PACIFIC ROMANCE

Evening Star, Issue 19441, 27 December 1926, Page 2

PACIFIC ROMANCE

RAOUL, OS SUNDAY ISLAND

HISTORY OF THE BELL FAMILY

[Written by “Sirius,” for the ‘Evening Star.’]

In the Kermadec Group lies' Raoul or Sunday Island, which is 500 miles approximately to the* north-eastward of New Zealand. It was on this deserted island that the Bell family lived for over forty years, commencing in the seventies. Excepting for enforced absences for education in New Zealand, their childran grew to manhood in this lonely isle. It is situated in latitude 29deg south, and near enough to the 180th meridian to cause ono to say that he is twelve hours ahead or behind Greenwich time. Travellers are familiar, when passengers in mail boats, with tho loss or gain of one day of the week which occurs on their voyage across this meridian, subject to whether they are bound eastward or westward. Here at Sunday Island you could have your choice without being out in your calendar, observing, however, that you would have to remember whicli way you are looking.

It is interesting to note that in the ‘ New Zealand Pilot ’ this group is reported as having in 1906 as inhabitants three males and two females, all one family—viz., the Bell family. A landmark is also mentioned as the Bell homestead. Raoul, now more familiar as Sunday Island, was discovered by Admiral d’Entre Castcaux in 1793. The other islands, which are merely rocks, are over sixty-five miles from it, and had various discoverers. The main island of the group was Raoul, and it was annexed in 1886 by Great Britain, and then by New Zealand in 1887. It is an island with an area of 7,200 acres, and has a circumference of fifteen miles. The highest peak, called Mumukai, is 1,632 ft above the sea, and the islands are now visited by a New Zealand Government steamer. The island received its name Raoul from the French admiral, who had a sailing master called Joseph Raoul. Tho Bells owned a flasmill in Nuhaka, North Island, New Zealand, but sold out, and proceeding on their way to Papua happened to call at Samoa, where they heard that tho island was deserted and could ho had for the taking. With the assistance of a local sailing ship owned by a Captain M‘Kenzie, they were able to land on _ tho island with a little clothing, provisions, and seeds to commence life and wrest a livelihood from its fertile soil. They landed at Denham Bay, which is about the only suitable landing place, as the remainder of its small coastline is precipitous to the sea from a height of 60ft and above.

Fitting up raupo huts, of which Mrs Bell to this day talks as being very comfortable, and which were situ ate ( near the landing place, the Bells were determined to have their produce in hand for ships that accidentally passed the island for Australia. Their first hardship was in the numerous rats that infested the island. They wore of the hibernating species, and" they came swarming at night and tore up the seeds almost as soon as they were planted. The family obtained an old mooring buoy and used it as a trap, by which Mr Bell estimated he caught as many as 200 at a time. In addition, they lit fires and mounted guard at night. Their eldest daughter became an expert huntress, and with rifle and sheath knife shot and stripped goats that were eventually introduced into the island, bringing them home all ready for cooking. Other tribulations came in due course in the form of hurricanes and earthquakes. A small island in Denham Bay was upheaved in 1870, and it again disappeared in 1877. The final catastrophe was caused by a waterspout, which wrecked their house of rnbberoid. Nevertheless, the Bell family lived for forty years on this lonely isle, and the old couple, who now live at_ Grafton road, Auckland, recall their lives with considerable longing and desire for return. Their health seems to have been perfect throughout, and they are now nearing ninety. Their only medicine was obtained from the well in the island, which appears to have mineral properties. However, they were often disappointed by the inability of vessels calling at the 'island to take their produce. It could only he worked in calm weather. They cultivated fourteen kinds of bananas that grew wild on the island, and they exported dried beans and tame goats, which gave them a plentiful supply of milk. The vessels of Messrs Henderson and MacFarlame called for their produce, hut they were often disappointed owing to the absence of a protected landing, and frequently their work went for nothing, which must have been a bitter pang to bear. No less than eight children were borm to them on the island, and one has only to imagine the attendant difficulties and anxieties of the parents,_ who, however, never suffered any illness throughout their long sojourn. In the midst of her many duties Mrs 801 l kept a meteorological record, which was handed over to the late Mr S. Percy Smith for the New Zealand Meteorological Office. It is interesting that Rear-admiral Hotham, C. 8., C.M.G., R.N., when commodore commanding tire New Zealand station, recommended Sunday Island as eminently uuitablo as a station for recording hurricanes and weather reports for the Pacific. One of the historical incidents of this lonely spot was the capture of the 'Union Line’s old Wairuna, which unsuspectingly passed close to the island in .1917. This unfortunate vessel discovered an aeroplane hovering over it, from which peremptory written orders were dropped on the deck. These orders caused them to proceed to the anchorage, where they were met by the German raider Wolf, which had come to the end of its tether as far as coal and stores were concerned. Obtaining these commodities from the Wairuna enabled the raider to carry on and continue laying mines and sinking merchant ships of the Allied -nations then at war. She sowed further mines off the coasts of New Zealand and Australia and in the Bay of Bengal, and finally completed her voyage hack to Kiel, Germany. The Wairuna was sunk off the island by the raider’s 6in guns. Incidentally an officer of this Wairuna took a note of the mines dropped on the New Zealand coast, and carefully kept a log of the actual number sown and localities, which he was able before the termination of the war to convey surreptitiously to the Admiralty, Relying absolutely on this information, the Admiralty, through the New Zealand naval authorities, employed local mine-sweeping trawlers and accounted for nearly the lot. This officer, who was kept a prisoner on the raider, was transferred to a consort of the Wolf before reaching Germany, and was fortunately wrecked on the Danish coast, and was there interned for the remainder of the ,war. Ho was subsequently decorated for his very successful transmission of the foregoing German minelaying information.

In l'J22 the American schooner Columbia was wrecked at Raoul, or Sunday Island, and this necessitated H.M.N.Z.S. Chatham, then on the station and commanded by Rear-admiral • HoUinm, then commo'dore, to call and pick up the survivors. This was attended with great personal risk to the rescue party that net nit in the Chatham’s motor boat, nving to Eiie tremendous surf creaking round the island. The rescue, nowever. was effective, in spite of the inaccessibility of the islet, and the

American Consul at Auckland presented to Surgeon-commander Paterson and an A.B. a. pair of binoculars and a gold watch respectively for their plucky endeavors when swimming through the surf in order to pass a lifeline, and so enable the survivors to be taken off to the motor boat. This recognition was effected on behalf of the residents of U.S.A. The Bell family had left ere these incidents took place, but the parents regard their lives spent on this island n.s being very happy, and the severance with it still causes regret. Mr Bell is a. Yorkshireman, and Mrs Bell a Londoner by birth.