CORAL ISLANDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9523, 3 September 1892, Page 3 (Supplement)

CORAL ISLANDS

(By It. Pauun, F.G.S.)

Tho coral islands of the Pacific Ocean have a world-wide reputation. Many of you havo no doubt seen something of them. Most of you have read or heard about the beauty of these

palm-clad, white sand - fringed, coral reef-

enclosed, emerald gems, which are scattered about the warm, blue, tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean, bathed in bright sunshine, enjoying the climate of perpetual summer. The most accurate description of many of these islands, and particularly of the Tongan Islands, to which much of this paper will refer, is to bo found in " The A^oyages of Captain Cook," and in "Mariner's Tonga"—Mariner being one of the crew of a buccaneering whaler called the Port-au-Prince, which ship was captured and burnt by the Tongans in 1807, who killed all the crew but about a dozen, one of whom was Mariner. They kept these alive to show them how (o ute the guns they took out of the vessel. Mariner was after a time well treated, and made a great friend. of by the then King of Tonga. r He learnt the language, adopted native customs, lived as ono of themselves for some years, and then making his escape in a passing shi2>, wrote a most graphic account of the manners and customs of these interesting people. My remarks will be confined to those i>Jands which have come under my observation in 1875 and 1891—namely, the Tongan, Samoan, and Fiji groups. Most of those islands I visited can be classed geologically into two distinct forms of islands—one tho direct result of volcanic action, consisting of accumulations of lava, scoria, and volcanic debris; the other the true coral island, being masses of limestone matter evolved out of the sea itself.

The appearance of the former bespeaks their origin. They are mountainous in the extreme, more or less circular in shape, some of them being simply a pile of cinders and lava, with numerous cones projecting from the mass; many of them being a single cone, with a crater in the centre, from which a mass of lava and scoria, often covered with dense vegetation, slopes in graceful outlines to the sea. The older islands of this class are now fringed with coral reefs, such as Upolu in the [Navigator or Saruoan Islands, but the more recent, such as Niaufau in the Friendly group, are destitute of this coral fringe, have deep water all round them, the Pacific rollers meeting no resistance till they burst thundering against the black lava rocks and cliffs which form the coastline.

