Page 16 Advertisements Column 1

Evening Post, Issue 149, 20 December 1935, Page 16

-. CMistmas By in the .j.cj. . ■ '"P/ir^i-fi/- (Author of "Exploration . . • . f aCinC * ■■' of Pacific") H^^'«™, in.*he wratern corner of the pines, a two months' voyage through an almost »n«?\i, f * t > ve! l-tethercd- respectable; empty ocean. On December 21 an island was ahnnt /hi « f" tar(r tlc . ls Permanently peopled . si g h ted (probably one of the Carolines) with culti'SuLSn. a^H vZ h P ° ■^ hristla!? vated land and trees and flowers visible to the - civilisation; and year by year with swift sailors; but they got among reefs and could not ■•Sa^SS^TfiS^ SS-EnrUoTt^enSr sete of underwear and chnrnS a nH^Lh™ l fell iH' and in another month beSan the lon S tale , Sfi^S^ffaiwiSLSfflSS: t o* muraeJ or nf ve\ the f efeat 1 " in-arms to thrice-aged aunt/may go unblessed Not £ c "AH seemed easy to ws," wrote one of for us the boar's head and wassail bowl but we th? Pi lots> °, f the ™yag-fs start All finished m have bought our ham or lamb; we have shelled rul". returned peMuless to Spain, Quiros met green peai; we have cbUected a bottle or two Odd "° be\ e*m 5 1S southern, continent and only bands perambulate, reiterating-oh, reiterating- Tor, res had made a successful voyage; Torres who, their two hvmiK anVi nno ,-„=,* J™t~i,, £ li?" j undismayed by mutiny and bad weather, had sail- •■ S. Kunce oneaSfflZun ed from the New H<*rides between New Guinea - angelic manned that toeSon^God ™bo™ It Australia through the strait named after him, • is Christmas; New .Zealand Christmas- Pacific «nd s° to Manila. No, Quiros spent no happy • Christmas 1935 ' Racine Christmas; his great festival, the great point of But the "Pacific Ocean was not always Christian £ is Ufe> was Pentecost, May 14, 1606, on Espiritu not always even sorntcivilised? the^wasa me Santo, the day when he proclaimed his city of New " when it harbntirpd nn shnnVwTrVicT TiT i . Jerusalem, which a new Order of Chivalry was - W S^fSS^"S^SSSf to^guard, the Knights of the Holy Ghost/when The natives Polynesian Tvr P inno=f a « t^ • sailor-boys danced dressed in coloured silk, with ' EeVXTSat'SraS SaLtnd-veryTheerl S '&** ** T* Oa ' ""-Cl and all the company feasted to the sound of music. But that was the end of Quiros's glory, as it was t kfS^te». the end of the heroic :age of Spain. Don Quixote > .— f*r" ——^»3^^». burnt his books and died; and Quiros was betrayed <$/ ~VSSSSS" v King and Viceroy and died. will Wit/ -^— vimA Spaniards were, supplanted ■as explorers by . Wmuli/M^'^* ""°"V^ 'MrcaMi Dutch. In that same seventeenth century, what «H^ ®^XdßSjWl\ sort of Christmas did the most successful of their dl§i?ißSis«M! J voyagers have?' It was the year 1642. On.Decem- ' • ber 19 Tasman, on the coast of New Zealand, had \&*^s los 1: four men in a sudden assault by Maoris in **^ *$PS&i fflffla&WlMl Murderers' Bay; he left the bay and next day his r^M \r vSP^mri^mlm ships, Heemskirck and Zeehaen, 'were surrounded I " JU&S&&JZ&' with land on all sides. What to do? Tasman had jk&l" £) expected a passage here through the land into the ' !fflPWvo^l^J«SSl ' South Sea> and so to Chile > but now he seemed IHflm&^^NalNiSr^ \\ to ,be in another, much greater bay. The wind 3v\lfc*W ffiJlJvSi}JP*fil was westerly and there was a strong sea; he could —-^-"^-BBrilWiTO Bffl^)3rfill not tack put; for fonr days his shi PS rode on their ' ■^^~*"^> JmoM V JsSk±WMßaW\\V anchors in a storm. A council was held on the 24th; Tasman wished to sail further into