FORGOTTEN OUTPOSTS

Taranaki Daily News, 24 November 1934, Page 13 (Supplement)

FORGOTTEN OUTPOSTS

REFUGES FOR*AIRMEN

(By

H.E.C.)

Cabled messages this week spoke of anxiety in regard to the Master of Sempill who is flying from England to Australia. His Lordship had reached that trying portion of the air route between Java and Darwin. For many miles the route lies over the open sea, and, especially in the “rainy,” or hurricane season, usually the months November to March, there is enough excitement in the way of storms and other troubles to satisfy even the most intrepid of aviators. It was not until it was known that the Master of Sempill was resting at Bathurst Island that anxiety on his behalf was relieved. Yet but for the forethought of the priest in charge of the mission there Bathurst Island would have offered poor chances to an airman for safe landing. Writing to a New Plymouth correspondent the priest, Father Gsell, remarked that when clearing ground for cultivation a year or two ago it occurred to him that a space large enough for an aeroplane landing would be worth while. So he and his blackfellows cut down the bush and stumped and ploughed the land. It was, Father Gsell writes, “providential that I did so.” In less than a year from the time the clearing was made an aeroplane short of petrol came down, and but for the Mission clearing would almost certainly have .been wrecked. Outside the mission station Bathurst Island is the ordinary bush land of Northern Australia with some areas of swamps but both giving an aeroplane a very poor chance of landing safely. So if the Master of Sempill experienced while crossing the Timor Sea similar weather to that encountered by the centenary race competitors one can imagine his pleasure at reaching the landing place at Bathurst Island before he faced the 60 miles oversea last lap to Darwin.

The island itself has a place in Imperial history. A little over a century ago Great Britain was worried on two accounts. The first, the depredations of the pirates in the Malay archipelago, and the second the fierce competition of the Dutch for trading throughout the East. In 1824 therefore Captain Bremer R.N. was dispatched “with all convenient speed” to found a settlement in North His first venture was on the mainland. He found a lovely, sheltered harbour at Port Essington, but it lacked every other necessity for successful settlement. Like Mr. Carrington when Taranaki was chosen as the New Zealand Company s settlement, Captain Bremer had to choose between a good harbour and bad country, or good country and a poor harbour. ;As everyone knows Carrington preferred good land. The gallant Captain did not, and the Essington settlement was soon abandoned for one at “Apsley Strait,” a ribbon of water that separates Bathurst and Melville Islands. The strait is no wider , than the Wanganui River, but is deep and afforded shelter from the hurricanes that so often played havoc with the Royal Navy. The new settlement was called “Fort Dundas,” but the distance from the Malay trepangers with whom it was hoped to trade, the difficulties of soil, climate and isolation, hostility of the aborigines, to say nothing of the continued success of the pirates, brought withdrawal from Fort Dundas also within four years of its establishment.

From 1829 to 1911 little was known or seen of the islands. A pearling lugger might call, a buffalo hunter lived on Melville. Island, where the buffaloes imported for the naval station had ; gone wild and bred prolifically, but Bathurst Island was untouched until a Roman Catholic mission was established there in 1911. The priest who founded it is still in charge. His “parish,” however, extends to the mainland and is considerably larger than the whole of New Zealand.

Gradually the mission has won the confidence of the shy aborigine.. It has utilised rather than opposed his tribal lews and customs, and is accommodating this “stone age” people by slow degrees to a more complex civilisation. This policy has its dangers. Every girl bom in a blackfellow community is “married” while a baby to some old man of the tribe. When she has reached a marriageable ‘age she must join her “husband,” unless some younger man may desire her and be prepared to pay the price demanded. In such cases the bargain is made, and everyone, including the lady, appears quite satisfied. But the Bathurst Mission girls who have been trained in a European school and taught a few of the niceties of life do not desire to belong to the old men who can claim them by tribal right. Yet to ignore those tribal rights might mean trouble for the mission. The priest had to find a solution, and one day he reported to authority at Darwin having purchased six or seven “wives” for himself. They were children of nine and ten years of age still attending the mission school at Bathurst Island, but he thought it wiser to announce the foundation of a mission harem lest scandal should be created! By this time the number of “wives” the worthy padre has acquired by purchase must be considerable, though most of them have taken other partners and their children in turn are being trained at the mission school. There are few relics of Fort Dundas to be found. Occasionally a cast iron cannon ball is found in the bush, but except for some overgrown earthworks there is little to distinguish the site of the fort from any other portion of the coast of Apsley Strait. Yet among the blackfellows the memory of the naval settlement remains, though many of them do not realise it. When the visitor leaves the Bathurst Island mission the natives will sometimes give him a farewell corroboree. The ceremony has not the rhythm or the grace of Maori dancing but if the visitor is fortunate enough to have it explained he will see that it is a very faithful representation of the departure of a sailing ship. The bos’n’s whistle blows, the capstan is manned and the anchor raised, ropes are pulled, and there is the running about of sailormen that is usual on leaving port. All this is shown in dumb action and the corroboree ends with the wail of those left behind and the cheers of those on board the departing vessel. It is the re-presentation of the actual departure of the “fleet” from Fort Dundas, 100 years ago and is most interesting to watch when the key to the ceremony has been given. Probably by this time aeroplane corroj>orees are common in Bathurst Island ! It was a desolate piece of country when the mission was founded, but today the “desert,” if it does not “blossom as the rose” at any rate grows fruit, vegetables and corn for the mission and ’ its flock. There are few worries other than ■ those of the flesh. There is no “wireless” at Bathurst Island.- Because of that and the hospitality for which the mission is noted the Master of Sempill may think a much less satisfying rest-ing-place might have been his portion.