a human body— could not be found. Scientists proclaimed it the fruit of a tree growing on the bed of the ocean. The discovery of Praslhi Island disproved this theory.

But no explanation of the strange ancient graves in the bush of Praslin has ever been found. They are shaped like sarcophagi. Though the natives place white flowers on them every year, they have no burial custom or legend to throw light on the mystery. It is possible that the early Arab seafarers, who explored so much of the East African coast in their dhows, left their dead on Praslin. Spanish Doubloons.

Many Indian Ocean islands have characters of their own; they are so different from sister isles close by that they might be on the other side of the world. Round Island, twenty-five miles from Mauritius, is an example. There are no snakes on Mauritius; but the poisonous Colubra snake, coloured red, white and black, thrives on Round Island. It does not retreat from the human invader, but rears its head and prepares to fight.

The Breton privateers who made their nests along the Madagascar coasts

and among the islands late in the eightteenth century left many a tale of hidden treasure. On Round Island, it is said, there is a fortune in pearls and Spanish doubloons awaiting discovery. One treasure-seeking expedition from Mauritius was marooned on the island for weeks during heavy weather. They lived mainly on the heart of nabbage palm and sea birds' eggs; and they found nothing but a few skeletons. The "Isles of Death." Early navigators, with a strong sense of the fitness of things, named one group in the Indian Ocean the "Isles of Death.' Modern charts call them the Cargados Carajos Shoals.

Anchors of obsolete patterns and the bones of long-dead ships, explain tht grim name "Isles of Death." Who knows how many wandering frigates, three-deckers and barques crashed to destruction on these low-lying shoals?

Year after year the fishermen of Mauritius make sail and steer for the "Isles of Death." The lagoons boil with fish, from barracoota to the great sailfish weighing three tons. Thousands of turtle are captured on the beaches.

Reunion is the island of exiles. It has taken the place of St. Helena in our modern world, for the French send dangerous political prisoners there. Abd-el-Krim, once leader of the Riffs, is on this island.

The French settlers and half-castes who are at home on Reunion, and the noble company of beachcombers, are never disturbed by the ideas of the feverish world outside. Sugar cane, one of the easiest to grow of tropical crops,

covers the mountain slopes. Mangoes, bananas, fish and chickens are so abundant that no one goes hungry. Generations of sleepy folk have produced startling mixtures of race and colour on Reunion. You see blue eyes set in ebony Negro faces, and Chinese eyes and cheek-bones beneath flaming red hair. "Demaui" (to-morrow) is the watchword of Reunion.

Lonely isles, little changed since the Malays first came sailing down from the North in their great catamarans seeking new land. A trader's bungalow here, a fishing station or guano depot there, set on islands in emerald seas, forgotten by the world.