this bay JySfSwwJH^. t0 search for his passage, but when the weather •^PP^^s^gggal^WwViLJlii^gßP'^fr'^ cleared, the-.wind was easterly, and it was decided J "^P^HaHt^ll" t0 abandon" the search. Christmas Day was spent at anchor' refitting tops and yards, and next day "^il^B>P§fll>k. the ships sailed to the west and the north. The <^f^^^^^^^^^<>>^ Dutch had been caught in the treacherous winds '^^^^^^yyyyy^^ and currents of Cook Strait; so near Wellington /^^o' ' Was *^c TS^ European Christmas spent in New FERDINAND MAGELLAN "Scarce a sober fully took their chance of salvation. December ' rhan 111 thf» dliir»" passed over the waves of the Great South Sea, IXIAIX lil Ulc !>±Up - mas imported into our southern culture. And how coast; R?SBCveen in 1721, off the Horn in furious - did it come? What was Christmas like for the fc-jV^fiT- * £^^V^J^ and ~ who made the ocean known to the western ",, ln c "66;., m l^ e +u Stra i 1i s of Magellan, a world, the" great line of explorers from Magellan ,v Passage (it took them three months to get to Cook, from the sixteenth • century to the S^°?. gh + ' on > hat voyage J which made known eighteenth, who spent December (and many other £«£«,* «^+k lv"afy Pf radlse' and to°k Carlong months) sailing over its waters? Their teret thTOugh the New Hebrides and the Solomons—v . Christmases ought to have been romantic with ' the flrst man since Mendana. Bougainville, at the wide ocean and the stars and the sense of Chwstmas, 1767, was also in those Straits." We newness—at least of geographical nativity, as it c Pme to Cook, and something we can really recogwere. Masefleld has a poem, "Christmas Eve at nise as Christmas. Was not the later eighteenth ; Sea." • century the golden age of the English Christmas?' The moon goes nodding down the west Or should the distinction be accorded to the ago The drowsy helmsman strikes the bell- °? Dickens? At any rate the British tar savoured ■ Rex Judaeorum natus est, his grog. It was off the coast c: Tjerra del.Fuego . I charge you, brothers, sing Nowell, Nowell Ifl,}.' not yet ln the Paciflc. but still symbolical. • Re* Judaeorum natus est ' Christmas .Day," wrote young .Mr. Joseph Banks... Was it like that? Let us see. the observer of Nature and mankind, "air good Christians, that is to say, all good hands, got ' T-TiiniYrt- TliiVct ' ' a£ ominaWy drunk, so that all through the nigHt nUllgcr, J. niISL, , , there was scarce a sober man in the ship. Weather, -r^ . rx _ . thknk God, very moderate, or the Lord knows DaYS Ol Horror whßt would have become of us." Remember, M~*a.yo vji. iiuiiui moraUst, that the eighteenth century sailor had The first Christian in the Pacific was Magellan, *° love ?j Su liquor: IJ :Dr- Johnson, a man -of , He was a little man. not much given to emotion £"* "SStt?" 5" £$*?*%" g0 to «*oltnaa (though he did burst into unrestrained tears as £ ,fw£ g England were not designed « he emerged from the great strait named in his Th, r^efm.. Wen n , i j i. ' * ._ " honour and realised at last the great ocean stretch- a *? Christmas, 1769, Cook, had been to Tahiti • ing before him, the thing he had dreamed of so SIMSS?.?*^ * g°? d PfV* «*» * • long), and he was on one of the greatest voyages fuf^ h f of el uS ve continent; he had saUed up .• in toe history of the world. It was on the evln! fl^K N«w Zealand^. been blown out ol -ing of November 28. 