Ascension Island

“ The influence to which these ancient works are due seems to have pervaded Polynesia from the Marquesas Islands at the east, to the Ladrone and Carolina Islands at the west, and what is said of the present inhabitants of Ascension Island might have a wider application, namely, “They create on the mind of a stranger the impression of a people who have degenerated from something higher and better.” ”

“ Ascension, is, however, one of the most flourishing “match factories” in the British empire, it being safe to say that any unattached female, no matter what her disqualifications, can get a [Pg 271] husband in a week's stay on the island. A young Englishman and his bride boarded our boat at Ascension. She had been born and had spent all of her life on Saint Helena (which is not exactly a roaring metropolis itself) , and had married one of the cable operators stationed at Ascension, who was taking her on her first visit to the outside world. ”

“ Ascension lies very near the Equator, and is naturally hot. With the exception of St. Paul’s Rocks it is, I think, the hottest place I have so far struck. It is an amazing contrast to St. Helena; utterly barren of 232 vegetation except, strangely enough, on the very summit of the peak, which is 3,000 feet high or thereabouts, there is a single farm, which supplies the garrison with fresh meat and vegetables. For the rest the island is nothing but a monotonous series of huge red mounds of ashes and piles of clinker, due to the one-time extraordinary volcanic action here. ”

“ Whether such is the case or not is a matter of conjecture, but it is certain that much of it has been accomplished within the human era. That a higher civilization once prevailed throughout Polynesia we need only cite the remains found on Easter Island by Captain Cook, and refer to the Appendix of Mr. Baldwin’s work, where ruins of a high order are named as existing on Ascension, Marshall, Gilbert, Kingsmill, Ladrones, Swallow, Strong’s, Navigators and Hawaiian Islands. A quadrangular tower forty feet high and several stone-lined canals are to be seen at the harbor at Strong’s Island. ”

“ The island lies within the immediate influence of the south-east trade-wind. The lee side of the island is subject to the visitation of “rollers,” which break on the shore with very great violence. Ascension is a volcanic mass erected on a submarine platform. Numerous cones exist. Green Mountain, the principal elevation, is a huge elliptical crater, rising 2820 ft. above the sea, while the plains or table-lands surrounding it vary in height from 1200 to 2000 ft. On the north side they sweep gradually down towards the shore, but on the south they terminate in bold and lofty precipices. ”

“ There are abundance of goats, and aquatic birds, such as men-of-war and tropic birds, boobies, etc.
The island of Ascension is about ten miles in length, in the direction of N.W. and S.E., and about five or six in breadth. It shews a surface composed of barren hills and vallies, on the most of which not a shrub or plant is to be seen for several miles, and where we found nothing but stones and sand, or rather flags and ashes; an indubitable sign that the isle, at some remote time, has been destroyed by a volcano, which has thrown up vast heaps of stones, and even hills. ”

“ Ard-na-said, i.e. the height of the arrows, meaning a convenient ground to shoot from Ascension Island, so named because discovered on Ascension Day Asperne, 11 Aspropotamo, Modern Grk. (the white river) Assouan, Ar. the opening at the mouth of the Nile Astrakan, named after a Tartar king Astura R., 199 Asturias, 12 Attica, Grk. the promontory Aubusson, 36 Auch, named after the Ausci, a tribe Auchinleck, 5 Auckland, 5 Audlem, 7 Augsburg, 35 Aurillac, supposed to have been named after the Emperor Aurelian Auriol, anc. ”

“ Total area: 410 km2; land area: 410 km2; includes Ascension, Gough Island, Inaccessible Island, Nightingale Island, and Tristan da Cunha
Comparative area: slightly more than 2.3 times the size of Washington, DC
Land boundaries: none
Coastline: 60 km
Maritime claims:
Exclusive fishing zone: 200 nm Territorial sea: 12 nm Climate: tropical; marine; mild, tempered by trade winds
Terrain: rugged, volcanic; small scattered plateaus and plains
Natural resources: fish; Ascension is a breeding ground for sea turtles and sooty terns; no minerals
Land use: 7% arable land; 0% permanent crops ”

