One of the World's Strange Places.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 41, 8 October 1892, Page 994

One of the World's Strange Places.

THE CAROLINE ISLANDS.

SCENE OF THE RECENT FIGHTING.

IT may be remembered that some six weeks ago a cable message appeared in oar columns announcing that there had broken out in Punape a very severe revolt, and that the Spaniards were having a somewhat disagreeable time m the Caroline Islands. We have now* received Mme pictures of the ruins which make Ponape famous and of the people who caused the trouble, for it is asserted that the missionaries were largely to blame for the rising which is now, by the way, utterly quelled, lighting ha«, however, been going on for many years, the natives regaiding the Spaniards a* a species ot tyrants. Before going further, however, it will be a« well to give some description of the islands which form a great archipelago, chiefly atolls, but containing also two islands Kusaie and Ponape which are large, mountainous, and volcanic. The < arolines have always been claimed by Spain by right of discovery. but settlement was not in the least degree attempted, nor was dominion openly asserted, till Germany took possession of the most westerly island Yap in 1835. Hamburgh merchants have for many years had trading establishments at Yap and others of the Carolines. This was probably the origin of the German movement which excited the keen opposition of the Spaniards, in whose behalf the decision of His Holiness the Pope appointed as Arbitrator was given. Since then the Spaniards have established a Governor and a small body of Manilla troops at h ap. A Lieutenant-Governor was sent to Ponape a central island in the group in 1887, but owing to an unhappy difference with the natives, he and nearly all the Manilla troops sent with him were killed by the natives. The Lieutenant Governor was killed just before the arrival of his successor, who was sent to supersede him. The < Tovernor-General at Manilla had decided on this supersession in consc uence of the Lieutenant-Governor having forcibly deported the Rev. Mr Doane, an American missionary, whose case was taken up by the American Consul at Manilla. The people of the Caroline Archipelago are more decided.y Asiatic than those of the Marshall group*. Their language is hard and consonantal. They are physically slighter, and in complexion darker than the Polynesians of rhe Eastern Pacific, or than the Polynesians who occupy, very curiously, the little Atoll Nukuor in the centre of the

Carolines l . Some of the Caroline Islanders are still heathen, but many of the islands are occupied by the American Mission which has been at work in the Archipelago since 1353. The natives have long, straight hair and a great variety of dialects of which ten are noted, namely, Yap, Vlithi, Ponape. Kusaie, Satawal, Ualan, and Mortlock—this last being the English name given to a small distinct group in the archipelago. KUSAIE OB STRONG'S ISLAND is the most easterly of the archipelago—a lofty volcanic island, of which the highest point is over 2,100 feet, very broken and about twenty-four miles in circuit, and possessing two good harbours, of which the best is Coquille on the lee si le of the island. The other, Leila, is on the windward side and therefore more difficult to leave, as well as subject to a heavy swell when the Trade M inds blow stronaly. Kusaie has a very small population, not exceedingly 300, and is the head-quarters of the American Mission which has here two separate training schools for teachers, one for the Kingsmill and the other for the Marshall Group. Strongs Island was at one time a great resort for whalers and there are wild pigs upon it in large numbers as well as a few cattle. Tne missionaries succeeded, after considerable difficulty, in inducing the natives to discontinue keeping pigs for the whalers, or in any way trading with them. By this means their visits have ceased and the diseases introduced among the islanders have, it is said, been successfully eradicated. About fifty tons of copra are exported yearly, but its resources in other products have still to be developed. Pingelap is an atoll comparatively poor in land, but with a population said to be 800, dependent on their export of copra There is no entrance to the lagoon, but several traders are settled in the islets surrounding it. Mokil is a finer atoll with a much smaller population, and able to export more largely as they require less for home consumption. There is a boat entrance to the lagoon which is very pretty, being nearly surrounded with islets densely covered with groves of the cocoanut palm. Ngatik is another atoll

about 22 miles in circuit, with abundant eocoanut groves, but no entrance to the lagoon. Nukuor is a singular atoll, south of the regular chain, with a boat entrance to the

