AT NAURU

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 March 1922, Page 3

AT NAURU

' LOADING PHOSPHATE CARGOES. Nauru Island, although of rocky formation, has not at all a forbidding appearance; on the contrary, it has all the attractiveness of a tropical 1 island, and is fringed on the coast in places by coral reefs. Cocoa palms are the chief vegetation, but there are also other tropical friuts such as bananas and mangoes. As steamers ap--1 preach the island it presents from the water an appearance strikingly symmetrical on either hand. I’rom the ; sea to the right, and again to the 5 left, the land slopes evenly upwards, ■ and reaches the greatest height at ' abi mt the centre of the island. Here are situated the works for getting out the rock phosphate, and tho supplies as they arc loaded into trucks arc. taken down to the pier on the shore to be loaded to the lighters that are floating close at hand. Each of these has three or four large baskets, holding about fifteen hundred-weight of phosphate in its loose state. Tho phosphate is loaded into the baskets by means of a shoot, from the pier, and when three or four lighters are loaded in this way an oil-driven launch tows them out to the cargo steamer that is being loaded further out, moored to a buoy in the. open sea. Here is a scene of busy industry. By means of the ship's winches and derricks the baskets are lifted from tho lighters Io the. deck of the ship and loaded into the holds. In good weather about 1500 tons can be loaded a day in this way. There is no delay, Ihe lighters moving in constant stream from the shore io the. ship and back again for fresh cargoes. Assisting in the work of handling ihe cargoes and working the lighters are natives of the Gilbert Islands and New Guinea, but the majority of these workmen are, Chinese, though there are also Japanese. The natives of Nauru do not take any part in ihe work ; but. prefer to follow their old modi' of life, which consists in fishing or gathering cocoanuts or fruit about the Island. On the Island are about 70 European inhabitants who are engaged in the phosphate works. Along tho shore are signs of tho industry of these people in the cosy little dwellings among the palms and the public buildings that have been erected. There is generally one or more steamers at the Island, and when the AVaitomo left there with her 6000 tons for Auckland, an Australian steamer of the Howard-Smith Line was waiting to load about the same quantity for the Commonwealth. No cows are seen on the Island ; but in their place goats are kept by tho inhabitants to supply them with milk. During the summer months the -weather is often v&ry hot, as the Island is close to the