The coral islands, on the other hand, have quite a different aspect. They occur in clusters, and vary in size from many miles to a few acres in extent. They are, generally speaking, flat, not as a rule raised many feet above sea level. There are a few exceptions which obtain to a height of close on a thousand feet, and these nave the appearance of being a series'of terraces, as if one terrace had been suddenly raised above sea level and remained stationary, while the ever-active coral polyps and the action of the waves formed another terrace at the base, the process being repeated till an island of many terraces, the highest of which has a considerablo elevation, is formed. The coastline of the coral islands is most irregular, of which Tongatabu, the largest island of the Friendly group, is a good example. It has all shapes, but no shape that could be described. It is penetrated by inlets from the sea in all directions. In the vicinity of these islands the sea is a network of reefs, some of which rise to high water level, but many of them are from 10ft to 40ft below, aud, of course, mako navigation difficult. The seaward slopes of the volcanic islands, and as a rule the whole surface of the coral islands, are more or less thickly covered with cocoanut palms. The polyp which is the architect of these coral islands can only live from low water level to about 100 ft below it. As the coral reef forms' it assumes a perpendicular face to the open sea, on which face the polyps flourish, seeming to get their very life from the force, foam, and thunder of the breaking Pacific rollers. The reef grows seaward by the adherence to its face of successive generations of polyps. They absorb so much lime from the sea when living .that when dead they become limestonee, a minulo addition to the rocks formed of their ancestors. The reef thus formed is full of holes, and with a very jagged surface. In the course of time these holes get filled up with coral sand aud debris of shell fish, &c , and eventually consolidate into a very hard rock indeed. The polyp is thus the real architect of the coral island s7 He it is that first extracts from the sea the material to form the necessary stone. There are many forms of limestone rock constituting portions of the coral islands whiuh were certainly not formed by the polyp direct, but were, nevertheless, formed from material which the polyps collected. Most of these rocks contain more or less fossils, showing shells and the different forms of coral growth, the beautiful madrapora being usually most conspicuous; but some of them, although limestone, show no fossils, and appear to have been formed of coral mud, deep down on the ocean bottom. Such of the growing reefs as I have visited were nearly level, their highest point being close to the open sea, said point being about half-tide level. Their surface is most uneven, and they are covered with loose, detached, masses of coral rock, broken off by the force of storm waves. Very little life is seen on that part of the reef which is close to the open sea—only a few sea urchins and sponges. Away from the direct action of the waves the pools, caves, and fantastic grottoes abound with various kiuds of fish, shells, clams, crabs, crayfish, oysters, sea slugs, &c. One peculiar feature I noticed in these;, reefs which I cannot well account for, and that is the numerous deep water channels which intersect them. The outer wall of the reef facing the sea will in places stretch for miles without any opening. Inside that wall the reef, perhaps miles wide, bare at low water, covered at high, is interspersed with deep w&fc r channels, which teem with fish and; are natural larders for the native?, who see the white foam and hear the | thunder of the rollers close at hand breaking against the wall of the reef, while in calm water they reap their finny harvest. There are many theories as to the formation of coral islands. Darwin holds that they are due to the gradual sinking of land below the level of the sea, the growth of the polyps keeping pace with the sinking of the land ; but this would not account for the formation of many of the coral islands. If land were slowly rising instead of sinking, as soon as its surface came within 100 ft of the sea level the polyps would commence to build on it, and a coral reef would form; and if the rising action continued long enough, we should have islands formed of coral rock resembling in appearance and formation many of the islands to be found in the Tongan group— some of them, such as Eoa and Vavau, being of considerable elevation. These islands almost certaiuly rest on a volcanin foundation. But whatever theories there may be on the subject, one thing seems certain, and that is: given a foundation in shallow water, the polyps •will build a reef on it, which reef may in time spread into a continent. They have thus filled up hundreds of miles of the Pacific Ocean to the Surface of the water with their coral ieefr, which as time goes on consolidate into solid rock, drift matter collects and gets heaped up on their surface, and presently vegetation makes its appearance. Between the Friendly and Fiji groups are reefs 80 miles across. Could these consolidated coral reefs and islands be transportod to a climate like North Ofcago, and the sea removed, there would bo another Oamaru stone district. Or, were some of these islands, such as the Vavau group, denuded of their tropical vegetation, the sea removed from their numerous gulfs and inlets, there would remain flat-topped, table-like hills with steep limestone cliffs and broken valleys between them. Now, if these ilat-toppe.d hills and broken valleys were covered with tussock, anyone standing on the edge of one of these cliffs would have exactly the same view as greets the traveller from a hundred different places in the vicinity of Ngapara, near Oamaru.

I will now try and describe these islands, taking them in turn as I saw them last year, and make some remarks on the people, their manners and customs, as I saw them in. 1875 and 1891.

On the 30th of Juno 1891 we left Auckland by the s.s. Wainui, bound to Nukualofa—a port in the Island of Tongatabu, the capital of the Friendly group. The AVainui, I was told in Duuedin, was fitted with all suitable conveniences for the tropics. Perhaps the young man who gave mo this information in the U.S.S. Company's office knew no better, and believed what he said; lot us hope so. But the AVainui was litted up to carry coals from the AVest Coast, and I have no doubt is admirably suited for that trade. As a sea boat she, is flr6t-rate, but if any passenger who had been on board of her for some time in tho tropics were to confirm the statement of the aforesaid young man I would merely remark that his misery had made him mad. There was no bathing accommodation for ladies, and for gentlemen and the oJlicers was one 4-ft tin box next to the pigstyc, which a boy filled with water slowly by means of a wheezy hand pump, and over which a small shower bath had been fitted. AVhen going against a. moderate head sea, or a shower of rain came on, all ventilation was closed. The result I will leave to your imagination. It was a chilly night when, at 6 o'clock, we left Auckland. Next morning we were near the Bay of Islands, the air being so balmy as to suggest the tropics to which wo were bound.

