CHRISTMAS ISLANDS

Matamata Record, Volume XX, Issue 2014, 6 March 1939, Page 6

CHRISTMAS ISLANDS

HOW THEY WER£ DISCOVERED

where it is always Christmas. They are the Christmas Islands, of which there are three, each in a different part of the globe, and they have earned their names because it was upon Christmas Day that they were discovered. Each has a romantic little story to tell. In the Indian Ocean, some 200 miles southward of Java, a mountain thrusts its head above the sea; it is one of the last traces of the vast continent, supposed to have contained a civilised empire, which at some remote moment in the history. ,o£ the world, was overwhelmed by a mighty disturbance of the sea. What was once a mountain peak, very possibly inaccessible, is now a small island.

During the winter of 1643, the ship Royal Mary was homeward bound, and driven off her course by unfavourable winds, came in sight of an islet of which there was no mention in any chart. Captain Mynors, of the Royal Mary, landed for water, and perceiving that he had discovered a new land, sought a name for it. As the date was December 25, what more suitable than Christmas Island? In a letter to the Bast India Company he described his find and told ’how he had given it a. name. This island was formally annexed by one of His Majesty’s ships at a later date.

A very lonely Christmas Island lies in the middle of the Pacific, near the Equator. This is a fairly large atoll of coral, and it was discovered on Christmas Eve in 1777 by Captain Cook, who found it uninhabited and unsuitable to the support of life unless man could be content to live constantly on turtle, in which the island abounded. The island remained nothing more than a name until about 1870, when two venturesome Britons, Henderson and McFarlane, took up their- abode there, getting over the food difficulty by planting coconut palms, in which they began to trade. In 1888 the island was considered important enough for formal annexation,, the Union Jack being flown over- it by Captain Sir W. Wiseman, of H.M.S. Caroline. Within recent years the coconut palm industry on the island has been important enought to interest large British trading concerns. The third Christmas Island is unable to tell the story of its naming. It is situated near Cape Breton, and though it has been the headquarters of a small community of farmers and fishermen for many years, no one knows why or how it came by its name. One can guess that an early British pioneer first set foot upon it on a Christmas Day, claimed it for Britain, and gave it its name; but search of records has never revealed who the man was.