1520, that he entered the xfn^ "* 5? Vhw^^T' «ow off Three \ Great South Sea with three ships and turned north. Ssft .Stn^Sf^? ? y got trusting in God and his own fierce determination S *f?fuJi^Jfif*^ °W fore*ath, ers osed' - But his Christmas was not merry. Magellan was t0 be> " dldn t matter-there was a gentle breeze making for the Moluccas,, the. Spice Islands, the f : —, . very heart of the East Indies, with their fabulous ■ ' , , >% *\ -, -j\ "^ i\< '£ v „'* '"' ? -;T>! riches; but it was not till ninety-eight days later ' " -^^^^^^ \ 'v* that his sick and starving men saw land (except , ' , ' -S^H^^l^' - v ' "*■ for two miserable and naked islets) and human 1 . J&£Js^WsM™st -,\ -l\^~'iC beings again—the islands which Magenan called " * ->-' W^Ma ' v%? ''; "> ■"•'J*,^ ,the Islands of the Lateen Sails and which we know ; ,' M^M"^<-^ il '\^ \^'v as the Ladrones or Mariannes. No storm had ' •' $&*■£?^ W^,^ iK-^T.-■■'■.'■■' spoiled that first Pacific Christmas—but hunger ; -~. * '-^Wgly^Jß^-^ &f 's*K^ -^* ;?f'\ziS and thirst; those days, so peaceful on the sea, were '" ■>' W ' ,#; fl^^BßMK'pSßßfc-^ ■&■ >;^ days of norror. It must have been just around -./ '- '_^jaK^MP^J?^i^.-.' xtX* f°'/ ' Christmas that the men realised their-hunger. The . -" -/&'V water stank, worms and rats had reduced biscuit * , " "^^H^TOy *° AiV V^ to a" befouled powder; and men drank the water, . <*"- ' <w'l'^ , ate the, powder; and ate sawdust, paid half a ducat '■■ -i-^' %$ for a rat, ate the very leather from the rigging. ;'\ '- wMUMi^*'*"'■ '>~X> Christmas had not brought that; but already it - I -*< '&'£*- must have brought scurvy, when gums swelled ' * i ' *'--?«;-;; so that those stricken could not eat even what '', \ "^^KB^KS^^^^^^mß?'- '^ '^''''^ fare there was, and every limb was racked with -, ' j^^^^BSSfl^M^^HMW ~%" * pain. Under that onslaught few remained healthy " - jgm^^^Kimm^WWnEmV*- - *'!V and many died. "If our Lord and His Mother had jfo^Wt^^KK^!^^Ksi >v" "; v not aided us in giving us good weather," wrote ''^^^^^^^M^M--^ "\ WKk*» -&'-< ' - the chronicler, "we should'all have died of hunger - ' |%MS|S|Bml>'^< "i'«fc°v^.in this very vast sea, and I think that never men ii^^i!^^^H»^ '!^»-^"^% will undertake to perform such a voyage." Six- , nlP^^H^lllPli' teenth century sea-travel was not for the holiday - „ "~':<wßm P^' \/ - - -.^^ssV^-l^ ' cruiser; the flrst Christmas was not encouraging. * ' , 'lifr F< \ ■; "l^ffi^'^l Within a few weeks of the Pacific crossing \ Magellan was dead, killed in a silly skirmish in • ' ' CAPTAIN COOK > the Philippines. We don't know much about the ' i way the next great Spanish explorers spent their ~ v .. ■ Christmases. Alvaro de Mendana who- dis- ? nd h haz? weather; but shortly after the wind 1 covered the Solomon Islands—he was looking for S™f?J Ed to ah«rricane with heavy rain and a a great southern continent—seems at Christmas Propiageous high sea. and Cook, running out of 1567, to have been somewhere between the Pau- ™f • :°L.. nd and back aSain» was able to identify motus and the Ellice Islands, one of which the lnree _ . Klnßs and fix the position of Cape Maria Isle of Jesus, was the first land sighted since Va"^ men, onl3r, af*er weathering "a gale of leaving Callao, in Peru, in the middle of Novem- 5 (as he sald) which for its strength and L ber; and the next Christmas Mendana was in ' ? 