We spoilt most of that day at the Bny of Islands taking in coal, the temperature during the day being GBdeg in the shade, and at 5 p.m. we started on our 1030-mile run to

Nukualofa. As that night we sped over a smooth sea the air felt decidedly semi-tropical. Flying fish of a.-large size are not uncommon about the Bay of Islands. Whereas when fairly clear of the New Zealand coast they are seldom seen till the tropics arc reached. Perhaps this may bo owing to this portion of the Now Zealand coast being washed by a warm tropical current, while when 100 miles away from New Zealand a cold Antarctic current, the same as washes the east coast of the South Island, and which extends right up to the friendly Islands, is met with. It is much to be desired that captains of steamers trading regularly between New Zealand and the islands would take as near as possible at fixed positions the temperature of the sea water. By this means

some reliable information might he obtained as to the nature of the currents of the Pacific Ocean.

We had a head wind daily, with much sea, said by the sailors to be due to the presence on board of a worthy gentleman who travels these islands lor a well-known Dunediu firm. They said he always brought them a head wind except once, when he gave them a hurricane instead.

Pour clays after leaving the Bay of Islands, at 6 a.m., we sighted land, in the shape of an island called Atta by the natives, and Pilstail by Europeans—belonging to King George of Tonga. It is a broken hilly island, having an elevation of 1100 ft, 101 miles from Nukualofa. It is now deserted, but at one tiino'had a population of between 200 and 300 people, but some years ago King George, acting on the advice of the Wesleyan missionaries, deported the population to the main island of Tongatabu and the adjacent island of Boa, where many of them soon died of a disease common, but not fatal, in Tongatabu and Eoa, but unknown at Atta. I heard various reasons given for this action of the missionaries. One was that some South American vessels had captured some of the people and carried them away as slaves. Another was that it is very difficult, and oven dangerous to laud and embark at At';a. And the missionaries, finding it rather difficult to look after this portion of their flock, had them removed to more convenient quarters. Some gentlemen of my acquaintance spent somo weeks recently at Atta, and found life there anything but pleasant, owiug to the broken nature of the country, want of water, and other causes. They expected, as the.island had been long deserted, to find good bird shooting, but were disappointed. They both landed and got away with difficulty.

Situated on the borders of the tropics, surrounded by a sea, whose waters have, I believe, travelled direct from the Antarctic Ocean, and are in consequence comparatively cool, swept almost incessantly by a refreshing sea breeze, the climate of sunny Atta must be healthy and pleasant in the extreme. The appearance of some of the Atta men I met in Tonga made me think they had white blood in their veins. One, whose good services as a cook made pleasanter many of the pleasant days I spent in Tonga, might sit for a portrait of an old Spanish don—ever 6ft high, with high narrow forehead, long face, aquiline nose, keen, dark eyes, thin lips, peaked beard, black, almost straight, hair, long neck, and spare muscular frame, hands and feet very small and neat. This man, nearly 60 years old, used to say that long ago a ship came to Atta and put some white men on the island, and left them there, and he was descended from one of the men thus left.

