Caroline Islands

“ Sea birds were tolerably numerous, and a few sand snipe were seen. On the weather side of the island, we found a cocoa-nut tree, that, to all appearance, had but recently drifted on shore. Besides the cocoa-nut tree, we found two articles of Indian furniture. That they came from an inhabited island, there can be no doubt, and it is equally certain that the island has never been discovered, as there is none laid down upon the chart, in the direction of the trade winds, from Caroline Island, nearer than the Society Islands. The Marquesas are the nearest to Caroline, of any land known ”

“ Such are found upon the Caroline islands, on sacred Tonga, on Pitcairn, and on Easter island, the last mentioned have excited particular attention, and have given rise to various foolish theories about a previous race of high culture, and about relationship to the civilized American nations of Peru and Central America. It is enough to say that nothing on Easter island is peculiar to its culture. There are stone platforms with rude stone images on them thirty or forty feet high; there are the foundations of stone houses; there are remains of a primitive ideographic writing. ”

“ We planted them near our anchorage. Caroline Island is low, and every where flat, with the exception of a few sand hillocks, that rise a little above the ordinary level. It is no where more than four or five feet above the sea. We obtained a boat-load of pepper-grass and pursely, of which there was a great abundance; and on the 13th, at meridian, unhooked our kedge, and made sail to the westward. Our place of landing at Caroline Island, was south latitude nine degrees fifty-four minutes thirty seconds; west longitude, one hundred and fifty degrees eighteen seconds. ”

“ The highest mountains are planted up to their summits with bananas, taro, sugarcane, etc54.
On the Eastern Caroline Islands the land belongs exclusively to the two upper classes; the third class are attached to the soil on which they live55.
Hale states that in Ponape or Ascension Island there are three classes. All the land belongs to the two upper classes. The estates are never alienated and pass only by succession56.
Gerland tells us that on the Marianne Islands the nobles were hereditary owners of the whole of the land57. ”

“ In the Micronesian Islands, while animism and tabu were strong, there was not the cannibalism of the southern islands. Work was begun in the Caroline Isles in 1852 and in time spread to the Gilbert and Marshall groups. In the Carolines and Marshalls it has now largely passed to German missionaries, the Americans having enough to do in the Philippines, where there are already over 27,000 Protestants. ”

“ Some of the atolls, in the larger archipelagoes, stand so near to each other, and have such an evident relationship in form, that they compose little sub-groups: in the Caroline Archipelago, one such sub-group consists of Pouynipete, a lofty island encircled by a barrier-reef, and separated by a channel only four miles and a half wide from Andeema atoll, with a second atoll a little further off. In all these respects an examination of a series of charts will show how perfectly groups of atolls resemble groups of common islands. ”

“ As we approached the land we could see trees on the shore and some on the hill, so that we had no doubt that we should find fresh water. It was a question, however, whether or not it was inhabited, and, if so, whether the natives would prove friendly or hostile. The mate told the doctor that he believed it was one of the most north-western of the Caroline group, the natives of which are generally more friendly to strangers than the inhabitants of the islands farther south; still, they are perfect savages, and it would be dangerous to trust them. ”

“ Commencing at this parallel of 30o, therefore, in the North Pacific, and tracing thence the course of the northeast trade-winds, we shall find that they blow thence, and reach the region of equatorial calms near the Caroline Islands. Here they rise up ”

“ The Caroline, Ladrone, and Pelew Islands, in all 160 square miles, and the Marshall Islands, 160 square miles in extent, all form part of the German New Guinea Protectorate. Amongst the largest of these is Babelthuap, the remainder ranging downwards in size to uninhabited coral or volcanic rocks scattered about the waste of Pacific waters. Their total white population is not more than 1,500. ”

