by Louis Becke
A NORTH PACIFIC LAGOON ISLAND
Two degrees north of the Equator, and midway between the HawaiianIslands and fair, green Tahiti, is the largest and most important ofthe many equatorial isolated lagoon islands which, from 10 deg. N. to10 deg. S., are dispersed over 40 deg. of longitude. The original nativename of this island has long been lost, and by that given to it byCaptain Cook one hundred and twenty years ago it is now known to Pacificnavigators--Christmas Island. Cook was probably the first European tovisit and examine the place, though it had very likely been sighted bythe Spaniards long before his time, in the days of the voyages of theyearly galleons between the Philippines and Mexico and Peru.
On the afternoon of December 24, 1777, Cook (in the _Resolution_ and_Discovery_) discovered to leeward of the former ship a long, low,sandy island, which proved to be about ninety miles in circumference.It appeared to be an exceedingly barren-looking land, save on thesouth-west side, where grew a luxuriant grove of coco-palms. Here hebrought his ships to an anchor, and partly to recuperate his crews,who were in ill health, and partly to observe an eclipse of the sun, heremained at the island some weeks. He soon discovered that the lagoon inthe centre was of noble proportions, and that its waters teemed withan immense variety of fish and countless 'droves' of sharks. To-day itremains the same.
Fifty years passed ere this lonely atoll was visited by another ship,and then American and English whalers, or, as they were called in thosedays, 'South Seamen,' began to touch at the island, give their crews afew days' spell amid the grateful shade of the palm grove and load theirboats to the gunwales with fat green turtle, turtle eggs, robber crabs,and sea-birds' eggs. From that time the place became well known to thethree or four hundred of sperm whalers engaged in the fishery, and,later on, to the shark-catching vessels from the Hawaiian Islands.Then, sixteen years ago, Christmas Island was taken up by a London firmengaged in the South Sea Island trade under a lease from the ColonialOffice; this firm at once sent there a number of native labourers fromManhiki, an island in the South Pacific. These, under the charge ofa white man, were set to work planting coco-nuts and diving for pearlshell in the lagoon. At the present time, despite one or two severedroughts, the coco-nut plantations are thriving, and the lessees shouldin another few years reap their reward, and hold one of the richestpossessions in the South Seas.
The island is of considerable extent, and though on the windward oreastern side its appearance is uninviting in the extreme, and the fierceoceanic currents that for ever sweep in mighty eddies around its shoresrender approach to it difficult and sometimes dangerous, it has yetafforded succour to many an exhausted and sea-worn shipwrecked crew whohave reached it in boats. And, on the other hand, several fine ships,sailing quietly along at night time, unaware of the great ocean currentsthat are focussed about the terrible reefs encompassing the island, havecrashed upon the jagged coral barrier and been smashed to pieces by theviolence of the surf.
Scarcely discernible, from its extreme lowness, at a distance of morethan eight miles from the ship's deck, its presence is made known hoursbefore it is sighted by vast clouds of amphibious birds, most of whichall day long hover about the sea in its vicinity, and return to theirrookeries on the island at sunset. On one occasion, when the vessel inwhich I was then serving was quite twenty miles from the land, we wereunable to hear ourselves speak, when, just before it became dark, theair was filled with the clamour of countless thousands of birds ofaquatic habits that flew in and about our schooner's rigging. Someof these were what whalemen call 'shoal birds,' 'wide-awakes,''molly-hawks,' 'whale birds' and 'mutton birds.' Among them were somehundreds of frigate birds, the _katafa_ of the Ellice Islanders, and afew magnificently plum-aged fishers, called _kanapu_ by the natives ofEquatorial Polynesia.
Given a good breeze and plenty of daylight, the whale-ships of the oldendays could stand round the western horn of the island, a projectingpoint rendered pleasingly conspicuous by the grove of gracefulcoco-palms which Cook was so glad to observe so many years before, andthen enter a deep bay on the north-west coast, where they obtainedgood anchorage in from fifteen to twenty fathoms of water of the mostwonderful transparency, and within a mile of the vast stretches ofwhite sandy beach that trend away for miles on either hand. And then thesailors, overjoyed at the delightful prospect of running about in thefew and widely-apart palm groves, and inhaling the sweet, earthy smellof the thin but fertile soil, covered with its soft, thick bed offallen leaves, would lower away the boats, and pulling with their unitedstrength through the sweeping eddies of the dangerous passage, effecta landing on a beach of dazzling whites and situated in the innersouth-west border of the wide lagoon.
