Ladrone Islands

“ In length it is about eight miles, its greatest [118] breadth not more than four, and it is separated from the mainland by an arm of the sea, called the Lyemoon Passage, in which are several smaller islands, which vary its width, and make admirable hiding places for the pirates, whose existence has given to this Archipelago its distinctive title of Ladrone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our men burned many houses all along the coast. The town inland on this island is large and thickly populated, and abounds in all things which are raised in the island. There our men found about two pounds of very good sulphur, and took one of the natives alive, who was brought to the ship, and whom I am sending to that Nueba España. This island is called Ladrones, which according to the disposition of the inhabitants, is the most appropriate name that could have been given it. Eleven days after reaching this island, we set sail following our course in the aforesaid latitude. ”

“ This island is inhabited by men who are savages going utterly stark, with no covering at all, the women, however, concealing their private parts with the leaf of a tree. The people are large of frame, robust, and given to pilfering, whence the name of the island Ladrones. The natives brought us fruits, fish, [318] rice, and other eatables, which they bartered for iron, which they value more than gold. ”

“ Also, during a great part of the period in which Brazil appeared66 on the maps off the Blaskets and Limerick and unduly close to Ireland, Italian traders were habitually following the Irish western coast and trafficking in that port and others and must often have been blown out, or sailed out by choice, far enough for a landing on the island if it had actually been where Dalorto and others pictured it. The total lack of any such happening must have been convincing to all except devotees of the occult and those given over blindly to seashore tradition. ”

“ The Brownsman was the outermost of the Farne Islands—the last rocky foothold of human life; and beyond it was a vast expanse and an awful depth of sea. It had scarcely any vegetation, but stood out from the water, bare and black and bleak. The jagged cliffs, and dim, sounding caves, were alive with seabirds [129] —almost the only living creatures to be seen on the island, out of the family at the lighthouse.
In this strange, lonely place, Grace Darling passed her earliest years. She was a shy and thoughtful child, and learned to take pleasure in the wild and dreary scenery around her. ”

“ Very great praise is due to Darling and his sons for their great exertions—having run a considerable risk in approaching the rock with a heavy sea. A signal gun upon each island where the lighthouses are, would be of very great use in cases of accidents of this sort, when assistance could be immediately had from North Sunderland, Bamborough, or Holy Island—for had it not been for the circumstance of Darling's sons being there, this poor fellow must inevitably have perished. ”

“ So, at least, thought two gentlemen who visited Longstone Rock, the home of the Darlings, on the day after the birth of Grace. They came in their little yacht to the island, having cruised about for health and recreation, and landed on the Longstone, in order to explore it and others of the Farne group. The children were having holiday, too, just then, and as they scampered about, they attracted the attention of the visitors.
"Whose children are you?"
"We are the lighthouse children; we belong to Mr. Darling. He lives in the house yonder." ”

“ These routes all have to do primarily with New Guinea as the objective point of the expedition, the Philippines being considered as only secondary thereto. Speaking of the Ladrones and their inhabitants, Urdaneta says: "The islands of the Ladrones are many, and thirteen [42] of them are said to be inhabited. The inhabitants are naked and poor. They eat rice, have many cocoa palms, and use salt. They fish with hooks made from tortoise-shell, being destitute of articles made from iron. They place a counterweight in one end of their canoes, and rig on them lateen-like sails made of palm-mats. ”

“ Here Father Urdaneta ordered the vessels to ascend to the thirteenth degree, so that by running westward and turning their course to the southwest, until they reached twelve and one-half degrees, they might reach the Filipinas. On Saturday, January 22, the Ladrones Islands were discovered, so called because their inhabitants are [137] robbers, to as great an extent as possible. They are very different from the natives of the other islands, whose goodness is such, that they do not know what it is to steal. ”

“ When my photographs of this island had been examined with immense delight, and every person in them had been identified—even those who only showed a hand or a leg—I brought out some I had taken in County Wicklow. Most of them were fragments, showing fairs in Rathdrum or Aughrim, men cutting turf on the hills, or other scenes of inland life, yet they gave the greatest delight to these people who are wearied of the sea. ”

“ It is not to be supposed that Brazil Island was generally conceived of by intelligent persons as no farther at sea than it appears on the map of Dalorto, 1325, and divers later ones. Peasantry and fisher folk might, indeed, confuse it with the mythical Isle of the Undying—accessible only to a few chosen ones but vanishing from ordinary mortal gaze—and thus account for Brazil’s elusiveness, though so near at hand ”

“ It was sufficient for a Laird of the Hebrides, if he had a strong house, in which he could hide his wife and children from the next clan. That they are not large nor splendid is no wonder. It is not easy to find how they were raised, such as they are, by men who had no money, in countries where the labourers and artificers could scarcely be fed. The buildings in different parts of the Island shew their degrees of wealth and power. ”