“ Cabral, discovery of Brazil, 34, 40 Cabral Bay, 40–1 Cairns: — legends re, 232, 278 — memorial, 232 Caldero: see Atalaya California: — history and descriptions, 328–32 — university, 330 Calvo, Señor, 61 Canary Isles: see Grand Canary Cannibalism, 173, 225–6, 259, 280, 283, 285 Canoes, 278, 283, 296 Canoe-shaped ahu: see under Ahu Cape Verde Islands, history and descriptions, 27–31 Caribbean sea, 368 Caroline Islands, 302 Carvings: — in stone: on Motu Nui, 261, 275 at Orongo, 262–3 see Statues, design on, and carvings incised on in wood: — human figures, 268–70 — objects, 268 see also under Ao ”

“ Every European seaman must admire the skill of the Caroline-Islanders, who succeed in traveling with such sureness over the length and breadth of their group, through spaces in which one of the islands may be more than eight hundred miles from its neighbor. ”

“ The Micronesian islands were first explored and colonized by a a people who came from Malaysia. It is thought that these people spread into the Palau, Caroline, Mariana, Marshall, and Gilbert islands as a single wave of migration. Following this occupation, the people apparently underwent a normal process of cultural evolution [Pg 17] and differentiation. Remains of stone walls, dikes, fences, pillars, graves, and other structures which may be found today at various islands in Micronesia were constructed by the ancestors of the islanders of the present day. ”

“ Professor Keane [82] holds that the three principal divisions of the varieties of man are represented in this region; the Caucasian in the Polynesians inhabiting the islands of the south-central Pacific (Marquesas, Samoa, Tonga, &c.) ; the Mongolian in the Micronesians of the islands of the north-central Pacific (Gilbert, Marshall, Caroline, Ladrone Islands) ; and the Ethiopian, or as he terms it the Dark Type, in the Papuans of the Western Pacific (to whom he restricts the name Melanesian) , New Guinea, and the adjacent islands of the Indian Archipelago. ”

“ We looked off to the Farallon Islands, which are one of the chief landmarks for vessels approaching the Golden Gate. There was formerly a settlement of Russians there, who hunted the seal and the otter. These islands are still a great resort for seals, also for cormorants and sea-gulls; and the large speckled eggs of the birds are gathered in quantities, and brought to the San Francisco market for sale. They were called by the Spaniards "Farallons de los Frayles" (Islands of the Friars) , farallon being a sharp-pointed island.
There is a marvellous exhilaration in the air. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For the quantity of fish that might be procured would be sufficient, and the people might roam about unmolested by the petulance of any inhabitants.
The nine or ten low islets, comprehended under the name of Palmerston's Island, may be reckoned the heads or summits of the reef of coral rock that connects them together, covered only with a thin coat of sand, yet clothed, as already observed, with trees and plants, most of which are of the same sorts that are found on the low grounds of the high islands of this ocean. ”

“ Though there is no pass, the surf at high tide breaches over the gaps between the islands. The largest island is only a mile and a half long, and none of them are more than half a mile across. Dotted about the surface of the lagoon are a number of motu—tiny islets—each with its flock of sea fowl, its clump of palms, and shining beach of coral sand. Set in a lonely stretch of the Pacific, the place is almost cut off from communication with the outside world; twice or three times in the course of a year a trading schooner calls to leave supplies and take off copra. ”

“ Captain Fuller consents; but I fear sometimes that he will have a hard life of it. I resolve, however, to protect him as far as I can. He gets the name of Charlie, but no other.
We have sighted several low coral islands, but at length we reach the neighbourhood of a group known as the Penrhyn Islands, about six hundred miles due north of the Hervey group, which we also purpose to visit. We sight a coral island, which we estimate as fifty feet high, nine or ten miles long and five broad, with a deep lagoon in the centre. It is as if a huge coral ring had been thrown down in the ocean. ”

“ It lays not far from the Main, which with the Island forms a right Angle, one side trending North and the other West. To the northward of the Island and between it and the Main there appears to lay several smaller Islands near each other. The Main land on the Sea Coast appears to be low, but inland are high Mountains. Drawing Number 4 exhibits a View of this Island when it bore West-North-West, distance 4 leagues. Wind North-East, East-North-East; course South 60 degrees 30 minutes West; distance 59 miles; latitude 23 degrees 6 minutes South; Isle of Cape Frio North 60 degrees East, 4 leagues. ”