At noon of the day on which we sighted Atta, the lofty island of Eoa could be perceived) and soon afterwards we saw what looked like a blue niist low down on the horizon. It assumed a greenish tinge us we approached, and was in fact the island of Tongatabu, the largest and most populous of the many islands ruled over by King George. By 1.30 p.m. we were steaming along in smooth water under the lee of Tougatabu, admiring the dense mass of its vegetation, conspicuous amongst which was the cocoanut, with its plume-like crests rising above all other growth. At a distance the cocoanut palm resembles a cabbage tree, and the appearance of the Tonga busb, with the palm trees projecting from it, somewhat resembled the last we had seen of New Zealand bush, where cabbage trees took the place of palms. A New Zealand boy, who was on board, as soon as we got near enough to the land to distinguish the palm tops, and also make out numerous brown grass-thatched native houses scattered about the bush, exclaimed, " What a lot of cabbage trees and Maori houses there are on shore there." At 5.30 wo had safely threaded our way through winding channels between coral reefs and out-lying'islands, and in a masterly manner our captain brought the "Wanna alongside a very 'respectable wharf, which is ono of the boasts of Nukualofa. It is an embankment formed of coral rock and earth, about 12ft above the sea level, 200 yds long and 50ft wide, running out at right angles to the shore, with a T-shaped jetty, constructed of New Zealand timber, at the sea end of it at which jetty ships like the Wainui can tie up with ease. There was apparently not much interest excited by our arrival, there being only a few Europeans and natives waiting for us on the jetty. It was very different when I arrived here in a trading ship in 1875. Then numerous canoes met us miles from Nukualofa, and an ever-iucreasing crowd of them accompanied us to our anchorage—not far from the cud of the present jetty, which then had no existence. The canoes nearly all had fruit, fish, pigs, shells, and curios, which the owners wanted to sell for tobacco, cloth, &c. Now there was not a canoe to be seen, and at first very few natives ; but before long a tatterdemalion crowd gathered on the-jetty, dressed in a mixed assortment of shirts and waistclotbs made of trado cloth of various colours—a few wearing their own made paper cloth, which they manufacture in considerable quantities and call tapu. As a rule, heads, arms, and legs below the knee were bare. There was a sprinkling of native swells among them, variously dressed—some in frock coats, white waistcoats and trousers, low shoes and white stockings, but bareheaded; one or t«o wore a full suit of European white linen or duck, and even had European hats. Each native, on getting as near the steamer as he or she wished, at once assumed the most convenient attitude of repose attainable—sitting down or leaning against anything that might be handy for that purpose. If there was nothing handy, they leaned against each other. Having assumed this attitude of repose they folded arms, and, with a half contemptuous, half wondering look on their self-complacent comely countenances, stared steadily at the Waiuui. Of all the people I have seen, the Tongans have the appearance of being the most 6elf-satisfied. They deem themselves the salt of the earth. They talk among themselves of Europeans as white pigs. Anyone who thinks he can go to Tonga and impress the natives with admiration will soon find out his mistake. Compared with ourselves, the Tongans are still physically a fine race. Compared with what they used to be, they nre as boys and girls to meu and women. As from the Wainui I looked upon the crowd on the jetty, I was struck with the falling off in -physique they showed compared with the crowds that thronged about me in 1875. Again, in 1875 they were merry, vivacious, full of song and loud exclamations. Now they were silent, sad, and dour looking. Further observation, and information gathered from gentlemen who have known them longest, forced me to the conclusion that this noble race of people is deteriorating in a most painfully rapid manner. Tho old Tongans, of whom I saw many in 1875, were men of almost gigantic 6tature, hardy, and active. 'The present Tongans are still of good statue, but soft and fat, and apparently indifferent to passing events. They are decreasing in numbers at a rate that bids fair to leave very few remaining in 50 years' time. Aud this is not because their death rate is excessive, but because their birth rate is altogether inadequate to keep up the population. During three months I was at Tougatabu the Government returns showod 87 deaths and 32 births, and the British consul who gave me these figures said this was tho normal population.' In 1875 the total population was put down at 40,000. In 1891, the highest estimate I heard was 20,000. Only seven years ago the population of Tougatabu was 10,000, whereas now it is only 7000. I tried to fiad out a cause for this fading away of what was once the most vigorous race in the Pacific, of whom Cook speaks with the greatest admiration as to their physical excellence and social codes— who beat his best men boxing and wrestling; who couquered all the surrounding islands ; and who but for the intervention of the British Government would havo conquered tho whole of the Fiji group. Less tban 50 years ago they were vigorous and increasing, now they are blighted and fading away. It seems to me that the best way to fiud out the cause of such a state of things is to see what changes, if any, have taken place in the daily lives of the people. And this I have tried to do, and ib seems to me that the Tongans in their flourishing days, before they fell under tho withering blight of European influenco, were anything but savages, having admirable social laws suited for their requirements, which were administered by despotic chiefs, who scrupulously upheld the traditional laws ;of their country, aud who, while they exacted implicit obedience, seem to have administered justice to all in a way that leaves little to be desired.