lagoon. The singularity consists in ITS SMALL POPULATION NOT EXCEEDING ONE HUNDRED) BEING PURE MAORIS identical in appearance with the Maoris of New Zealand. Their language is also said to be identical with that of the old Maoris before it became affected byintercourse with Europeans. Namoluk, Constantin or Greenwich Atoll, Ifalik. I’lie, Eanripik, Sorol, Vlithi. Ngoli, and a large number of other atolls, many of considerable size, are included in the Caroline Archipelago, but are all of much the same character, and do not call for special mention. There are native teachers and traders on many, and the staple product is copra, but they are seldom visited except by trading vessels collecting copra, and by the American Mission steamer, the Morning Star, which makes an annual visit of inspection to those islands on which native teachers are placed. There are a few other arolls in the Carolines which call for special notice. The Mortlocks are a small group consisting of Satoan, with a splendid entrance to a large lagoon at least seventeen miles long and twelve broad : Etal, a fine but smaller atoll, and Lnkunor one of the most perfect specimens of a lagoon island in the Pacific. Tne Lukunor lagoon is of oval form, about eighteen miles in circuit, with the surface of the surrounding reef much broader and therefore with much greater variety of soil than usual. Groves of bread fru t, Jack-fruit, and other tropical trees give variety to the cocoanut palm with which the islets on the reef are densely covered. The lagoon is deep and of the clearest ocean bine, but has shelving beaches of coral sand off which good anchorage is found. The pearl oyster is abundant at Lnkunor as in m ost of these lagoons. The population of the three Mortlocks is estimated at between three and four thousand. Several traders are settled on them and in some places there are churches and schools. Tromelin or Feys Island is also worthy of mention as being the only raised coral island in this great archipelago and therefore without a central lagoon. It is very small, being scarcely three miles in circuit, and not more than thirty feet high, very steep and without anchorage—a mass of coral unique of its kind in the western Pacific. Kusaie, the most easterly of this archipelago, has been mentioned as a volcanic island. Three others more remarkable in their way namely, Ponape, Hog-oleu or Rak, and Yap have now to be noticed. Ponape is a large volcanic island and, with the two fertile atolls of Pakin and Ants lying four or five miles from the large island, is known as the chief of the Ssmiavine group. Ponape is between sixty and seventy miles in circuit, very broken and rising to a height of 2.890 feet. The reef, surrounding it at a distance ot about five miles, has several go>J passages into excellent harbours. <>f these the harbour of Modoc is the FAVOURITE RErORT FOR THE ARCTIC WHALERS, fitted out at San Francisco. and coming into the South Pacific

daring the season when Arctic whaling is impracticable. Five or six are frequently lying at Modoc at one time, and of these several are auxiliary steamers which appear to be superseding sailing ships in American fisheries. Ponape is also in the direct route of sailing ships from Australia, or New Zealand to China, but they seldom call, being generally content to sight Pleasant Island as a point of fresh departure. In olden times Ponape is said to have been a favourite resort of the Buccaneers, it being in the direct route between Mexico and Manilla. Ronokiti Harbour is very safe, but the entrance is narrow and intricate. Jamestown Harbour, so named after the United States Frigate by which the harbour was surveyed, is the site of the original Mission Station. This-has since been removed to the more central and convenient harbour of Metalanien, where the Mission buildings occupy a beautiful promontory. The population of Ponape is estimated at 2,000, consisting of five tribes who occupy only the coast, the interior being entirely without people. A stream runs into the harbour of Jamestown through a lovely vallev, but, as a rule, the coast is covered with boulders and huge basaltic prisms, strewn thickly along the slopes of the hills and on the beaches. Between these beaches and the distant coral reef, surrounding and protecting the island, there are broad coral flats, on which numerous low islets have been formed.

< >n one of these islets, in the centre of a cluster of fifteen or twenty, stand THE MASSIVE AND MYSTERIOUS RUINS FOR WHICH PONAPE IS CELEBRATED. They are built entirely of basaltic prisms, laid transversely in alternate tiers of large and small prisms. The ruins consist of an outer wall some twenty feet high and eighteen feet thick at the bqse. About six feet from the ground the wall is reduced to 8 feet in thickness, leaving a platform 10 feet wide all round the inner face. The front of this structure is about 170 feet wide, and is divided in the centre by an opening of 15 feet which serves as a great entrance. The sides are about 220 feet long and the back is similar to the front but undivided. Inside this great quadrangle, at a distance of thirty feet, a smaller quadrangle is built of the same height, but with walls uniform in thickness about 10 feet . The front wall of the inner quadrangle is also divided in the centre by an opening similar in size and directly opposite to that in the wall of the outer quadrangle, while within this smaller quadrangle is a raised platform some forty feet square built of the same huge hexagonal prisms to a height of five feet from the ground. There are no evidences of art or skill. The walls consist simply of the prisms piled side by side, in rows at right angles to each other. There are no signs of roof, doors, or windows, but there is through each of the two side walls of the outer quadrangle a hole about 5 feet square and level with the ground. A similar equate hole passes through one of the side walls of the inner quadiangle.