“ I named it Half-way Island. It is scarcely more than a mile in circumference, but appears to be increasing both in elevation and extent. At no very distant period of time, it was one of those banks produced by the washing up of sand and broken coral, of which most reefs afford instances, and those of Torres' Strait a great many. These banks are in different stages of progress: some, like this, are become islands, but not yet habitable; some are above high-water mark, but destitute of vegetation; whilst others are overflowed with every returning tide. ”

“ The men resembled the inhabitants of Clarence Island, in dress, colour, and every thing, except that they had a sickly look, and, in strength and activity, seemed much their inferiors. Their canoes were also the same. Like the inhabitants of the Duke of Clarence Island, they had nothing amongst them that indicated a visit of white men before. The cocoa-nut, except when they catch fish, is their only food. No bread-fruit trees were seen growing upon either island. They exchanged for iron hoop and old nails, their rude shell ornaments, mats, cocoa-nuts, and fishing nets. ”

“ The south-east trade blows almost ceaselessly for ten months of the year. Terrific storms sometimes break over the island; and it has been more than once visited by earthquakes. A profitable trade is done in coco-nuts, but there are few other exports. The imports are almost entirely foodstuffs and other necessaries for the inhabitants, who form a patriarchal colony under a private proprietor.
The islands were discovered in 1609 by Captain William Keeling on his voyage from Batavia to the Cape. ”

“ EMMA. "I should not like to live with such people; therefore we will pass on to my Friendly Islands. They are low and encircled by dangerous coral reefs; the soil is almost throughout exceedingly rich, producing with very little care, the banana, bread-fruit, and yam. The population may amount to about 90,000; but the natives, though favorably mentioned by Captain Cook, appear to be as treacherous, savage, and superstitious as any in the worst parts of Polynesia. The Wesleyan Missionaries established themselves in these islands in 1821, and are reported to have met with considerable success. ”

“ Advancing under their majestic shadow one discovers at every turn fresh views, and one’s imagination, carried away by the tales of the ancients, is filled with poetic impressions. These enchanted regions are well worthy of the fictions of fables, and in the enthusiasm they give birth to when wandering in their midst, the Canarios appear to have lost nothing of their celebrity; these are still the Fortunate Islands and their shady groves the Elysium of the Greeks, the wandering place of happy souls. ”

“ People of an extraordinary description I did not see, neither did I hear of any, except those of the island Caris, which is the second island on the way from Española to India. This island is inhabited by a people who are regarded by their neighbors as exceedingly ferocious. They feed upon human flesh. These people have many kinds of canoes with which they make [136] incursions upon all the islands of India, robbing and plundering wherever they go. Their difference from the others consists in their wearing long hair like that of women, and in using bows and arrows of cane ”

“ I believe I should have landed upon this Island to have known its produce, as it did not appear to be very small, had not the wind blown too fresh for such an undertaking, and at the time we passed the Island we had only 10 fathoms Water, a rocky bottom; I was therefore afraid of running down to leeward for fear of meeting with Shoal Water and foul ground. These Islands have no place on the Charts, unless they are the Arrow Isles, which, if they are, they are laid down much too far from New Guinea. ”

“ The island turned out to be one of the Pomotu or Low Group—sometimes called the Coral Islands—perhaps the most remarkable and interesting in the Pacific. Lying to the east of Tahiti, the nearest are within a day’s sail of that place.
They are very numerous; mostly small, low, and level; sometimes wooded, but always covered with verdure. Many are crescent-shaped; others resemble a horse-shoe in figure. ”

“ The southern group consists of seven or eight islands and islets on the atoll, which is the skeleton of what some day, according to the history of coral reefs, will be a continuous island. North Keeling has no harbor, is seldom visited, and is of no importance. ”