, 1888-08-10
CRUSOE SETTLEMENTS.
ROMANTIC LIFE ON A LITTLE
SOUTH PACIFIC ISLAND.

Story Of a Runaway English saIlOr-An-
other Little Colony in the Kermndco
Group-CastawSys ON a Coral Reef-Plt-
cairn ISLANDERS.
About four months ago, as the English
bark Queens Island was passing Palmerston
Island, in the Southern Pacific, the captain
was surprised to see a boat containing eight
persons put Off from the shore. 1t was gen
orally supposed that this little coral island,
one of the least important of the Hervey
group, and about three hundred miles from
its nearest %neighbor, was u~ninhabited. Capt.
Reid, however, had accidently approached
near enough to this little speck in the ocean
TO discover another of those romantic island
settlements which are now and then unex-
pectedly found in the broad exPanse Of tho
great Pacific.
The bronzed and rather scautily clad white
man who clambered up the side of the bark
said he was William Marston, tho chief of
the little island, where he had lived for
twenty-five years. When he was a young
man he deserted from the British bark Rifle.
man in Tahiti and made his way in a small
sailboat nearly 900 miles west to the Her
vey group. He took u native wife and jour
neyed on to Palmerston Island, where he
built him a cabin and started n ~cocoanut
"a Ap' .ItAtANAA lAAAhH AAAAA
now his little world contains ~thirty-three
human beings, of whom fifteen are his own
children English is the only language
spoken in this little community, whose island
home Is not so large us some Dakota farms.
Here the subjects Of the runaway English
sailor live IN the happiest terms, getting
along very well without the news and gossip
of the world, while enjoying, nevertheless,
many Of the good things of civilization
brought to them by small trading vessels, to
whom they sell the copra prepared from their
cocoanuts.
Within the past few years several islands
have been discovered in the Pacific which, it
was found, had long been known by small
traders, who in the interests of monopoly
carefully kept their information to them
selves. After the Sydney newspapers an
nounced the discovery of n fine new island
not far from New Guinea n sea captain in
port produced n very good map of the island
which he had made several years before. He
had probably hoped TO hand down the secret
TO his heirs as an exclusive trading privilege.
In this way it has happened IL 1T Marston's
little colony has 6ourished unknown save to
one or two traders, whose interests have kept
them quiet.
Hundreds of the little islands of the Pacific
are uninhabited, and are very rarely seen by
vessels, Who knows but among them may
be modern Robinson Crusoes, waiting pa
tiently for a sail, and living in a fair degree
of comfort upon the bounties of which ma
ture is so lavish in those regionsl We nave
recently told the story of Mr.. Bell and his
little family, who are monarchs of all they
survey in the Kermadec group, GOO miles
from their nearest ~neighbors. Tn passen-
gers and crew of the bark Henry James, who
were rescued in May last from a coral reef
in Polynesia, know what it is to be cast
Always in the Pacific, hundreds of miles from
inhabited islands. If they had not fortu-
nately saved their small boat they might
have been prisoners for many months on the
little island. Five men in the boat carried
the news of their disaster 300 miles to Sa-
moa, and in less than two months deliver
ance came. They needed clothing, but were
not otherwise in serious want, for fish and
c~ocoanuts had amply supplemented the slen-
der food supplies with which they had
reached their place Of refuge.
Among the jubilee presents received by
Queen Victoria were some hats and other
manufactures, most skillfully made of straw,
the humble tribute Of the most unique and
famous Of Pacific colonies. In 1890 the Pit
cairn islanders may celebrate the centennial
of the landing of their mutinous fathers on
the little rock where Lady Belcher, their his
torian, says they nave become "such a COM
munity as has been the dream of poets and
the aspiration Of philosophers" 1t is not
often the world hears from these happy and
peaceful islanders now numbering liz souls,
who have perpetuated the remarkable colony
founded ninety-eight years ago by English
sailors; but it is refreshing now and then to
contemplate their idyllic existence, cut of as
they are from the busy world, tilling the fer
tile valleys of their little home only two and
a quarter square miles in extent, possessing a
schoolhouse and a church, but no Jail; intelli-
gent, neat and clean, with plenty of books
and fruit and flowers, a simple hearted, de
vout people, and the only Christian COM
munity in the world that has no strong
drink, tobacco or money.
A traveller on an English bark which
touched at Pitcairn in February last says he
saw among tho islanders men who in stature
would be a credit to the Royal Guards, and
women who were fair to see, though their
garments were not rich and fashionable;
women who are skilled in the arts of house
wifery, in the making of fancy baskets and
shell work, and some, too, who can play ex-
cellently on the little church organ. Born
to this life of isolation, the Pitcairn Islander
hears with wonder and delight, but without
envy, of the world beyond his sea grit home.
When, years ago, Pitcairn became too
crowded, considering its slender resources,
and the people were removed by Great
Britain to Norfolk, that island, small as it
is, bewildered them by It's vastness. Having
only footpaths in Pitcairn, they thought the
wagon roads of Norfolk unsightly, and the
echoes aroused by their voices in the stone
quarter where convicts had once lived i'm
pressed them as a most disagreeable novelty.
A minority decided that they could notbe
happy among these strange surroundings
and they returned to Pitcairn to live and die.
New York Sun.