The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1895-08-22

''The Morning Star"
where are you from ~
Honolulu"
"Where are you bound ?'
''To Micronesia"
Conversation between vessels meet
ing at sea generally begins about in
this way. The Morning Star has few
ner, because there are so few ships in
the region where she sails. But she
IS not lonesome by any means. Her
voyage is all planned before she sails
from Honolulu, and she has to work
lively to get around on time. There
is not much time to think of other
vessels or to get lonesome. Her last
voyage occupied over nine months,
during which she probably sailed
over 5000 miles. If she could have
sailed on straight courses from island
TO island, the distance would be only
1000 miles, but with head winds she
has to beat, first on one side, then on
the other, sailing often 120 miles in
twenty-four hours, only to make from
thirty to fifty miles towards her port.
At times she does not make even so
much as that, because of strong cur
rents running through the sea in diff
ferent directions.
Can you imagine how disappoint-
ing it is to the captain and others on
board, after taking observations and
working them up, to find the ship has
only made 100 miles when by log she
should have made $50? This often
happens in the waters where the Star
sails. "Why don't the captain allow
for the current in his reckoning 2"
That seems simple enough, but when
he sails along and finds q current set
ting fifty miles westward, what would
you advise him to do about it?
Those who sail about much on the
Star are very glad that the American
Board was enabled to put even a little
steam into her. 1t helps her out of
many tight places, and enables her to
visit lagoons where sailing vessels
cannot go. Without steam the amount
of work now done on each voyage
would take over a year.
What takes up so much time
Well, last year she visited thirty ISL
ands, and some of them three or four
times each. This year she has forty
islands on her visiting list, having to
take the islands usually visited by the
schooner Robert w. Logan, which ia
supposed to be lost at sea. Some of
these islands are only six or eight
miles apart, and some are 400 miles
apart. The whole distance from east
to west traversed by the Star in Mi
cronesia after she has sailed the $500
miles from Honolulu to the Gilbert
group is 1900 miles. and it has to be
gone over three times each voyage,
stopping at islands on the way from
one TO ten days, while the missionary
in charge goes on shore to visit
churches and schools. During the
tours among the islands the mission
airy has TO eat and sleep on board the
star for most of the natives houses
are very poor, affording no protec
ton from mosquitoes, which are very
large and hungry. Moreover, the
heat on these coral islands is much
greater than on board ship at anchor
away from the land.
At every island the Star has goods !
TO land for the teachers, and this also |
takes up her time, for often the goods |
have to be boated from three to ten |
miles, and perhaps the boat will be |
caught on the coral flats by the out |
going tide, and generally but one load |
OF goods can be landed in a day. |
There are no wharves in Micronesia |
for ships to go to.
wonder how many young people |
know or can imagine what a coral |
island is like? First, it is very low |
perhaps at the highest point ten feet |
above water. In books they are gen. |
orally pictured as round, or nearly so, |
but that is an error, for they are very |
irregular shaped and narrow, so mar
row that one can walk across them in /
from five to ten minutes. Their |
length is sometimes very great. / |
know of one island which is nearly /
100 miles in circumference, with its
outside reef only a few rods wide.
The area OF water inside the reef is
called q lagoon, and near the center of
the lagoon are several islands where /
from 1900 to Is, 200 people live. But
coral islands generally have no land
ia the lagoons. and the people live on
the narrow strip from 200 feet to half
a mile wide. They are very poor peo-
pie and it is well that their wants are
few. They need but little clothing,
and their food in many cases is only
cocoanuts and fish; and in dry sea-
sons the cocoanuts nearly fail. One
day Is often all they can have. Think
of going TO school with only an old
hard cOcoanut for lunch And yet
lneSe lSIanu chlldren keep tat on IL.
/ don't know how they do it, but they
rival all the Mellin's Food and Mes
ties Food children we see pictured in
the magazines.
1 think the young people would like
10 see the Star when she Is leaving
Husaie for Gilbert or Marshall ISL
lnds' trip. There will be forty or
more school boys and girls on board
the little ship, besides the missionary
and his family and the ships crew,
say sixty or more in all. The boys
take with them a supply of bananas
and sugar cane; there will be fifty
punches of bananas and from one to
TWO tons of cane. While the cane
lasts the boys and girls are turned into
sugar mills, and forty pairs Of jaws do
he grinding. The "trash'' is of course