Kuril Islands

“ 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. ”

“ I like to think of the pleasant evening at Pukapuka, the gossip, the news, the passing of presents, and the exhibition of treasures and foreign curiosities.
6th.—Sighted Manihiki at half past twelve, an outlying, low coral island with enclosed lagoon, very thinly wooded with cocoa-palms and pandanus trees.
Quiros, the first Spanish navigator of the Pacific, gave to an island the name "Gente Hermosa" (Beautiful People) , which has always been ascribed to Olesenga or Quiros Island; but since the memory of man Quiros has been uninhabited until the advent of the American Jennings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Coming now to the chiefs of Faro or Fauro Island, I must mention more particularly Kurra-kurra the chief of Toma, and Tomimas the chief of Sinasoro, Toma and Sinasoro being the two principal villages of the island. Kurra-kurra is, I believe, a half-brother of Gorai. He has not, however, the same dignity of manner, and has resigned most of his power into the hands of his son Gorishwa, a fine strapping young man. Both father and son are friends of the white man. ”

“ This blind passage may be the one indicated in the present chart in the vicinity of Nairn Island, an off-lying islet.
“On the 26th of April, we reached some reefs and grounded on them. . . . [248] Some Indians came out at this time with bows and arrows; and we fired some shots, but because the Indians did not leave us, we did not repeat this. There are many islets near, both inhabited and uninhabited. The island became narrower as we arrived at a point of this island which is from the extremity 6 leagues north-west to south-east. ”

“ At midnight we sounded, and had sixty fathoms; and at day-break of the 13th, we saw the second of the Kurile Islands (called by the Russians Paramousir) , extending from north-west by west, to west half south. This land is very high, and almost entirely covered with snow. At noon, the extremes bore from north north-west half west, to west north-west half west; and a high-peaked mountain, from which some thought they saw smoke issuing, north-west by west half west, about twelve or fourteen leagues distant. At this time our latitude, by observation, was 49° 49ʹ, and our longitude 157° 0ʹ. ”

“ Quiros, Schouten, Roggewein, Byron, Wallis, Carteret, Bougainville, and Cook, have each met with new islands in their different courses; and what is most remarkable, they have found them inhabited at the distance of two hundred and forty leagues to the east of Otaheite. Nothing is more probable than, that on every new track other islands of this kind will still be met with, and particularly between the 16th and 17th degree of S. latitude, no navigator having hitherto run down on that parallel towards the Society Islands. ”

“ 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 cocoa-nuts which we got here, and at Egmont island, were of infinite advantage to the sick.
From the time of our leaving Egmont island, we had observed a current setting strongly to the southward, and in the neighbourhood of these islands we found its force greatly increased: This determined me, when I sailed from Gower's island, to steer N.W. fearing we might otherwise fall in with the main land too far to the southward; for if we had got into any gulph or deep bay, our crew was so sickly, and our ship so bad, that it would have been impossible for us to have got out again. ”

“ Many canoes came to us from that spot, and we stood in quite close in the vessel, so that people swam off to us.
'They are all fighting among the various villages and neighbouring islets of the Reef Archipelago, twenty miles north of the main island. It is very difficult what to do or how to try to make a beginning. God will open a door in His own good time. Yet to see and seize on the opportunity when given is difficult. ”

“ The eastern third of the island is composed of crystalline rocks, and rises to an irregular ice-clad tableland some 3,000 feet in altitude. The rise to the interior is somewhat abrupt, and the landscape, seen from the sea, shows an interior ice-cap in the distance, with bare rocky hills rising irregularly above the slopes of the glaciers flowing down the valleys to the sea. The western part of the island is formed of limestone, and is a flat tableland cut by deep narrow fiords that extend inland many miles from the coast, and are continued beyond the salt water as the valleys of small rivers. ”

“ Somewhere close to us lay the land, but it might have been the Kurile Islands for aught we knew. Very early in the morning there passed us, not a cable’s-length away, but as unseen as the spirits of the dead, a steamer of the same line as ours. ”

“ To the southward and the S.W. were placed, in the French charts, a group of five islands, called the Three Sisters, Zellany and Kunashir. We were about ten leagues, according to the same maps, to the westward of the land of De Gama, which we had passed to the eastward in April last, at a distance rather less than this, without seeing any appearance of it; from which circumstance we may now conclude, that, if such land exist at all, it must be an island of a very inconsiderable size. ”

“ Although accustomed to traverse districts which have been upheaved in recent times to elevations of several hundred feet above the sea, the finding of an ancient coral-reef high up a densely-wooded hill-slope, or the picking up of sand and recent sea shells in the interior of an island now supporting a luxuriant vegetation, always excited the same feelings of wonder and interest that I experienced on first landing on one of the recently upheaved islands of the Solomon Group. ”

“ Then stand along that island, at the distance of a cable's length, if the wind permit, when you will find the water shoaling, 8, 7, 6 fathoms, and 5 in the narrowest part, which depth continues till you get into the road of Nera. With God's help, a man may go in without danger, keeping near the before-mentioned island. It is somewhat shallow on the starboard side of the narrow passage, but that will shew itself. There are two small islands, Pulo-way and Pulo-rin, about three leagues west of this entrance, but there is no danger about them that is not quite obvious ”