0"ti nuance was such as I s was hardly in before." Colima harbour, on the coast of Lower' California - next twelve months New Zealand was cirat the end of another voyage made awful by Cu"l najlga^ed a"d the east coast «* Australia .' starvation and. scurvy and fever, and tempest But fuV? ' i~Jf Endeavour survived shipwreck and the Spaniards at sea did not pay much attention to ]? a Great Barrier Reef and sailed through:, the reChristmas—it was one festival among many known dlsc°vered Torres Strait to Batavia. And there met ' . to the Church, And they went on their daily wayhh er tragedy; for it was there that the fever of'the attended by signs and wonders; at the height of t Indies fell on her company, so far so healthy, the tempest St. Elmo's fire appeared on the yard- ~? c?. whlch twenty-nine men died. It was on arm, and the intervention of the Virgin was a ( chrlstmas Day>' "70, that the anchor was raised source of ever-present comfort. And had not the .° leavc \ There was not, I believe," said Banks, 1 Star in the East come again to guide them by day a man 'n the ship but gave of his utmost aid in into harbour at the island of Santa Ysabel? True 2ettlnS up the anchor, so completely tired was . that occasion was in February, but the star was cvefy°n e of the unhealthy air of this place." And none the less potent to save. s0 to Enßland. f Quiros —Pilot Three Yuletides in -and Visionary • the South Seas - . Then there were the Christmases of the great That first voyage of Cook's was the" greatest i visionary Quiros, who died con- voyage yet made in the Pacific-greater than any ' '- vjneedthat he had made final discovery of the con- °ther except Cook's own second voyage, which ": T»l n 'fT vh Tall ge °graPhers believed—that has been called, not unjustly, the greatest voyage '- " % a d"5^ 3 Inc°gnita. the shadow of which ? V« made* On this second voyage, from 1772 to ' ■'• WPhrM MvV S°h t° the New "'5. Cook s P e nt tnree christmases to South ' Sly ? £ Cloud-Piercing mountains f f a; but»» does n°t a PPear that on these occasions ■■"■ >'^*\ he alled Austnalia' del Espiritu Santo (his . hls m^?> the "dreadful energy" of whose language ,:■■ master the' King of Spain was also Archduke of pof r Mr- Forster. the naturalist so much deplored Austria)-Austri a lia of the Holy Spirit. For Quiros ? t ot QWtero drunk. The conditions did riot allow ■' ' V««.a.jreb||ioi»man, and not without reason has !*' On Christmas Day, 1772, the Resolution and '' nor»rvn^n e2?? ■to an.other visionary, his contem- Adventutl were in lat. 50deg, roughly south of the " ■■h?E?7« KQ2 UtOtf' In December, 1595, Quiros C3 pe °f G°°d Hope' surrounded by large masses l in his turn had a starving and thirst-racked com- of lce> and still working gradually southward in pany under his charge-not his own, but the last ""successful search of the Cape Circumcision re- • - tragic survivors of Mendana's second voyage the ported by the sailor Bouvet: By Christoat sZ? Dg Co. ra Pany .w ho had failed to find thl Day> 1773> Co°k had parted company with thl AA- ' h«i SS^T m d found Santa Cruz- who venture: he had been to New Zealand and Tahiti '' of hln . w XCe"^u ISu land CUTshiS it as a corner and the Society Islands, to the Cook Islands and ••• »L ! carryin| with them Mendana's dead body Tonßa and Queen Charlotte's Sound again- and - : St^f;7 Menda£ a' S liv! widow ' a Proud, foolish ilow. once m°re he was working south amid the wnrt? ™~^ a?', wh° washed her clothes in water lee-, ?? "ghtful cold, his sails like plates of metal 252 J?£ / ed °f thlf St- And Quiros- the chief and the men cased in frozen snow as if in armour / i- «5k^ C B h^ tf°n kT'\ ed?? °f those Perilo«* "^""Wway between .Victoria Land andGrThZ ..<• "*b., tiwJc &c ship fxom Santa Cruz to the Philip- Land- Christmas Day was spent drifting along ■