Iv those days they were accustomed to a state of great bodily activity. Their prosperity depended on their physical strength, their warlike skill, and tho abundance of their food supply; so that to gain these ends tho young men were formerly trained in manly ami warlike exercises, the most profitable cultivation of the soil, and the erection of watertight dwelling houses, admirably suited for the climate. Their time was spent in these various occupations. And the women made cloth, cooked food, and assisted the men in many of their occupations, such as fishing, &c. Under these circumstances the Tongans nourished. Their houses were excellent, their food ;\bundaut, their clothing sufficient. The upper and lower parts of their bodies, beiDg bare, were anointed with oil, which prevented the showers common to their climate giving them cold. But the white man came and all was changed. Fighting ceased, so the men were no longer trained to physical excellence. They were ordered to clothe their bodies with Euroi;ean cotton goods, with the result that whereas formerly their well greased bodies suffered no harm from the passing showers, now the cotton shirts they are forced to wear and not allowed to remove when wet, cling cold and clammy to their skins, and produce numerous and fatal complaints. Again, the Europeans give them money for their cocoanuts and bananas, which once gave them food and oil. Now they do without the oil and buy with ihe money food unsnited to their constitution. They are giving up their old, well-ventilated houses and substituting miserable, unhealthy, ill-ventilated abortions of corrugated iron and wood. They flourished by constant hard'physical exercise. Now the need for the exercise has passed and they are idling themselves out of existence. Their doom seems sealed. They are fading away before the European as fades night before the rising sun. They have given up their own form of Government and hive one. modelled after the British. They have a king, parliament, courts, taxes,

and, that most vexatious and expensive of all the appendages of civilisation, lawyers This burden of Government has been put upon their unsophisticated backs by the Europeans, chiefly by Mr Shirley Baker, late Wesleyan missionary. The Tongans love their kiug, but in the hands of the Europeans he has been a stick to beat their backs. Bach adult has to pay a poll tax of 9dol a year, besides which there are various other taxes, amouutiug in all to 19dol a year. If they fail to pay their taxes they are let out to the highest bidder to work off their debt. For many acts which their new laws make criminal, but which were once the custom of the country, their new fangled judges sentence them to various terms of imprisonment. These prisoners are handed over to someone, often a chief, and have to work for him for no wages ; but the relations between the master and prisoner are of a most friendly nature. They evidently think none tho worse of themselves or each c ther for being prisoners. I have often had prisoners fishing, boating, and doing camp work with me, and many a hard working man in New Zealand would enjoy for a bit being a prisoner in Tonga.

The Tongans have the reputation of being groat thieves and very cunning. They stole much from Captain Cook ; even tried to steal one of his anchors. They professed to be great friends with him, so much so that he called them Friendly Islanders; but all the while they were hatching a deep scheme to capture him and his ship. They invited him and his officers to a big banquet, meaning to make their deaths the chief event of the feast, but for some reason or other the great navigator declined that invitation. Perhaps he suspected their designs. King George is a very old, very shrewd, digui-fied-looking man. He says he was a youth in 1807 when tho Port-au-Prince was taken, and describes what took place on that occasion. He drives about in a small pony chaise, and gives a military salute to anyone that bows to him. The Tongans can . nearly all read and write in their own language, and have a college and numerous churches. They are very good cricketers, and the small boys are very fond o£ marbles. Mr Moultou, who started the college there, says their intellect is better than the average European.