On our first visit to the island, in 1872, we had some glorious fishing;and when we returned on board, under the rays of a moon that shone withstrange, uncanny brilliancy, and revealed the coral bottom ten fathomsbelow, the scene presented from our decks was one of the greatestimaginable beauty, though the loneliness of the place and the absence ofhuman life was somewhat depressing. We remained at the island for threedays, and during our stay our crew of South Sea Islanders literallyfilled our decks with fish, turtle and birds' eggs. Curiously enough,in our scant library on board the little trading vessel I came acrossportion of a narrative of a voyage in a South Seaman, written by hersurgeon, a Mr Bennett, in 1838,{*} and our captain and myself were muchinterested in the accurate description he gave of Christmas Island andits huge rookeries of oceanic birds.
* _Narrative of a Whaling Voyage round the Globe, from_ 1833 to 1836. By F. D. Bennett.
This is what he says: 'Here and there among the low thicket scrubs arevast rookeries of aquatic birds, whose clamour is deafening. They nestand incubate upon the ground, and show not the slightest fear of theapproach of human visitors. Among the sooty terns, whose number it wasimpossible to estimate, were many hundreds of tropic birds and puresnow-white petrels.' (He no doubt imagined the pure snow-white petrelsto be a distinct species--they were young tropic birds.) 'These latter,who flew with a gentle, flapping motion, would actually fly up to us andscan our countenances with an almost human expression of interest andcuriosity.' (Darwin, in his account of another Christmas Island in theIndian Ocean, also describes these gentle creatures as being of etherealbeauty.) 'Some, indeed, permitted themselves to be caught, and althoughtheir delicate, fragile forms quivered with fear when they came incontact with our hands, they would, when released, return to us againand again, as if seeking to solve the mystery of what strange beingswere these that had invaded their retreat. In one rookery there weremany varieties of these oceanic birds, and a species of booby thatseems to be peculiar to Christmas Island. In size and colour they muchresemble the ordinary gannet of our cold northern seas. Their plumage isof a wondrously bright snow white, with the exception of the primary andsecondary feathers of the wings, and the _retrices_ or tail feathers,which are of a glossy black. The skin of the cheeks and chin is devoidof feathers, and of a jet black colour, the beak a delicate yellow blue,the legs bright blue. The solicitude of the female birds of this speciesfor their offspring was most interesting to witness. Their nests wereof the rudest description, being merely circular heaps of sand raised inthe open plain and exposed to the fury of storms. As we approached thenests the mother birds settled themselves down upon their single eggand screamed loudly, but would permit themselves to be lifted off, yetstruggled violently in our hands to get back again. Although there werethousands of these nests within a radius of an acre, a broodinghen might easily have been passed unnoticed, for her white plumagecorresponded so well with the hue of the coral sands that one was apt tokick against the nest were it not for the agonised, barking note of thepoor mother. The male birds, however, of this species did not show anymarital concern for their partners. They were usually seated near thenests, but at once took to flight upon our approach. Further on, amonga thicket of scrubby vegetation, we found a rookery of many thousands ofthe superb red-tailed tropic bird (_Phaeton phoenicurus_), also engagedin incubatio
n. Their nests were mere circular excavations in the sand,under the shade of the bushes of the thicket. Each nest contained anegg of pure white, dotted with delicate lilac spots, and in size ratherlarger and rounder than that of the domestic hen. The females, aswell as the males, made no attempt to escape from their nests on ourapproach, whether they had or had not the care of eggs, and consequentlyseveral of our crew, with innate Polynesian vanity, soon caught anumber, and plucking out the two long scarlet tail feathers placed themin their hat bands.
