ISLANDS OF ROMANCE

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3715, 19 October 1926, Page 7

ISLANDS OF ROMANCE

PALMERSTON, AND SOME OTHERS HALF-CASTES OF THE PACIFIC The devastation of Palmerston Island by a tidal wave lias called attention to one of the romantic settlements in the Pacific (says the ‘Ob server’). William Marsters, a British adventurer, settled there in 1862 with his Polynesian wives, and its population to-day consists of about 100 of their descendants, who have been reduced to a most primitive condition. The great wave destroyed practically everything in the island and carried away even their fishing lines and hooks, so that they had to catch fish with their hands, and, until assistance arrived, supplement their meagre fare with fallen cocoa nuts.

The nearest parallel to Palmerston, in the Pacific, is probably Pitcairn, the oldest British colony in the Southern Hemisphere after Sydney and Norfolk Island. Its inhabitants are descendants of tho mutineers of the Bounty, who settled there in 1790, taking with them six Polynesian men and a dozen women. Twice attempts have been made to drag them away from the island. In 1831 they were taken to Tahiti, but the change was not liked, and they all went back. A quarter of a century afterwards Sir William Denison, then Premier of New South Wales, sent the Morayshire, which removed all the inhabitants, then 194, to Norfolk Island, the one-time “Hell of the Pacific,” which had been left empty by the removal of the convicts. Though Norfolk Island suited them better than Tahiti, some of them grew homesick and returned, and the descendants of the original Pitcairners are now divided between these two lonelv islands, over 3,000 miles apart. They still speak among themselves a patois derived in the main from the language of the Tahitian women whom the mutineers took to the island, and most of them also speak English fairly well. Some years ago they adopted tho religion of the Seventh Day Adventists, who have a missionary there. There is no postal system. The islanders hand their letters to passing ships, often leaving it to the officers or passengers to pay the postage. A COMPANY ISLAND. Some of the Pacific Islands had a very large native population in the old days, but disease has decimated them. Amongst the few hundreds that now for the most part form their population there are often to be found one or two whites, and sometimes live or six. There is one island, Malden, peopled solely by the employees of the Malden Island Proprietary Company, whose duty is to collect guano and prepare it for shipment. They live m wooden houses which are described in Stewart’s * Handbook ol the Pacino Islands ’ as very roomy and comfortable. Everything required for their use is imported. The island swarms with wild cats, and there arc some wild pigs and goats, the descendants ol animals turned loose some years ago. THREE GENERATIONS.

Swain’s Island, known also as Jennings’ Island, lying some 200 miles north by cast ol Apia, Samoa, has been owned continuously since 1000 by three generations ol American citizens, and is now the property of Alexander Jennings. In 18-50 it was made over to Eli Jennings, grandfather of the present owner, in virtue of supposed rights due to discovery, by the English vovager Captain Turnbull, Eli Jennings settled on the island with his wife, the daughter of a Samoan duel. The population, when it was last numbered a few years ago, consisted ol about thirty adults and some forty children, all Polynesians, or halfcastes, who have a church and a resident missionary. There are many British and American missionaries, of course, scattered about the islands, living either alone or with their families. from the earliest missionaries who went from this country to Mulgrave Island, more generally known as Badu, the natives learned and adopted the old English folk dances. THE POSSES OF COCOS. Homantic settlements in far distant places are not, of course, confined to the Pacific. A well-known case is that of the Cocos and Keeling Islands, m the Indian Ocean. There lor more than a century the Clumes-Poss family have lived and ruled among a population which has never numbered more than a few hundred, including a score of Europeans. . . ... In 1825 John Clumes-Hoss landed in the islands with Alexander Hare, the son of a Loudon watchmaker, whose desire it was to live the hie of an Oriental monarch. Hare took with him Ids harem and petty Court; Koss was accompanied by his iamdy. the entire company numbered 170, menu - ing twenty whites. The joint adventure was 'not successful, the motives of the two men being entirely diftexeat; but after Hare retired to die in Singapore, his courtiers, musicians, harem, and slaves having vanished. Ross laid claim to the whole group of islands, which he ruled for twentyseven years till his death m tool. His son. John George, succeeded linn as chief of the Cocos, and m his time the islands were first proclaimed British territory, their chief being appointed Governor He married one . the islanders, a Malay of Loyal Sol blood, and their six sons all received their education m Scotland. Iho eldest, George, was studying engineerin«' in Glasgow when he was iccallul to'help bis father in the work of reestablishing the industries of the islands alter a severe cyclone had devastated them in IBG2. He, too married a Malay, and through her his nfluence over the natives was strengthened. He succeeded us lather with the official title ol ‘‘Superintendent of the Cocos and Keeling Islands, and at his death, in 1910, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Sydney Clunies-Koss. , There is the lamoiis case, 100, *.<> mention no others, ol the Brooke family, who for more than eigh,v ...... rs have ruled m Sarawak, then position as Hajal. having been formally recognised by King Edward.