“ The ocean broke angrily against the stern basalt, or entered these huge pits and sprang out of them in welling masses of foam and spray. An iron-bound coast that defied the heart, or any sentiment but wonder and fear. Boulders as big as ships were half attached to the precipices or lay near-by to attest the continuous devouring of the land by the sea. Coming from Tahiti, with its beautiful reefs and beaches, and the clouds like wreaths of reva-reva, with cocoanut-palms and breadfruit-trees and bananas covering all the land, this Easter Island seemed terribly bare and forbidding. ”

“ Last Island has gone! How it went I first heard from the lips of a veteran pilot, while we sat one evening together on the trunk of a drifted cypress which some high tide had pressed deeply into the Grande Isle beach. The day had been tropically warm; we had sought the shore for a breath of living air. Sunset came, and with it the ponderous heat lifted,—a sudden breeze blew,—lightnings flickered in the darkening horizon,—wind and water began to strive together,—and soon all the low coast boomed. Then my companion began his story; perhaps the coming of the storm inspired him to speak! ”

“ Turning to more scientific evidence, we find that the Islanders have always been judged to be of Polynesian race, as indeed would naturally be expected from the easterly position of the island in the Pacific Ocean. ”

“ In the name of God, Amen.—Be it known to all men, that I, William Anderson, a citizen of the United States of America, do here solemnly declare that I am the discoverer, and at this present the occupant, of an island in the South Pacific Ocean, which I have named Perseverance Island, and that said island lies in the latitude of 42° 21′ S., and longitude 119° 11′ 15′′ W. of Greenwich. ”

“ In the eyes of those to whom the past furnishes a perspective more fascinating even than the promise of the future, the little isle adjacent, which is itself a finely marked basaltic cone, rising over a thousand feet high and well called “Holy Island,” is even more worthy of the visits of the reflecting scholar. It holds an attraction even greater, in human interest, at least, than the wonders of geology, or the numerous witnesses to antiquity in the form of upreared stones. ”

“ From Cape Elizabeth on the west to Quoddy Head on the east, there are over a thousand large and small islands, nearly all of which are of bold formation and most of them wholly or in part covered with a growth of spruce and fir. The shores of these islands, as well as the mainland, are mainly rock-ribbed, with many high cliffs, at the foot of which the ocean surges beat unceasingly. Deep fissures and sea caverns into which the green water, changed to yeasty foam, ever churns and rushes by day and night, are common; and when storms arise it bellows and roars like an angry bull. ”

“ To the south the bare peaks of Desolation Island, beginning from Cape Pilar, rose with terrific boldness, unscaleable shafts and towers of rock that recalled the shapes of the Coolin hills in Skye or the still loftier summits of the Lofoten Isles in Norway. To the north a mysterious fringe of islands and foam-girt reefs, grey and dim among their mists, hid the entrance to Smyth's Channel and the labyrinth of almost unexplored sounds and inlets along the Chilean coast beyond. ”

“ The distance was too great to make a good study of the land. In a general way this coast-line resembles the northern parts of the Greenland landscape. About the largest islands there are many small, ice-free isles, or rocks, which serve as resting-places for seals, penguins, cormorants, and gulls. On the larger islands, and especially on Livingston Island, there are high peaks and rounded, dome-like hills, which are crowned with snow, but whose sides are mostly bare and wind-rasped. The valleys are filled with huge glaciers, which send tongues out to the sea. ”

“ The short summer night was drawing to a close and dawn was approaching. South and west of Pie Island and nearer at hand, lower lines of shore appeared, the chain of islands from one of which the adventurers had set out for the Isle Royale. Those islands, across several miles of heaving water, were still too far away to be reached. Wind and waves were carrying the bateau by. The sun, coming up in an almost clear sky, found the boat still running southwest on a course almost parallel with the unattainable chain of islands. ”

