EMIRAU DESCRIBED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 1, 2 January 1941, Page 8

EMIRAU DESCRIBED

A TINY ISLAND

MISSIONARY'S ACCOUNT

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, January 1

A description of- the small island of Emirau, or Emirea, was given by Mr. L. G. Maxwell, of the Seventh Day Adventist Mission, who until eighteen months ago was in command of a mission schooner in the group.

Emirau, said Mr. Maxwell, was a small coral atoll on the north-eastern fringe of the archipelago which formed part of the Australian Mandated Territory of New Guinea. It lay between the north-western extremity of New Ireland and the comparatively large island of Mussau, which was about 20 miles distant. Flat, and measuring about five miles by three, Emirau had a fringing reef, but there was a good landing place for boats on a short length of sandy beach, protected by a little island near the northern end.

Normally there was only one white inhabitant, the manager of a small plantation operated by the Australian firm of W. R. Carpenter and Co., Ltd. The natives, who lived in one village, numbered about 200, and there were a few Chinese on the plantation.

Communication with the outer world, except when a vessel called, was by way of Mussau, on the nearer coast of which were the resident missionary, Pastor A. Atkins, and his wife, with another European, who managed a small sawmill.

The mission station was on a high cliff, and if a steamer anchored off Emirau in daylight Pastor Atkins could hardly fail to observe it. In that case he would very probably send across or go himself in order to find out what was happening. If no one came from Mussau the natives from Emirau undoubtedly would go thither in canoes to carry news of the refugees' arrival. Crossing the channel was an ordinary matter to them, and- they made the trip in all weathers.

It was equally certain that Pastor Atkins would carry the information as soon as possible by launch to Kavieng, the principal settlement on New Ireland, where there was a wireless station. Kavieng was about 80 miles from Emirau, and could ordinarily be reached in a day by the Mussau mission launch, a 35ft craft, with a 16 h.p. Diesel engine.

Mr. Maxwell remarked that Emirau was only about a day's steam from the Japanese Caroline Islands, from which sampans and other craft, which had broken from their moorings in bad weather, often drifted down to the Bismarck Archipelago.