“ They cheated much, passing up packages filled mainly with sand, or grass, and rocks, with perhaps a little rice on top to hide the deceit; the cocoanut oil was found to be mixed with water. "Of these the natives made many and very ridiculous jests." They showed no shame in these deceits, and, if remonstrance was made, began straightway to show fight. "They are inclined to do evil, and in their knavishness they exhibit a very great satisfaction in having done it; and truly whoever gave the name of island of Ladrones [robbers] was right ”

“ It cannot be right to hesitate," said the girl, in convincing tones.
Mr. Darling looked anxiously through his telescope. It was scarcely light, and there was a heavy mist hanging over the island. The wind was not as violent as it had been, but the sea was still very furious. William Darling strained his eyes as he looked through the good glass, and presently he saw that which he looked for. About half-a-mile away, there were the shipwrecked sufferers, still clinging to their only hope, the broken pieces of the ship. He thought for a moment or two, and Grace's earnest pleading prevailed. ”

“ If they be considered merely as places of retreat, the situation seems not well chosen; for the Laird of an Island is safest from foreign enemies in the center; on the coast he might be more suddenly surprised than in the inland parts; and the invaders, if their enterprise miscarried, might more easily retreat. Some convenience, however, whatever it was, their position on the shore afforded; for uniformity of practice seldom continues long without good reason. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These islands are so near the Ladrones that canoes from them have sometimes by distress been driven to Guam, and the Spaniards did once dispatch a bark for their discovery, which left two Jesuits amongst them, who were afterwards murthered. Whence it may be presumed that the inhabitants of the Ladrones, with their proas, may by storms or casualties have been driven amongst those islands. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There was another reason for our keeping in this latitude till we came to the Ladrones; namely, that all the southern side of that part of the way, between the Philippines and the Ladrones, is so full of islands, that, unless we had been provided with very good pilots, it would have been extremely hazardous; and, add to this, that, beyond these islands south, is no passage; the land, which they call Nova Guinea, lying away east and east-south-east, farther than has yet been discovered; so that it is not yet known whether that country be an island or the continent. ”

“ It must not be thought that the use of metals, and the contact with the Continent, which have just been noticed, invalidate the statement as to the insufficiency of our earliest historical notices. It must not be thought that they tell us more than they really do. It is only at the first view that the knowledge of certain metallurgic processes, and the trade and power that such knowledge developes, are presumptions in favour of a certain degree of antiquity in the occupancy of our island on the parts of its islanders ”

“ The continual passing in this island between the misery of last night and the splendor of to-day, seems to create an affinity between the moods of these people and the moods of varying rapture and dismay that are frequent in artists, and in certain forms of alienation. Yet it is only in the intonation of a few sentences or some old fragment of melody that I catch the real spirit of the island, for in general the men sit together and talk with endless iteration of the tides and fish, and of the price of kelp in Connemara. ”

“ They have here some Rice also: but the Island being of a dry Soil, and therefore not very proper for it, they do not sow very much. Fish is scarce about this Island; yet on the Shoal that our Bark came over there was great plenty, and the Natives commonly go thither to fish.
Inhabitants of the Ladrones Islands; from T. de Bry’s Peregrinationes, (Amsterdame, 1602)
[From copy in Boston Public Library]
[256]
The Natives of this Island are strong bodied, large limb’d, and well-shap’d. They are Copper-coloured, like other Indians: their Hair is black and long, their Eyes meanly proportioned ”

“ When they arrived here, the religious gave an account of what he had seen in the islands of Ladrones, saying that there were many islands thickly peopled with Indians, who are men of good stature, and strong. They are a tractable and kindly people. They regaled him and his companion, and showed them much respect. The land abounds in fish, rice, and camotes. They are heathen; but if the religious would enter there with love and tactfulness they would teach them. I hope in our Lord that He and your Majesty will be served in bringing those heathen to a true knowledge of God. ”

“ At any rate, the previous notice of the ethnology of the British Isles during the Historical period, prepares us with a little light for the dark walk in the field of its earliest antiquity.
Nothing, as has just been stated, in the earliest historical records of Britain, throws any light upon the original occupation of the British Islands by man; indeed, nothing tells us that Britain, when so occupied, was an island at all. The Straits of Dover may have existed when the first human being set foot upon what is now the soil of Kent, or an isthmus may have existed instead. ”

“ The Laird having all his people under his immediate view, seems to be very attentive to their happiness. The devastation of the small-pox, when it visits places where it comes seldom, is well known. He has disarmed it of its terrour at Muack, by inoculating eighty of his people. The expence was two shillings and sixpence a head. Many trades they cannot have among them, but upon occasion, he fetches a smith from the Isle of Egg, and has a tailor from the main land, six times a year. This island well deserved to be seen, but the Laird’s absence left us no opportunity. ”

“ Brandan’s Island far west of the Cape Verde group and emphasizes it by showing Antillia independently in a more northern latitude and less western longitude and also of quite insignificant size and form. ”