Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1898-05-14
HEART OF SAvAGERY,
A Tragedy Of Beachcombers in the
South Sea.
wanderers from Civilization on, a Lonely
's'et OF the Pacifc-Murder Done Without
Excitement by ChiIdlike Natiyes-Artist;c
Lying by Woman to Conceal the Crime.

Inc South Sea is full of obscure ~,
gedie2. Tragedy was often the end of
''"N 'ure' ana then, too, none but the
| 'i''9' Neh'ufeSome or the most aban-
uohed OF white men sought to live
among the wild islanders in the davs
not so Tar remote, when the mission
airy mad not yet introduced his stucco
chufches and taught the natives the
price OF an axe or 4 handful of shin
piScull. rms tale of one Of the forgot
,eh tragedies is drawn from an official
u'ou'1elit on which forty years Of
SlunheIlhg III a forgotten pigeonhola
mas served to dim the writing ana to
duil the imprint of the lion and the
unicorn with which a British consul
made the paper official. To write an
account OF murder on sixteen sheets
vi government blue stationery, to at
iach a seal with the royal arms-thaf
may pass sometimes as lust the Same
as aVenging it.
SuVarroW is as lonely group Of
desolation as it is possible to find in
mat acantily travelled region of the
south Seas which lies to the eastward
oi samoa ana before reaching such
populcus centres as Tahiti and Raro-
tonga. Other islands have the pictur-
eSque features of towering mountains
Nerdurc clad to their summit craus the
grace of waving cocoanut paIms frin,,-
ing every beach With giant leaves
SuVarroW is but a ring of sand banks
Sklrtng lagoon flied With coral
groves the only trees the Stunted pan
'anuS set on group of prop-lille roots.
other islands have their Deoplny of
hroWn-slInned folk, possibly trcachor
Gus. and always To he treated as in
feriors by that lovely creature, the
heachcomber of these seas. vet human
IN their desire for gaudy toys and the
tlnhed goods on which the white man
leedS. SuNarroW is marked on the
charts as uninhabited. and. therefore,
Is not port Of call for the vagrant
Whaler in his search for sperm. the
trader, or the blackbir,ler. Yet now
and again little island colonies may be
found on the bare sands of the atoll.
for in the lagoon grow the pearl oyster
and the beche-dc mer. which China
men eat and on the sands great turtles
come 10 lay their eggs by night. Hence
beachcombers mysteriously wandering
beyond the confines of civilization at
odd times camp on the bare iSlets in
search Of the wealth of tortoise shell.
pearl shell, and trepang the sea af-
fords. This is the story of lone such
colony on the desolate atoll lof Suvar-
row, tale whose events werefcomplete
in 1888, but have never Yet Been made
known beyond the combers of South
Sea beaches "
In the early months of 1857 Thomas
Charlton of Martha's Vineyard a run
away hand from a Nantucket whaler.
was living on the island Of Manahiki.
When he was fishing one day in a
canoe outside the coral reef a sudden
squat carried him ana his party of is
landers out of sight of land and left
them adrift and undirected upon the
ocean. South Sea tradition is a mass
Of tales of such Involuntary Voyaging
With such help as a sailor could get
from dead reckoning ana a knowledge
Of the set of the trade winds. Charl-
ton managed 10 bring his canoe to
SuVarroW and there established his
colony Of gentle Manahikians IN adj
dition TO his wife Sumaria. Charlton.
or Tdmu, as he was called in the liquid
speech of the islands. numbered in the
census of his settlement on the sands
eight souls. Here and his wife koko-
rarki Ca Paumctu woman from the
far eastern island away to Windward
OF Tahiti, and, as the event proved 4
shreWd and constituencies WomanD
-; L =;
men Ngere, Taarau. Volta. Otea. and
Naimau. With true Polynesian apathy,
these people made the best they could
Of a bad affair, built them houses near
a source Of water. and took up the
thread OF life where it had been broken
| by the squat at Manahiki. scores of
| leagues away. There was food on the
| island and Water-that is enough for
a colony of folk whose needs are SIM
| pie.
They We're destined to live not long
| alone. Capt. Sam Sustcnance was
sailing those seas in his tonsail schoon-
err Dart. Capt. Sustenance might not
be classcd among the elect. He was
| not q good man, even according to the
| standard of these waters, where the
| tvs brig" said society being the Lon
don Missionary Society, which has
pioneered the South Pacific since
| Cooks voyages of discovery. But Sus-
| tenance was such a man as best suited
the early times of sea trading, enough
OF Il mere merchantmen to satisfy the
curiosity of the infrequent naval YES
sells cruising among the islands for the
sake of the moral effect. enough of a
buccanneer to have dollars to jingle on
| the circular quay in sydney before Il
| grand carouSc in the Currency Lass
| public house. From end to end of the
| Pacific Sam Su3tenance was known by
| the name of Uru- Uru, which the is
landers had given him. At Penrhyn
Island. on Aug. l, 1857. he engaged an
English beachcomber Joe Bird, to su-
perintend the party of native pearl
| divers whom he shipped at the same
, time. There We're eighteen men and
several women in the party. The Pen
rhyn folk are widely different from the
gentle and timorous Manahikians.
| Dour and gloomy at all times. they are
capable of nourishing a grievance and
of bidding their time in plot to wipe