HOW SOME KANAKAS VANISH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6132, 19 March 1898, Page 2

HOW SOME KANAKAS VANISH.

(Poll Mall Gazette.) In January, 1874, the brig Leonora^cominanded by the notorious " Bnlly Hayes/' made Pingelap (or M'Askill's Island), one of the numerous atoll group 3in the North Pacific, to buy turtle and ship the cocoanut oil collected by a white trader whom he had landed there on a former cruise through the Caroline Archipelago. As, with his supercargo, ho was being pulled fishore in his boat to the beach, he noted with surprise that not a singlo native was visible. On the beach he was met by his trader. "What's the matter here?" asked the burly captain. "Everything's the matter," replied the trader, "" the missionary Ing from Honolulu has been here. She landed two Jlawaiian teachers with their wives; all the people became Christians right away r.nd built a church; and now they've all £ot measles or something, and are dying like rotten sheep. Come and look." The village on Pingelap consisted of a (hick duster of pandanus- thatched huts f ituated on the verge of the beach, about twenty feet above high-water and surrounded by a dense forest of coco-palms on three sides. As the three white men walked towards it the trader told Hayes that the mission brig had landed a boatload of clothing, which had been distributed among the people by the teachers. A week later the disease appeared. Entering the village they were met by two of the head men, wearing European clothing ; hitherto the natives of Pingelap had worn merely a grass airiri or petticoat girdle. The men shook hands with Hayes and his supercargo, and asked them to enter their house ; the rest of the people, once so light and animated, sat and stared At them with apathetic indifference. Six months before ' every soul on the island hud swarmed off to the ship to welcome Hayes; now they scarce seemed to have energy enough left to answer him as he called to many of them by name. Enteriug the house, the white men saw lying on the floor two bodies wrapped up in mats, ready for burial. The head men said they were those of a woman and a boy who Had died two days ago; already a dreadful odour weighted the atmosphere of the house, and the white men retreated quickly. The two persons had died of 'the new sickness," the head men said. Sixty others had died before them, and now every day four or five more died. Leaving the head men's house Hayes visited nearly overy other dwelling in the village. In more than half of them were either.dead or dying people, and oh, to even peer in through the doorways was horrible, horrible, for many of the bodies had been awaiting burial for a week. And yet the living members of these death-stricken families ate, drank and slept in the same house ! Presently the two Hawaiian teachers, rttended by a following of Pingelapese, mot Hayes. They carried Bibles in their liands, and told him that they had just been reading the burial service. " Where are you burying these people ?" aaked Hayes. " There," they replied, pointing to a collection of open-sided cooking huts, distant fi.bot.it fifty yards. Hayes walked over to tho spot — an open sandy piece of ground, surrounded by the little cook sheds. The graves were very thick. "Are the graves deep?" asked the supercargo, who already felt deadly ill. "Oh, yes, they are deep, very deep — nearly half a fathom (3ft). That one T.'ith the big mound was that of Pinik. Pinik was a big fat man, and so we had to Leap the soil over him. But we havo read the service over every one." Hayes asked them if they thought that reading the burial service would keep the bodies from polluting the air and breeding a fresh pestilence. They did not know; but did know that unless the service was road over all those who died they would go to hell. Returning to the head men's house, Hayes called the people together, and urged them to do two things — burn their village and all the clothing which had been given to them by the teacher 3, and build a rew village on Takai, one of the other islets of the atoll ; for there the trade wind l-lew through the forest all day and night. And then, he said, if more people died, they should bury them in deep, very deep g raves. "If you do not do this, then thoro will be not one of you left in thirty days fcoin now. Have you ever known this sickness before ? " " No," they answered ; "it was a strange tew sickness to them, but had been sent to tiiem by God as a punishment for so long living in heathenism." " Who told you this ? " said Hayes quickly. " The teachers told us." v Hayes made a few vigorous remarks to the teachers, and then turned away in disgust and walked quickly to the boat, beckoning to the head men to come with him. Half an hour later he sent them on shore again with such medicines and provisions as he could spare. Then, as soon as his trader had brought off the oil he had collected and his personal effects, the " wicked freebooter " turned the Leonora's head away from the disease-stricken island and sailed westward where the heathen were still healthy. ]