THE CRUISE OF THE MILDURA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2437, 28 November 1900, Page 11

THE CRUISE OF THE MILDURA.

THE PENRHYN PEARL DIVERS

A SHARK STORY,

TRADE UNDER THE FRENCH FLAG.

THE HORRORS OF LEPROSY.

(Feom Otjb Special Repobter on Boabd H.M.S. Mildtoa.) (Continued.) We steamed in the cruiser's launch through a gap in the reef into the Penrhyn Lagoon, and felt our way betweer the shallows to the corner of an island, where a little village rested in the palm trees, and gleaming whitepainted boats lay at anchor near miniature ,wharve.s that straggled lagoon-ward from the ibeaoh. Some of, the boats, with great eails spread before the stiff trade that was ruffling 'the surface of the lagoon, came down the wind like white-winged frigate birds. Whet eplen did sailors these Penrhyn Islanders and Aitutakians are! One boat, with a white cloud of sail and a man perched out on the jibboom -to steady her, came through the passage in -fine style. Her swarthy crew were most picturesque in garb and quaint in manner. Some iwore gold ear-rings. One had a white helmet: another a straw hat, -nith the name of some trading firm printed on the band in large letters. ; I have been wanting to tell you a shark story for the^past two or three days, but I have only just muetered up courage to do so. Even now I do. not expect I shall be believed. People will believe the stories of a De Rougemont, when they will laugh with tcorn at less improbable statements. It is the old story of the old woman and her Failor son returning from his fir at cruise. She- could quite understand that there- were mountains of sugar and rivers of rum in Jamaica, because that was where the sugar and the rum,' came from ; which I am still mustering up courage to tell that to the marines. Now, this shark story — which 1 am still mustering up courage to teil you — concerns the divers of Aitutaki. There are sharks there that in the heat of the day push their heads and the greater part of their bodies into the small caves that exist in the coral rock. .At this time the natives of Aitutaki will row in a boat along the lagoon till they come to one of .these caverns from which they can see the shark's tail sticking out. Then one of the natives will dive from the boat, with a thin rope line in his hand, and hitch." it over the shark's .tail. ' It may be.nece3sary for him to make a second dive before the rope is properly fixed. Then he will return to the surface, gi%'e-the signal to the crew to haul away, and in a minute or two the shark will be in the boat. Several people have seen this done at Aitutaki, among them the Rev. Mr Lawrence, Captain Macbeth, of the Ovalau, Captain Wyrill, of the missionai'y ship John Williams, and Lord Osborne, who was there only the other day. Lord Osborne and his Fides Achates did not believe the yarn. The natives said : " "Very well ; you line a boat, and we'll show you." And they did. It was not very long before the 'divers had a shark in the boat, and it flopped around to such purpose that Fides j Achates, who forgot for the moment that he was sitting on the gunwale, lifted his feet suddenly out of the way. and went overboard — Ge-gla.ss and all. I have only to add that the shark is one of those known as the grey variety, and that it is not a man-eater. The Penrhyn divers are even more expert jthan the Aitutakians, and they go down after shell to g'-eat depths. They are splendidly developed, and the only difference I could see between them and other natives was that their eyes were very much bloodshot. At the village where we landed there was a population of 270, and they were all more or less engaged in the pearl shell trade. Vessels come" from Tahiti for the shell, the trade, though this is a British island, being in the hands of Frenchmen. Several of us managed to get good pearls here. One of our party bought a black pearl for £1, and a few m'intites later he was offered £5 for it by an expert. One .does not see many pearls in the hands of the natives here, but I expect they are soon snapped up by the traders, and foriwarded to Tahiti. One man I know — a, French Jew in Tahiti — ! gets together a sufficient, number of pearls to enable him to make a trip to Europe every two or three, years to dispose of them. No doubt he receives on these visits pretty considerable sums of money from the Paris jewellers. The Tahiti firms give only 80 to 85 "cents for the pearl shell, so that from this trade also they must quickly amass a small fortune. Beche-de-mer abounds . in the lasfoon, but it is of a somewhat inferior kind. These little coral islands on the atoll reefs will not grow any of the tropic fruits, but the cocoanut palm flourishes, and on this and fish, together with flour, rice, tinnedmeats, and other provisions, the natives subsist. As stated, the trade is entirely in the hands 1 of Tahitian firms, and is carried on under the French flag. This applies not only to Penrhyn, but also to the islands of Manihiki, Rakahanga, and Suwarrow. The annual production of shell from Pfenrhyn is 60 tons 'per annum. British foodstuffs under French trade are being practically excluded from the islands of the North-East Pacific. The remedy for this, so far as we are concerned, would be annexation and the placing of the islands under the care of New Zealand or the Cook Islands Administration. A simple tariff would then soon adjust matters. The leading trader is Mr G. Dexter. His father was an American, his mother a Taihiti woman, but he is now a naturalised Frenchman, and flies the French flag on his vessels. This enables him to trade in the French sphere of influence, and there is nothing in otir laws to prevent his trading in the British islands on equal terms with Britishers. But the moment- a British trader goes, into the French sphere of influence he has many restrictions imposed upon him, so that he cannot compete on equal terms. All this and ] much more that I do not care to write about here I learned during my peregrinations amongst the traders, the -missionaries, and the natives. The old policy of drift that characterised the colonial administration of the past in former years has been permitted to go on here until the present moment. It is only since Mr Chamberlain has taken the reins at the Colonial Office that a change has come over the scene. The little yillage of Omoko^ at which we

