Pelew Islands

“ There is New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the Friendly Islands, the Societies' Islands, the Marquesas, Tahite, and the Pelew Islands; but each navigator gives them a new name, so that it is hard to say which is which; all you can do is to say that there is an island in latitude so and so and longitude so and so, but the name is almost out of the question. ”

“ Peleus, the son of Æacus, the husband of Thetis, the father of Achilles, and one of the Argonauts, after whom Achilles is named Pelides, i. e. Peleus' boy.
Pelew Islands (10) , twenty-six in number, of coral formation, and surrounded by reefs; are in the extreme W. of the Caroline Archipelago in the North Pacific, and SE. of the Philippines. They belong to Spain; are small but fertile, and have a healthy climate. The natives are Malays, and though gentle lead a savage life. ”

“ I may add, that the Pelew chiefs had never heard of Lord North's island; but they are acquainted with the Caroline islands.
A detail of all that befell us would serve only to give pain to the benevolent, or at most to show how much human beings can endure. I shall attempt but little more than [Pg 92] to describe the sufferings of a day; observing once for all, that for the term of two long years we experienced the same privations, and were subjected to the same brutal treatment; life, during all that time, being no better than the constant succession of the most acute sufferings. ”

“ An island was discovered by one of the Spanish galleon pilots in 1686, and called Carolina, in honour of Charles II. of Spain, but its bearings could not be found again for years.
In 1696 two canoes, with 29 Pelew Islanders, drifted to the coast of Sámar Island, and landed at the Town of Guivan. They were 60 days on the drift, and five of them died of privations. They were terror-stricken when they saw a man on shore making signs to them. ”

“ They fall into three main groups, the Western, Central and Eastern Carolines, the central being the most numerous, while the western include the Pelew group. The total land area is about 380 sq. m., and out of this, 307 sq. m. is covered by the four main islands, Ponape and Kusaie in the eastern group, Truk or Hogolu in the central, and Yap in the western. These islands are of considerable elevation (the highest point of Ponape approaches 3000 ft.) , but the rest are generally low coral islets. The climate is equable and moist, but healthy; but the islands are subject to heavy storms. ”

“ GEORGE. "Papa, it is your turn again.—Pelew Isles."
MR. WILTON. "They are chiefly known from the accounts of Captain Wilson, who was wrecked on them in 1783. He describes the inhabitants as hospitable, friendly, and humane; and they are a gay and comparatively innocent people; but they do not appear to have any form of religion, although they conceive that the soul survives the body. These islands are covered with close woods. Ebony grows in the forests. Bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees are in abundance. Cattle, goats, poultry, &c., have been sent there and thrive well. ”

“ A glance at the map of Polynesia is enough to show the fitness of the name given to the myriad islands and islets that stud the whole western half of the vast Pacific. Group after group, island after island, reef everywhere stretching out to embrace reef, north and south of the line for thousands of miles, keeping the mariner ever anxious by day and sleepless by night, seem to tell us, in language that cannot well be mistaken, of mighty continents that once were, and, for anything we know to the contrary, are again to be. ”

“ It still continued calm until Wednesday the 29th. During that day a breeze sprang up, and we again made the land. Captain E. and a boat’s crew had been on shore two days, in consequence of our drifting away from the land. They came off on this day, bringing with them some sweet potatoes and two fine large turtle. But very few persons reside on these islands—some twelve or fifteen. Mr. Savory, the oldest inhabitant, came to Peel’s Island in 1812, and has never left it. ”

“ Since the publication of Anson's voyage, they have very much changed their opinion, finding a settlement in Pepys's, or Falkland's island, recommended by the author as necessary to the success of our future expeditions against the coast of Chili, and as such use and importance, that it would produce many advantages in peace, and, in war, would make us masters of the South sea.
Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained. ”

“ PELICAN ISLAND is on the north-west side of a reef of more than a mile and a half long: it is very small, but remarkable for having two clumps of trees, which at a distance give it the appearance of being two small islets: it is low, and, like the other islands of its character, may be seen at ten miles from the deck: its latitude is 13 degrees 54 minutes 45 seconds, and longitude 143 degrees 46 minutes. ”

“ Sometimes, while looking at La Pelée, I have wondered if the enterprise of the great Japanese painter who made the Hundred Views of Fusiyama could not be imitated by some creole artist equally proud of his native hills, and fearless of the heat of the plains or the snakes of the slopes. A hundred views of Pelée might certainly be made: for the enormous mass is omnipresent to dwellers in the northern part of the island, and can be seen from the heights of the most southern mornes. ”

“ The island is small, and the inhabitants probably not more than three hundred or four hundred. They are Polynesians, men of very large stature, rough in manner, and not very easily managed. I landed there and waded across the reef among forty or fifty men. On the beach a large party assembled. I told them in a sort of Polynesian patois, that I wished to take away two lads from their island, that I might learn their language, and come back and teach them many things for their good. ”

“ After a few days a canoe returned from Pelew Island with a son of the king as messenger. He brought word that his Majesty Abba Thulle bade the Englishmen welcome to his country, that they had his full permission to build a vessel on the island where they then were, or that they might remove to the island on which he lived and enjoy his personal protection. Mr. Matthias Wilson would soon return to the camp and had greatly enjoyed his visit. ”

“ The isles of the Pacific give evidence that, long before the dawn of authentic history, man lived there. Indeed, as the islands which gem that ocean, from their configuration and position, seem to be but the elevated plateaus and mountain peaks of a continent that has gone down beneath the blue wave of the Pacific, so, throughout Polynesia can be traced the fragmentary remains of a civilization, the greater portion of which has been completely buried by the waters of oblivion, leaving only here and there a trace to reconstruct, if we can, the entire structure. ”

