Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1898-06-04

q
~ was often the end
OF adventure. and then, too, none but
the most ventnresome or the most
abandoned of white men sought to
live an 'ns the wlll islanders in the
days, not 80 far remote, when the
missionary had not yet introduced his
stuccJ churches and talght the ma
tives the price Of an axe or handful
of ship biscuit. This tale of
one Of the forgotten tragedies is
drawn from an official document on
which forty years OF slumbering in II
forgotten piseonhole has served to
dim the writing and to dull the i'm
print of the lion aud the unicorn with
which British Consul made the pa
per otlicia! 70 write an account of a
murder on sixteen sheets of Govern
ment blue stationery, to attach seal
with the royal arms-that may pass
sometimes as Just the same as aveng-
ing it.
Suvarrow is rs lonely a group of
desolation as it is possible to find in
that scantiIy travelled region of the
South Seas which lies to the eastward
of Samoa and before reaching such
populous centres ~ Tahiti aal RarO-
tonga. Other islands have the pie
turesqne features of towering moun-
tains, verdure clad to their summit
crags, the grace Of waving cocoanut
palms fringing every beach with giant
leaves. Suyarrow is but ring of
sand banks skirting a lagoon filed
with coral groves; the only trees, the
stunted pandanus, set OH group of
prop-like roots. Other islands have
their peopling of brown-skinnel folk,
possibly treacl,erous, AMI always TO
be treated as interiors by that lovely
creature, the beachcOmber OF these
seas, yet human in their desire for
gaudy toys AMI the timed goods on
which the white man feels. Suvarrow
is marked on the charts as uninhab-
tied and. therefore, is not IL port of
call Tor the vagrant whaler in his
search for sperm, the trader or the
blackbirder. Yet now and again little
island colonies may be found on the
bare sards of the atoll, for in the la
COON grow the pearl oyster and the
beche- de-mer, which Cinnamon eat,
and on the sands great turtles come
to lay their eggs by night. Hence
beachcombers mysteriously wander
ing 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
affords. This is the story of one such
colony on the ,desolate atoll of SUI
NARROW, tale whose events were COM
plete in 1858, but have. never yet been
made, known s.bey0nd the combers of
South Sea beaches:
In the early months of 1857 Thomas
Charlton, of Martha's Vineyard, run
away hand from Nantucket whaler,
was living on the island of Manahiki
When he was fishing one day in u
canoe outside the coral reef sudden
squall carried him and his party of
islanders out of sight of land and left
them adrift and undirecte1 upon the
ocean. South Sea tradition is u mass
of tales of such involuntary voyaging
With such help as sailor could get
from dead reckoning and a knowledge
of the set OF the trade winds. Charlton
managed to bring his canoe to Suvar-
row aud there established his colony
of gentle Manahikians. In addition
to his wife Sumaria, Charlton, of Tamu,
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 Kokorarkii
Ia Paumotu woman from the far east
ern island away to windward of Tahiti,
and, as the event proved, shrewd
and conscienceless woman, Kaitai
and his wife, aud the single men
Ngere, Tnarau, Volta, Otea, and
Vaimau. With true Polynesian apath ny,
these people made the best they could
of 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 whole needs are simple.
They were destined to live not long
alone. Captain Sam Sustenance was
sailing those seas in his topsail
schooner Dart. Captain Sustenance
might not be classed among the elect.
He was not n good man, even accord
in, to the standard of these waters,
where the only good thing aAoat was
the "society's brig" said society he
ing the London Missionary Society.
which has pioneered the South Pacific
since Cooks voyages of discovery.
But Sustenance was such IL man rs
best snitel the early times of sea
trading, enough of II mere merchant
man TO satisfy the curiosity of the in
frequent naval vessels cruising among
the islands for the sake of the moral
effect, enough of buccaneer to have
dollars to jingle on the Circular Quay
in Sydney before grand caronse in
the Currency Lass public house. From
end to end of the Pacific Sam Susie
nance was known by the name of Uru-
Urn, which the islanders had given
him. At Pcrrhyn Island on August
], 1857, he engaged an English beach
comber, Joe Bird, to superintend the
party of native pearl divers whom he
shipped at the same time. There were
eighteen men and several women in
the party. The Peurhyn folk are
widely different from the gentle and
timorous Manahikians. Sour amp
gloomy at all times, they are capable
of nourishing agricvance aud of bid
ing their time in plot to wipe it out
Two days later Uru-Uru stopped at
Manahiki long enough to take on board
1000 cocOanuts for the food of his
divers, and on August IL he anchored
at Suvarrow.
According to beachcombers law Of
might is right, Sustenance and Joe
Bird with fighting crew at their back,
with score of fierce Penrbyn Island
ers, were able to decree that Tamu and
his handful of mild Manalliki inns should
confine themselves to one islet and