CURRENT LITERATURE.

Hokitika Guardian, 31 July 1923, Page 1

CURRENT LITERATURE.

THE PACIFIC. R is curious how literary fashions change. Not long since South America Was in the vogue. All sorts and conditions of folk described their wanderings amidst Andean Peaks and Amazonian jungles. But for some tune paid the Pacific has usurped the place of South America as the centre of attraction. Publicists have discussed the political and strategic problems of that ocean. Novelists have gone there for local colour and esoteric thrills. Tourists have told us of their quest for doice far liiento in these lotos islands o r romance. Altogether the Pacific has 1 (en thoroughly exploited, and if it lias not yet inspired a second Stevenson or Herman Melville there are many who have written pleasantly about its charms. One of these is Mr Frederick O’Brien, who is favourably known as the author of several readable books, chiefly concerned with the Society Islands. In “Atolls of the Sun” he has gone further afield and has given an account of his travels in several outlying groups on which the stranger's font rarely treads.

Thus besprent some months on a little Fiench trading .schooner ‘•knocking about” tbo PauiiKitos of sinister reputation. Tlie very names bestowed upon these by the early navigators suggest their character. The “Half-Drown-ed Islands,” the “Low Archipelago.” the ‘‘Dangerous Islands,” the “Pernicious Islands”—these are some of the titles by which they appear in old maps, and they are set in the most perilous sea in the whole round of the

globe. Many sailors, familiar with the Pacific, for long thought them to be fabulous because, rising only a very lew feet above sea level, they are invisible save from close at hand. Life on them is hard. There is no fresh water to tie obtained on many of them, and no vegetation save for a few stTinfed purlins. Storms cause terrible havoc. The natives exist principally on fish and eoeoanuis. And yet they are deeply attached to these desolate specks of sand and coral. Take them away to some island where food is plentiful and life easy and they are utterly miserable and pine away with home sickness. There are very few white men in rhe Paumotos, and among the few, Mr O’Brien met some scoundrels as choice as could he found in the brood Pacific. The most successful trader was a gentleman who had a cinematograph, and charged so many eocoainits for admission. The natives were enthusiastic patrons, and spent the whole of their substance in going “to the pictures.” A certain amount of pearl fishing still goes on, but it is not as lucrative a business as it used to be. I lie French Government does mil allow diving -nits to be used. The native could not afford

(.> Idiv those, and it" they wore permitted tiie control of the industry would pass into tlu> hands of foreigners. But through indiscriminate fishing the accessible beds have been exhausted, while those which have been temporarily closed by the authorities to enable tlm shell to recover are not yet in commission. Air O'Brien mentions that both in the islands and in Japian men can “make” pearls semi-artifieially. They insert, in the flesh of the oyster a little head or fragment. oT coral, which the oyster gradually covers with a secretion of nacre. These pearls are exactly like real ones in appearance, but can he distinguished by the ultra-vio-lent. ray w hich reveals the core. One of tlie atolls was afflicted with a pfiague of rats, which devoured the coco;units and destroyed the frees. The

-wnor li;u! an inspiration. Ho collect - 0.l oats from far and wide, and turnod them loose on llio island. Titov soon nr-oonnled for the rats, and with" tin* ric h diet multiplied exceedingly. Then, when the rats wore all gone, they began to oat eac h other’s kittens, and finally to kill each other for food. It seemed as if thev would all he exterminated. hut. suddenly, when there wore only n few survivors left, the struggle censed, as if by mutual agreement. Thev reverted to the habits of their forefathers:, and went lishing. Alter all. it is unite as natural for a eat to lisli as for a dug to catch a rabbit. The great cats in South America, jaguars and pumas, arc most accomplished fishermen. The experiment with the cats might, he tried on Lord llowe Island. where the rats have become a grave problem. From the Pauinotos and Pitcairn Island. Mr O'Brien went to the Marnitesas. where lie found the memory of Oaugin. the French painter, still green. Oaugin settled in the Marquesas. lured !iv flic reports he had heard of the glamour of island life. But, like most other Furopeans. he very soon tired of it. and ended by hating the place, lie was very anxious to return to Frame; hut his agent frankly told him that if ho did he would destroy. by his presence in Paris, any side that there was for his pictures. As the romantic figure in the Marquesas, he was remote and mysterious. When he came home lie would lie no one. So Oaugin had to stay in the islands, which he could only endure by saturating himself In alcohol and drugs. (Hoddor and Stoughton: Angus and Bohertsnn).

Mr 'William Herbert Hobbs is an American geologist. who was soul in ]!)•_>I by tlio University of Michigan to investigate the (oral formations in the Marshalls. tin* Caroline and adiaecnt groups. “Cruises along Hya ays of the Pacific” contains tin* record ot his travels and a popular account of his researches. Mr Hobbs felt that in one respect at least, be was iH-eiplipped for the work. His name was wrong. ft is a singular coincidence that without exception the untiles of all the great authorities on eoral structure begin with the letters “Da"—Darwin. Dana. Davis. Daly, and Daipte. to which list, we should add our own David. However. Mr Hobbs had certain advantages which compensated for the disability. The Japanese Government put a cruiser and the American (lovernmenl a gun-boat. at his disposal, so eotnmnnieatioits. the great problem in this region, presented no diflietthy. Setting out from dapan lie had a glimpse, of the fortified outpost of the Bonin Islands. Then lie went down to tlm Carolines. , whose < baraeteristie a fellow countryman had tersely summed up as '•Natives —Navy—Nothing." The Japanese at that time, were withdrawing the navy, leaving only the natives and the nothing. Next Mr Hobbs visted Yap. which was then figuring prominently in the ealdo controversy between America and Japan. He wished to obtain some specimens of tlio stone money of the group—lingo discs resembling exaggerated millstones. As some of those are ten or twelve feet in diameter, and weigh tons “their use as money must be looked upon rather as a hank deposit not easily convertible during a panic, and lsetter to be reckoned with as prestige only." Mr Hobbs had to ,-ome uwav empty handed, as none of the boats’ of the Bittern was large enough to transport one of these coins. Subsoquentlv he had a glimpse of Macassar, in the Celebes, which, a few years ago a sleepy trading poit. jeeaine during the war a great port, and the centre of the oil trade Thence he went to the Philippines, and noted tout in Malampav Sound America has a potential naval base which could very easilv be made impregnable The fortification Agreement at the M ashmgion Conference, however, has ruled out the possibility. Mr Hobbs’ investigations inclined him to the belie! that these slands are simply coral accretions on the n r a ereat submerged continent A formerly existed in. the Pacific. T ‘he lavman the theory is attractive, because it explains many phenomena in the Pacific which, in the. absence of some sort of a land-bridge m past agearc almost inexplicable. __