OCEAN HERMIT

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 2789, 28 May 1921, Page 3

OCEAN HERMIT

STRANGE PACIFIC TRADER

MAKES £2OOO A YEAR

There is a man in the South Seas who lives by himself on a lonely coral atoll, 300 miles from the next white man, and he makes £'2ooo a year. The average man hearing such a statement would await explanations, and Major C. W. Collinsoni who arrived at Sydney by the Morea, et* route to his Solomon Islands* plantatioiiys, was able to furnish further particulars.

“His name,” he said, “is Captain H. A. Markham, and 1 spent two months with him recently on his tiny corn! atoll, 'whore very, very few white men have ever been. The group is called Ong Tong Java. The natives are absolutely untouched by outside contact—there are not even missionaries there. They are as happy as the day is long. Captain Markham has got only about 24 square feet to himself on his little a toll, and the natives won’t give him any more. Neither will they let any other white man in.” “Yes,” ves; but how the deuce does he make £2OOO a year?” “That is quite simple,” said Alajor Collins on. “He lias a* 15-ton schooner, with an. auxiliary motor, and comes in to meet the Sydney boat at the Solomons every two months.

“Yes, but he would scarcely get so much a year for doing that.” “Oli, no not at all,” replied the major, unperturbed. “The fact is, he fills his schooner with all kinds of trinkets, from Jews’ harps to whatnots, and takes them back to the natives.”

“And they give him £2OOO a year for that ?”

“No, no; it’s not that way—at least, not exactly. He gets cocoa nuts and troth as pearl shell for the trinkets, and loads these back to meet the> Sydney boat next trip. The copra and pearl shell net him roughly £2OOO a year.” Major Gollinson. thus revealed the secret of the mysterious captain's wealth but he did not say what means this worthy Pacific middleman, found to spend his “easy money.”

Jack London and a few others are said to have visited the lonely trader, and one friend suggested to an American. paper that people should write to him. He received eight bags of Utters by the next boat.

Major Collinsoni owns four of the islands of the Solomon Group, on which he has plantations. There is a eh a nee. for any white man with £2OOO or £3OOO capital to get good copra land there, he says. The native labour is the only really costly factor. Copra. however, has recently fallen heavily ip price hut it gives an. extract which forms the basis for soap, margarine, lubricating oil for airplanes, and cattle, cake. San Francis-

with Svdncy as a copra market. The British Solomons are directed from Downing Street and the governj Ui r powers aav very ill-defined. “The administration under the mandate of the late German Solomons bv Australia has been bad,” said Ma-

jor Collin son. “due to sending young men up there who did not know how to govern the natives. Perhaps with a. civil administration it will be better.” ______