“ Where art thou, Kane-hoa-lani?
O Father Kane, where art thou?
Hail to thee, O Father, and hail to me!
When rose the pilot-star we sailed away.
Hail, girl who beats out tapa for women—
The home-coming wife who watches the wind,
The haunting wind that searches the house!
The survey of Oahu completed, and Ka-moho-alii having resumed command of the canoe, Pele uttered her farewell and they voyaged on to the cluster of islands of which Maui is the center:
Aloha, Oahu, e-e!
E huli ana makou i ka aina mamua aku,
Kahi a makou e noho ai. ”

“ But of all, the Polynesians, both male and female, adhere most closely to the old way. Most of them will not even use a stone to assist the descent, and they probably reach greater depths than the naked divers of any other sea. Travellers report that, at a coral atoll in the Southern Pacific owned by the French government and known as Hikuereu, where the natives of Tahiti and other islands flock during the season to fish for pearls, the boys and girls and women are almost as expert as the men. ”

“ In speaking of skulls, Dr. Keith makes the interesting remark that the Islanders are the largest-brained people yet discovered in the islands or shores of the Pacific, and shows that their cranial capacity exceeds that of the inhabitants of Whitechapel.
In the culture of the island also, the Melanesian influence is very strong. The custom of distending the lobe of the ear is much more Melanesian than Polynesian. Dr. Haddon has pointed out that an early illustration of an Easter Island canoe depicts it with a double outrigger, after a type found in the Nissan group in Melanesia. ”

“ Off to the north the islands showed their mountain-tips against the sky, blue and continuous as some distant mainland. Talking with the mates and boat-steerers and Kanakas, Tom Dennis was entertained with many stories of those islands: how fox- and seal-farmers were scattered through the group; how small launches cruised the entire length of the island chain with impunity; how in time to come there would be a thriving island population where now were empty stretches of land or scattered communities of miserable natives. ”

“ The complexion of these islanders is a light copper color; much lighter than the Malays, or the Pelew islanders; which last, however, they resemble in the breadth of their faces, high cheek bones, and broad flattened noses. They do not color their teeth, by chewing any thing, as many of those islanders do; but their teeth are so strong that they can husk a cocoa-nut with them instantly. ”

“ New Guinea has never been much of a pearling center; but Thursday and Broome Islands were temporarily exhausted, and a few of the fleet had run over to Samarai to try what they could do about China Strait.
It is a nasty place for pearling: the shell is none too plentiful, the depths are appalling; and the current in the straits is at all times exceedingly dangerous. Still, it is better than nothing when nothing better is to be had. The best class of pearler does not come to New Guinea, as a rule. I expected to see none but the riffraff of Thursday Island when the fleet came in. ”

“ Gathering pearl shells and pearls is the principal industry of the semi-amphibious natives of the hundreds of palm-crowned and foam-girdled islands of the southern Pacific, commonly known as the South Sea Islands. Among these the most prominent for pearl fishing are the Tuamotu Islands or Low Archipelago, the Society Islands, the Marquesas, the Fiji Islands, Penrhyn or Tongareva, and New Caledonia. ”

“ Do you know that you may be answerable for every enemy you kill? and, if I can read your character, you will kill a great many!" "Well, grandpapa," replied young Pellew, "and if I do not kill them, they'll kill me!"
He entered the navy towards the end of 1770, in the Juno, Captain Stott, which was sent to the Falkland Islands, in consequence of the forcible seizure of them by the Spanish squadron. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Bonins, too, form an ideal calling-place, from the whaling captain's point of view. Peel Island, the principal one of the cluster, has a perfect harbour in Port Lloyd, where a vessel can not only lie in comfort, sheltered from almost every wind that blows, but where provisions, wood, and water are plentiful. There is no inducement, or indeed room, for desertion, and the place is healthy. ”

“ The principal groups of islands included in Polynesia are New Zealand, the Friendly or Tonga Islands, the Samoan or Navigators Islands, the Hervey or Cook Islands, the Society Islands, including Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands, and Hawaii or the Sandwich Islands. ”

“ Polynesia, extending from the Pelew Isles on the west, to the Isle of All Saints on the north-east, and the Sandwich Isles in the east, and having for its other boundaries the latitude of 20° north, and of 50° south, near the latter of which it joins Australasia, is the only remaining division of the globe which remains to come under our cognizance, as having been explored by maritime expeditions ”

“ During 1808 and 1809 he was principally employed in cruising in the Straits of Malacca and the China seas. Upon the arrival of the news of the political changes in Spain, he was despatched by Pellew's successor, Rear-admiral Drury, to conciliate the governor of the Philippine Islands, a mission in which he was completely successful. ”

“ Some years before this Pele and her brothers had migrated from the far southern islands and had made their home in Hawaii, close to the crater of Kilauea,—so close that they were believed to be under the special protection of the gods; and from that belief no doubt grew the later faith that Pele and her family were gods themselves; that they lived in the cones thrust up from the floor of Kilauea by gas and steam while it was in a viscid state; that the music of their dances came up in thunder gusts, and that they swam the white surges of lava in the hell-pit. ”

“ They likewise saw vast numbers of seals, and a great many whales. Holding on their course to lat. 47° S. they discovered an island not known before, which Cowley named Pepy's Island, [149] in honour of Samuel Pepys, secretary to the Duke of York when Lord High Admiral of England, a great patron of seamen. This island has a very good harbour, in which 1000 ships might ride at anchor, and is a very commodious place for procuring both wood and water. It abounded in sea-fowl, and the shore, being either rocks or sand, promised fair for fish. ”