I mentioned just now the name of Shirley Baker, and cannot help referring again to that gentleman's work in Tonga, for his has been the leading voice and guiding hand to bring the present state of things to pass. What I am about to say about this gentleman is the result of information gathered from all sorts and conditions of people in Tonga, and my own observations. Mr Baker was a Wesleyan missionary, who took advantage of his position to trade with the resources of the kingdom of Tonga.' The way he went to work was this: —He induced the King of Tonga, an old man of 90 years, to use his absolute power over the people to create a full-blown European form of government, the whole paraphernalia of which was put upon the backs of the unsuspecting islanders, who, having been accustomed implicitly to obey the king, allowed these laws to be put upon them, knowing nothing about them, but thinking it was all right because the kiug said so. Baker was himself Prime Minister, Minister for Lands, Treasurer, and other things—in fact, ho was the Government of Tonga, and all he had to do to continue so was to keep in with the old king; and this he did by buildiDg him a grand palace, a private church, getting him acknowledged by captains of war vessels, turning his head with flattery and making him think himself one of the great kings of the earth. Baker put on the taxes already referred to, and besides these taxes he imposed excessive lines for breaches of the new laws. The people for the most part were unused to and ignorant of such laws. The other Wesleyans, with Mr Moulton at their head, got disgusted with Baker's proceedings, and induced the Wesleyan Conference (whose headquarters were, I understand, at Sydney) to remove him. But he took himself back; the king received him with open arms and 2>laced him again in absolute power.

lleseated in authority, Baker went for the Wesleyan Church in Tonga, and made no scruples about it. He got the king to start a new church, call it the Free Church, and order his subjects to join it. A good many did as the kiug wished ; but a largo portion of them, inspired by tho Wesleyan missionaries, refused and were persecuted accordingly. They were thrashed, flucd, had their craps destroyed, were driven from their homes, and forbidden to hold church services.

The country got into a terrible state. Many people were starving and uuable to cultivato their plantations. Many of them suffered abominablo persecutions, and I do not wonder that at last someone in a crowd fired a gun at the author of their misery. The charge missed Baker and hit his son and a horse. By Baker's authority six men (four of them innocent) were taken in chains to a lonely island] some seven miles away and shot for this attempt, although by the law of Tonga no man can be executed for merely an attempt to kill. This island is now called Massacre Island. At last, after many petitions by the white residents, the British Government stepped in, had au inquiry, and deported this man to New Zea-

laud. He has gone, but the evil he did remains. He has split up the Wesleyan Church in Touga, and formed two sects which hate each other with an increasing hatred. Finding fee could not obtain possession of the numerous handsome churches, manses, and schoolsbuili; through, the kingdom by the Wesloyans, ho induced tho king to build new churches and manses as close as possible to the old one?. Itis patent to anyone that the site of these new buildings has been chosen co as to give as much annoyance as possible to the worshippers in the old. Of all the heathen that have been ia Tonga, I must consider Baker the greatest, and ho has done more to bring Christianity into ridicule and contempt than I should have thought it possible for one man to do in so short a time. Before Baker brought this disturbance on the country the people, as I saw in 1875, were cheerful, well fed, clothed, and housed. Now, as a gentleman in high authority said to me, they want food, clothes, and houses. They live like hogs, and die like dogs. It is much to be rpgretted that such an ablo writer as "The Vagabond" should have given such a distorted account of Baker's

doings and a false impression of the prosperity of the people, as he has done in his book called " Holy Tonga." The fact that he spent a. very short time at Tonga, and a good deal of that in the company of Mr Baker's family at the king's palace, may account for his misrepresentations. " Vagabond's" wholesale condemnation of the white residents as beach-combers is utterly unwarranted and a direct insult to a community of people who are on the whole as respectable as any community to be found in the colonies. "Vagabond" I am afraid relied almost entirely on the information he got from Mr Baker's side of the house, and it is known that Mr Baker paid him a sum of money for the reprinting of some of his papers on Touga. In talking of the Island of Eoa, " Vagabond " says that the sheep owned by Messrs Parker Bros., who had the island as a sheep run, were so scabby that they had to be killed. ,Now Mr Parker told ms himself that it is true they had scab, but wore getting the better of it when their lease fell out. They applied to Baker for a renewal, but Baker refused. He knew that on account of scab being among them Parker could not ship them from the island, and calculated that he would in consequence" be able to get possession of the sheep, some 20,000 in number, ou the expiry of the lease. He was accumulating fencing plant, and making preparations for taking possession of both run and sheep. But the Parkers, sooner than that Baker should thus get their sheep for nothing, got the Payne brothers, well known in Tonga, to help them, and destroyed all their sheep by driving them over the steep cliffs into the sea. Soinuch for Mr Shirley Baker.