“ Knowing that the strictest search would be made for them, and that if taken, instant death would be their doom; they stole forth from their lurking-place by night, repaired to the beach, and taking a large canoe, which they discovered there, set sail in her, steering boldly southward, in search of a considerable island which was believed to lie in that direction. Soon after sunrise they came in sight of land, but, on approaching it, they found that the surf was bursting with great fury upon a barrier reef, stretching between them and the shore ”

“ The island lies in a lonely position, at the extreme west of the South Pacific series, and measures but thirteen miles in length and about seven in width. The hues of the land are sand and tawny; the sea is a faithful mirror of the turquoise sky; the dreamy heat of Polynesia endures throughout the year. Easter Island is lonely, lazy, unproductive, a little speck upon the broad breast of the Pacific. ”

“ But with its imposing groves of oak, its golden wealth of orange-trees, its odorous lanes of oleander.
its broad grazing-meadows yellow-starred with wild camomile, Grande Isle remains the prettiest island of the Gulf; and its loveliness is exceptional. For the bleakness of Grand Terre is reiterated by most of the other islands,—Caillou, Cassetete, Calumet, Wine Island, the twin Timbaliers, Gull Island, and the many islets haunted by the gray pelican,—all of which are little more than sand-bars covered with wiry grasses, prairie-cane, and scrub-timber. ”

“ The group lies between the south end of New Ireland and the north end of the great Bougainville Island in the Solomon Archipelago, and consists of six low, well-wooded and fertile islands, enclosed within a barrier reef, forming a noble atoll, almost circular in shape. All the islands are thickly populated at the present day by natives, who are peaceable enough, and engage in bêche-de-mer and pearl-shell fishing. ”

“ The Recherche and the Espérance afterwards visited the Hermit Islands, discovered in 1781 by a Spanish frigate, La Princesa. The natives, like all those they had encountered, showed a great desire to induce the strangers to land, but did not succeed in persuading them to do so.
The Exchequer Islands, discovered by Bougainville, several unknown low islands, covered with luxuriant vegetation, Schouten Island, and the coast of New Guinea, were successively sighted. ”

“ That is a feature very common to our Islands; for time, and the weather, and the ever-restless sea wear through the softer veins, which run through all our Island rocks, just as unexpected streaks of tenderness may be found in the rough natures of our Island men. And so, from every outstanding point, great pieces become detached and form separate islets, between which and the parent isles the currents run like mill-races and take toll of the unwary and the stranger. So, Sercq nuzzles Le Tas, and Jethou Crevichon, and Guernsey Lihou and the Hanois, and even Brecqhou has its whelp in La Givaude. ”

“ As soon as we had got a little over our first feelings of astonishment at the panorama thus suddenly revealed to us by the lifting of the fog, I began to consider what would be the best way of getting to the anchorage on the west—or Greenland side of the island. We were still seven or eight miles from the shore, and the northern extremity of the island, round which we should have to pass, lay about five leagues off, bearing West by North, while between us and the land stretched a continuous breadth of floating ice. ”

“ From a distance, all the islands of the Archipelago appear to rise to about the same height,—between 500 and 600 feet—presenting a fairly level sky-line from north to south, and with the exception of East Island, which shows a white sandy beach, all seem fringed with thickets of mangroves. ”

“ The most tantalizing archeological puzzle of the Pacific is Easter Island, with its strange images of stone, ancient dwellings and antediluvian caves. Dropped at haphazard in the sea, a thousand miles from anywhere, and owing a passive allegiance to the Chilean Government, Easter Island is one of the wonders of the world, and holds a secret that no man has yet read. ”

“ I simply purpose to give an account of a six months' residence—sometimes alone—on French Island, one of two islands, the other and seaward one being Phillip Island, situated in the Bay of Western Port, on the southern coast of Australia. I was a sort of Robinson Crusoe on a small scale, without the excitement of the wreck or the advantages of having a Man Friday; and should the personal pronoun be used rather freely in some portions of this narrative, let me plead the necessities of the case, for how with any propriety could a solitary man on a desolate island write of himself as we? ”