In the space between the two quadrangles there are three raised vaults, about 5 feet square, one on each side, and the third at the rear. There is a similar small vault in the raised platform. This mysteriou • ruin gives at once the idea of a heathen temple, and the small openings through the walls are terribly suggestive of human victims dragged in for sacrifice, while those in the passages may have served for fuel or similar purpose. The theory that the structure is the ruin of a Buccaneer's Castle is evidently without foundation. The absence of windows or doors, the unsuitability for defence, the character of the so called Dungeons and Treasure Chambers, the enormous waste of power, and the total absence of skill or mark of tools of any description, render the supposition entirely untenable. The present inhabitants of Ponape have a vague tradition in connection with these ruins. Another legend told by the old people is that King Awanesakow lost a little girl about twelve years old, and so great was his grief that he could not endure the sight of any other girls of her age, and so issued an order that every one on the island should be killed. He is talked of as the cross king. He had a large enclosure made of immense stones, which it is hard to see how human bands conld have lifted, and into this he moved his family. It used to be the custom to keep their dead unburied until nothing but the bones were left; then

these were thrown into a deep place in the water. A big stone is pointed out on which he used to sit and mourn. There were several openings or gateways in this high, wide wall, and there is a winding passage up which canoes could come at high tide, and the natives deposited food for their king at the several gateways. The royal family had a special bathing place enclosed by walls, and in it were three stone tubs, or oblong hollow places of three different sizes To bathe w here the king had bathed was strictly forbidden, as the person so doing might become king. They are the work of a great ‘ evil spirit or ‘devil. Beyond that they do not even make a guess. The little, low island is covered by the ruins, through which lofty trees now project, and the walls of which are hidden with shrubbery and creeping plants. In some places the walls bulge dangerously but generally they are much as they must have been when first built. High up in the walls many of the prisms are very large, one at the corner tier being 13 feet long and 2j feet across the ends. Probably this great length enabled the builders to move the massive prisms by manual labour which conld not have been applied with the same effect if they had been shorter and thicker. The aspect of the ruins, standing amid a cluster of low. densely* ooded islands, is solemn and weird. The sea, stilled by the encircling barrier reef, meanders through the islets in broad shallow passage*, giving to the whole an appearance wonderfully like that of a dead city, once traversed by canals for streets. The illusion is strengthened by the embankment of the Islands

with prisms of precisely'the same character and put together in the same way as the walls of the building. There must l>e many miles of this embankment ap parently as purposeless as the building itself. It is difficult to conceive that the soil on these small islands could have ever been worth preserving from encroachment by the sea, especially a* the great Island of Ponape is only separated from them by the shallows from one to two miles broad. The only way to gain a clear idea as to the purpose of the buildings and embankment will be by careful exploration of the islands. Possibly some of them, now low and flat, may not be coral, and have formed at one time the quarries from which the volcanic prism* were obtained. In any case the mainland of Ponape abound in these prisms, and could supply them in great quantity. The description here given is from the writer s personal observation in 1877, and the dimensions are as nearly correct as a rough measurement, during a necessarily short stay of a few hour* in heavy rain, would permit. In these measurements the writer wa* aided and checked by Mr Russ, the agent of the German company trading in Ponape, and the likelihood of their being nearly correct is therefore increased. It may be well, also, to state that both Mr Russ and myself are under the impression that the one side wail is really 20 to 30 feet

longer than the other, but there could be no certainty on this point without a re-measurement and cutting away the overgrowth, which required more time than they had at their disposal. The approach to the ruin* by boat from Metalanien Hay is easy, but from Jamestown Harbour the boat journey was twenty five miles, and for the first fifteen the Trades are a head wind which render tedious beating necessary. Between the shore reef and the ccsan reef there is a deep channel, but at intervals this is broken by long shallows, which even a l>oat can only traverse at certain states of the tide. There are also in the channel constant patches of coral reef, rendering sailing by night somewhat dangerous. It will be easy, therefore, to understand that the difficulty of exploration is much increased if the start is not made from Metalanien Harbour. The productions of Ponape include every known tropical product, and among them the vegetable ivory, but while all flourish the people are few, and the trade is chiefly in yarn*, pigs, and other articles in demand by whalers. Copra, pearl shell, and vegetable ivory are exported. Coffee i* grown, but only in small quantities for home use. The coast of this island i*, as we have sai l, strewn with prism* and boulders, but the soil l>etween them support* great forest trees and fruits of all kinds. There can be no doubt that an exploration of the deserter! interior would lead to the discovery of a good area of rich and »aluable land. It may be ad led that ruins, similar to those at Ponape, but less extensive and less massive, are found also at Ku*aie.