The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-02-14
BY ALFRED R. CALHOUN.

BY ALFRED r. CALHOUN.
The name ''beach-cornbers'' is of
doubtful origin. 1t is known that it
was applied more than a century ago
TO those worse than pirates, the
wreckers,'' along the shores of the
British islands and of our own country.
These wretches hailed wrecks as a
godsend. and by false signal lights
they helped to produce them. Their
harvest was in the cargoes cast upon
the sands. when the ship had gone to
pieces, and in the fiotsam taken from
the sea when the waves had subsidized.
Lighthouses, buOyS and well-or-
ganized lifesaving stations have ban
ished the beach-comber from civilized
shores. Although equally brutal and
indifferent to the laws controlling the
rights to life and property, the beach
comber of the Pacific islands is an
entirely different creature from his
English and American predecessor
With his life lines cast in those
favored purple isles" where nature
is so lavish of her bounties. the
Polynesiah beach-cember has lost his
love of wealth. He has adopted the
modes of life. of the people on whom
ne has forced himself, and, although
he has not in all things adopted their
S0aACACoo ilhtlllO00 SOihCltAlllS VI Tic
Poetry of his surroundings and the
simplicity of his associates comes to
him after he has ceased to yearn for
the bustling, selfish world, on which
he has forever turned his back.
A few years ago while in Apia, the
capital of Samoa, the one city of the
Navigator's islands, a city with one
street, and that street with very few
houses, 1 gladly accepted an invitation
from my old friend, Robert Louis
stevenson, to spend a night with him
in his picturesque home, up the
mountain, within hearing of the water
fall and within sight of the worlds
most beautiful bay as he put it.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON ON
TIE BEACH
Before this had started in to study
the PolYnesian beach-cor.b Der, and I
had just returned from the island of
Tetuila, where had learned much that
increased nv interest in the subject,
without at all adding to my respect
for it
I found nv kindly, brilliant host an
enthusiast on the subject of beach
combers, and had he lived he would
have added another fascinating
chapter to a subject that has inspired
the pens of some of the greatest
writers in the last two centuries.
After repeating my limited expert
ence with these fellows. I was denounc-
ing the whole band, when Stevenson
interrupted me in a half-laughing, half
serious manner:
My dear boy" he said. as nearly as
] can recall his words, Of which made
a note next day, you forget that stu
dents of psychology, like students of
physiology. find their most abnormal
subjects the most Interesting. The
beach-comber is not a thinker. but he
has set me a thinking. How much he
has done for literature"
1 stared in surprise. and then nv
host went on TO describe the beach
comber, who is to be found in nearly
all the inhabited islands of the Pacific
from the Aleutian group to the clusters
of islets that fringe southern New
Zealand. These men, he explained,
were Americans and representatives of
nearly every maritime people in the
world. Nearly all were deserters from
ships. Some were fugitive criminals |
but a majority were driven to extremes |
by the cruelty of their masters. Many |
had no home ties. no sense of obliga- |
ton and no idea of duty; but for these
deficiencies they were hardly to blame. |
They contrasted the beauty of these
lovely islands and the perfect freedom |
of the graceful natives, with the fetid /
foreca stiles of the whaler or merchant |
man on which they served; and they |
compared the tyranny OF their captain !
with the low vices and seductive eyes /
of the beautiful maidens of Polynesia. !
They yielded to the latter and deserted |
by thousands; indeed, they have been |
deserving for more than century, and |
the end is not yet.
These deserters. now called beach
combers," whether they reside on the
shore or in the interior. have taken
native wives, where the custom per-
mirted they took more than one, and
the result is a new race of half-breeds.
AS a rule this race is physically supe-
rior to that of either of the originals;
but unfortunately, the greater mental
capacity that accompanies this greater
strength and grace has not been used
in an ennobling way.
What the frontiersman was to
America the beach-comber. though not
with the heroic nature and splendid
purpose of the former, is destined to
be to Polynesia said Stevenson.
But what has he done for litera-
ture?" 1 asked.