landed, was a quaint place, with the houses of ] the natives and two or three traders nestling amongst the- tall palms, and so close to- the water's edge that the Ealt spray sometimes splaphed up to their doorsteps. We went into ." the meeting house where Colonel Gudgeon met the chiefs and some ojt the people. We were given seats at one end of the room. ".In front of us was a table on which a number of cocoanuts were placed Teady for us to drink, and on the floor in front of that was a pile of splendid pearl shell as a present to us. Colonel Gudgeon questioned the chiefs regarding the trade of the* islands and the health of the people. After a' time the conversation turned on leprosy, and in a moment everyone was on the gui vive. Dr May, of the Mildura, was with us, and at the request of Lord Ranfurly he undertook to visit and report on the lepers located on a small island on the reef some two -or three miles from the village. Accordingly we got a boat and "a boat's crew, with an interpreter, and the doctor and the Hon. Mr Hill Trevor and myself set sail. Half the village wanted to come crew, but the'doctor grew stern, and we escaped with half a dozen in a fine, boat with a great spread of sail, that; took us skimming over the -lagoon at a great rate. The fact that there is leprosy so close to New Zealand should be a matter of some concern to us, and is another argument in favour of annexation and proper control of these islands. It is one of the problems of the Pacific that will .have to be grappled with. Leprosy was introduced into New Caledonia by Chinese in 1C65. and by 1888 there were no fewer than 4000 lepers there.' It was introduced into the Isle of -Pines in 1878, and it soon spread. In the Loyalty Islands the first case was seen in 18F2. " In the Isle of Mare alone in 1888 there \v,ere 70 lepers. The islanders, in answer to a question by Colonel Gudgeon, .told us that leprosy came to Penrhyn during the time of Tarewa, who was a missionary there — that is 17 years ago. Tapena, a native, they said, brought it there from Samoa. Urunga was another person who brought it. He brought it from Honolulu. At first, they said, they did not know' it was contagious, but when they found out it was they took the diseased people over to this island, and\ sent them their food, which wasleft at the end of a small -jetty, to take away. As we approached the pretty little island, with its tall palms bending in their nodding plume 3 before- the trade wind, and the bright sunlight glistening- on its white coral "sands, we could scarce believe that it was the habitation of so foul and loathsome a disease. No sign of life" appeared on the island. As we ap- j proacbed nearer we saw a few rude native houses amongst the palms, and as we skimmed round in splendid style beside the two-plank jetty an old crone hobbled from under a ' thatched roof and gazed at us out of her leprous eyes. We landed and walked up to her house. Lean looking j>igs rooted in the village, and an attenuated kitten mewed ,at us from the corner of a thatched houee. The fresh wind still rustled the palms overhead, and .the tragic sun shone as brightly as ever on the coral sano.s;'"put for me-' all* the light had flone out of* the landscape, and the very" ground, with the holes made by, the land crabs, gaping at tis seemed diseased. But' we followed the dodtor round as he examined, and with the aid of our interpreter ascertained the history of each case as far as he could. " 'There 'were some. 20 people on the island, and so far as we could a&certain duringour hurried examination, some 12 or 13 of these -were lepers. Twenty lepers had died, and were buried on the ipland. The disease was here in all its stages," from the newly-" discovered ease with the two or three "small blotches, or the little patch of pale or pigmenled skin, -to the more advanced cases where, in all its loathsomeness, fingers and I features were rotting away. One old woman described her symptoms — frequent sweating) and a kind of burning sensation, as if the skin were being pricked with a thousand- pins and needles. There in a little house, a woman apparently tininfeeted, was kneading flour for bread, and near her _in another house were two cases, brother "and sister, of the nodular or tubercular form of the disease. There was no mistaking it— with dirty, flowery, yellow skin, and its gaping follicules, with the hideous disfigurement of the face, the massive cheeks, and the thick protruding lips. There was another typical case — one of nerve leprosy. It is the slow form, from which the Lord preserve all mortals! The lad's hands and feet were painfully distorted. There were the wasted legs and forearm, the hooked, talon-like, nails, the facial atrophies, and the fixed staring eyes that would not close. The poor lad told iis all he could about his symptoms and the history of his case, and we went on to other cases, several of which I photographed for the doctor. Never have I had, and never do I wish tohave, again such gruesome sitters. But let us draw a veil over the ghastly picture. The subject is. not a pleasant one. But the saddest thing of all was the fact that some who were clearly not lepers had, the ignorance of their fellow tribesmen, been condemned to banishment on this lonely island. Sooner or later they tpo would contract the dreaded disease, and die a lingering- death, away from home ,1 and friends and all they held dear in this world. We bitterly regretted that we had no toys or trinkets for the little children we saw. Mr Trevor left with them some beautifully illustrated English newspapers, which no ' doubt would help to while away many a lonely hour. As we turned away from the last house and the last leper we could understand to the full the great and noble sacrifice j made by Father Damien at that other Mololcai in the Hawaiian Islands.