'A hundred yards away from the rookery of the tropic birds was one ofa colony of the snowy tern before mentioned. These gentle, black-eyedcreatures do not even pretend to construct a nest, but simply deposit asolitary egg upon the bough of a tree (like the _gogo_, or whale bird).They select for this purpose a tree destitute of foliage, and a branchof horizontal growth. It is strange that, notwithstanding the exposedsituation of these eggs, they are very difficult to find; and it wasnot until long after the solicitude of the parent birds informed us thattheir spot of incubation was near that we could solve the mystery whichattended their nursery. Each egg is the size of a pigeon's, and markedwith either blood or chocolate-coloured splashes and spots of irregularshape. Considering the slenderness of the branches on which they aredeposited, it is remarkable that the eggs (which appear to be at themercy of every passing breeze) should yet retain their extraordinaryposition during incubation.' (Any Pacific Islander could easily haveexplained this seeming mystery. The shell, when the egg is laid, iscovered with a strong adhesive coating. I have often seen a single egg,laid upon a slender branch, swaying about in a strong trade wind, andyet remain firmly in its position.) 'What may be the habits of thenewly-hatched birds we had no opportunity of learning, as none of thelatter came within our observation.
'Small reef birds (tern) were present in prodigious numbers, skimmingthe waters of the coast with an erratic, rapid, but yet graceful flight,like that of the stormy petrel. At night they assembled in vast numberson an islet in the lagoon, to roost on the trees. They are about thesize of an Australian snipe, and their forms are models of elegance andbeauty. Their plumage is in true slate colour, the secondary wings arewhite, and a narrow white zone surrounds each eye; their legs and feetare a pale blue, with white webs.
'Every now and then as we, during our visit, walked along the snow-whitebeaches, great crowds of golden-winged plover and tiny snipe sprangskyward, and swept in graceful gyrations over the broad expanse ofwater, till they settled upon some sandy spit or spot of projectingreef; and, indeed, the immense concourse or frigate birds, boobies,terns, petrels and other aquatic denizens of the island filled us withboundless astonishment.
'At night time there crept out from their lairs in the loose coralshingle that lined the scrub at high-water mark, incredible numbers ofhuge "land lobsters"--the "robber crab" of the Pacific Islands. They allcrawled to within a few feet of the placid waters of the lagoon, wherethey remained motionless, as if awaiting some event--possibly to preyupon the smaller species of _crustaceae_ and turtle eggs.'
Christmas Island, in its structure and elevation, much resemblesPalmerston Island, Arrecifos or Providence Island (the secret rendezvousof Captain 'Bully' Hayes), Brown's Range, and other low-lying atollsof the North and South Pacific. The greater part of the interior of theisland is, however, despite the vast number of coco-nuts planted upon itduring the past ten years, still sadly deficient in cheerful vegetation.
The waters of the lagoon vary greatly in depth, but generally areshallow and much broken up by sandy spits, reefs and huge coral boulderswhich protrude at low water, and the surface is much subject to theaction of the trade wind, which, when blowing strong, lashes them intoa wild surf; and the low shores of the encircling islets, that forma continuous reef-connected chain, are rendered invisible from theopposite side by the smoky haze and spume which ascends in clouds fromthe breaking surf that rolls and thunders on the outer barrier reefs.
In the interior no fresh water is obtainable, although in the rainyseason some of a brackish quality can be had by sinking shallow wells.This water rises and falls in the wells in unison with the tides. Hereand there are very extensive swamps of sea-water, evaporrated to astrong brine; the margins of these are clothed with a fair growth ofthe pandanus or screw-pine palm, the fruit of which, when ripe, forms anutritious and palatable food for the natives of the Equatorial PacificIslands.
The island where Captain Cook set up his observatory is but a smallstrip of sandy soil, clothed with a few coco-palms, some screw-palms(pandanus), and a thick-matted carpet of a vine called _At At_ by thenatives. The only quadrupeds are rats, and some huge land tortoises,similar to those of the Galapagos Islands. They are most hideous-lookingcreatures, and, being of nocturnal habits, like the great robber crab,are apt to produce a most terrifying impression upon the beholder, ifmet with in the loneliness of the night. The present human occupants ofChristmas Island are, however, well supplied with pigs and poultry; andthough this far-away dot of Britain's empire beyond the seas is scarcelyknown to the world, and visited but twice a year by a trading vesselfrom Sydney, they are happy and contented in their home in this lonelyisle of the mid-Pacific.