“ The tides or currents are strong and irregular here, as may be expected, from the extending reefs, shoals, and keys, and its vicinity to Endeavour Straits.
We steered from these hostile savages to other islands in sight, and sent some armed men on shore, with orders to keep pretty near us, and to run close along shore in the boats. But they returned without success. This island we called Plumb Island, from its bearing an austere, astringent kind of fruit, resembling plumbs, but not fit to eat. ”

“ At the first landing is a place in the reef where people upset in boats are sucked under, never to be seen again. Our Quiros passengers are in a wild state of excitement; ladies on the after hatch slipping on their clean shifts, and the comb going from hand to hand. The eight-year exile clutched Louis's hand, and in a voice trembling [36] with emotion ejaculated "coco nuk." As we drew nearer the three islands of the group began to detach themselves. Danger Island, or Pukapuka, is the only one inhabited. ”

“ I have not as yet noticed by far the most remarkable feature in the natural history of this archipelago; it is, that the different islands to a considerable extent are inhabited by a different set of beings. My attention was first called to this fact by the Vice-Governor, Mr. Lawson, declaring that the tortoises differed from the different islands, and that he could with certainty tell from which island any one was brought. I did not for some time pay sufficient attention to this statement, and I had already partially mingled together the collections from two of the islands. ”

“ The people are black, and woolly-headed, like the negroes of Africa: Their weapons are bows and arrows; and they have large canoes which they navigate with a sail, one of which came near us, but would not venture on board.
We went to the northward of these islands, and steered W. by S. with a strong south-westerly current. At eleven o'clock at night, we fell in with another island of a considerable extent, flat, green, and of a pleasant appearance. We saw none of its inhabitants; but it appeared by the many fires which we saw in the night to be well peopled. ”

“ I was much struck with this fact, when viewing, from the heights of Tahiti, the distant island of Eimeo standing within smooth water, and encircled by a ring of snow-white breakers. Remove the central land, and an annular reef like that of an atoll in an early stage of its formation is left; remove it from Bolabola, and there remains a circle of linear coral-islets, crowned with tall cocoa-nut trees, like one of the many atolls scattered over the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
The barrier-reefs of Australia and of New Caledonia deserve a separate notice from their great dimensions. ”

“ Nature not having bestowed her favours to these low islands with that profusion she has done to some of the others, the inhabitants are chiefly beholden to the sea for their subsistence, consequently are much exposed to the sun and weather; and by that means become more dark in colour, and more hardy and robust; for there is no doubt of their being of the same nation. Our people observed that they were stout, well-made men, and had the figure of a fish marked on their bodies ”

“ Between Curlew River and Cape Preston, a space of eighty-five miles, there are not less than thirty sandy islets in sight from the coast, separated from each other by channels, generally navigable, between one to five miles wide. Good anchorage may be found among these islands, for the sea cannot fail of being smooth in the strongest winds. The depth among these islands is from four to six fathoms, and the bottom generally of gravel or sand.
CURLEW RIVER is defended by a shoal entrance, and is merely a creek running through a low country for three miles ”

“ I knew their language before I knew the language of Mota, they were (so to say) my favourites. But we can't as yet make any impression upon them. The Loyalty Islanders have been suffered to drop out; and so it is that all our leading scholars, all who set good examples, and are made responsible for various duties, are (with the sole exception of Soro, from Mai Island, New Hebrides) from the Banks group. ”

“ This island is situated in the latitude of 22° 27' S. and in the longitude of 150° 47' W. from the meridian of Greenwich. It is thirteen miles in circuit, and rather high than low, but neither populous nor fertile in proportion to the other islands that we had seen in these seas. The chief produce seems to be the tree of which they make their weapons, called in their language etoa; many plantations of it were seen along the shore, which is not surrounded, like the neighbouring islands, by a reef. ”

“ The chief’s fool, as we called him, was frequently my guide in the island of Santa Anna. He was the general butt of the village; and I was told the girls would sometimes seize hold of him and roll him about in the sand. Insanity would appear to be of uncommon occurrence amongst these islanders; but I suspect that such individuals are not permitted to live. Whilst the “Lark” was engaged in the survey of Faro Island in Bougainville Straits, I learned that there was a madman, who was partially dumb, living in the bush in the interior of the island. ”

“ There is much level ground here which is covered with palms and cocoa-nut trees. This island has a very lofty cordillera in its interior and many ravines from which these rivers issue; whilst between the mountains and the sea there are eight leagues of level country. In the mouth of the river there are many sandbanks; but we did not anchor there, and sailed a long way from the coast to double a point of reefs, where we anchored. The wind blew so strong from the south-east that we ran much risk when seeking shelter to leeward of the shoals that run out from the river. ”

“ Savage Island is a high-low island; that is, it is a coral atoll with a soil, raised more or less unevenly, some two hundred feet above the sea-level. It produces copra, bananas, cotton, breadfruit, bêche-de-mer, and fungus, and is governed by a king with the assistance of four chiefs and four sub-chiefs. Food trees and plants are carefully cultivated, and the people have the reputation of being industrious and willing to work. Captain [17] Henry wished to take a little girl home to his wife, but was not allowed, it being against the law that a female should leave the island. ”