ENGLAND'S DISTANT ISLES

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 150, 25 February 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

ENGLAND'S DISTANT ISLES

SOME OF THE OUTPOSTS OF EMPIRE. There are probably not many people in Great Britain to-day who have not realised in some measure at least the extent and importance of the British overseas Empire, at any rate as regards the great self-governing Dominions and the principal dependencies. Several things have helped to bring home tb's realisation, some dating from before the great war, others owing their existence to it. But even now, improved as things are in the way of the widened outlook through these reasons and the deeds of the overseas contingents in the war, it is possible that a good many people have no conception of the vast extent of our island — as distinct from our Continental Empire. GEMS OF THE PACIFIC.

A glance, for example, at the map ot that just mentioned, the Pacific, shows at least nine important groups of islands under the British flag, between latitudes 20 S. and 20 N. —this leaving out the less important archipelagoes, as well as as the Bismarck archipelago wrested from the Germans by the Australian squadron, and various single islands such as Christmas and Fanning Islands. Each of these groups of islands includes, as well as the larger islands, scores, nay, hundreds of the smaller ones with which the Pacific abounds, probably seldom visited except by occasional natives lishing or collecting the fruit of the palms, the latter being collected, the kernels extracted and dried on the beach, and shipped from some central point on one of the larger islands, as the "copra" known to commerce. This material is largely used in the prod no, tion of margarine, paim-oil, and a host of other commercial by-products when it reaches the markets of Europe or America.

BeautlTul as an early paradise—endowed by nature with a climate little short of perfection—inhabited in most cases by a harmless and engaging aboriginal population, it is yet one of the ironies of life that there seems to be in the balmy air, in the ease of life, even more than in the isolation from the standards of civilisation, something almost fatal to the moral sense of men transplanted thither from sterner latitudes. Probably no type of fallen white man —"poor white trash" as the ex pressive phrase of hte Southern State; puts it—is quite so degraded as tin "beach-comber" of tho South Seas, a depicted by Robert Louis Stevenson, ii his poignant study, "The Ebb-Tide.'' ir » X'n T»lTr< «

NORFOLK AND PITCAIRN

A little further to the south, about 800 miles from the Australian coast, and about half that distance from the northernmost point of New Zealand, is situated Norfolk Island, a place with a sad but interesting history. This was one of the old penal .settlements, to which the convicts from Van Diemen's Land were transferred when the penal settlement there was abolished. Jt should certainly have been a safe enough place of confinement; but a good many of the prisoners managed to escape at one time or another, only, as a rule, to perish on adjacent islands, as skeletons found in later years have proved. A good many of the survivors and descendants of the "Bounty" mutineers were at one time transferred to Norfolk Island from Pitca'rn, but most of these ultimately made their way back to the latter place. Norfolk Island is as lovely a spot as one could wish to find, with its beautiful groves of trees, oranges, and other tropical fruits in abundance, and bo'd and rugged coastline, the area of the island being some live or six miles. But the dark shadow of its tragical past still seems to hang over it.

Few of our island possessions have a more interesting history than that of Pitcairn Island, just alluded to. It was to this island, situated about a thousand miles to the east of Norfolk Island, that the mutineers of His Majesty's ship "Bounty" made their way, more than a century ago, and were entirely lost to human ken until the accidental visit of a whaler many years later. The descendants of the mutineers still inhabit the island, which was formally added to the British Empire in 1839"

Further to the south, again, and nearer to the southerly part of New Zealand, are the Chatham, Auckland, and Antipodes Islands. One or two of the Auckland Islands are being settled upon, but for the most part these groups are used simply as headquarters for the ships frequently the Southern whaling grounds. Their scenery is striking, bold rocky shores with basalt columns, somewhat resembling those of Staffa and lona. Macquarie Island, far to the south, and alrnosf in the same latitude as Cape Horn, is notable as being the furthest place from the Tropics where parrots are found.

IN THE SOUTH ATLANTIC

Passing now from the Pacific to the South Atlantic, we come to the stormswept Falkland Islands, winch, from being comparatively unknown and tinconsidered fragments of our Empire, have attained universal fame as a result of Admiral Sturdce's great victory over the German commerce-raiding squadron on December 8, 1914.

The Falklands were d scovered by the Elizabethan voyager Davis in 1592, and were named after Lord Falkland in 1(589. The inhabitants are principally engaged in the sheep-raising industry and the export of wool, while they occasionally get the job of repairing storm-battered vessels which run in for shelter and a re-fit after a rough time off the Horn. The islands are sometimes called "Little Scotland," and the name is fairi'y suitable, most of the inhabitants being of Scottish descent, while the islands themselves are not unlike some of the islands off the West and North of Scotland either in scenery, contour, or climate.

Further south are to lie found the South Georgia and South Shetland groups, mostly uninhabited, except during the whaling season, when the sh p.s engaged ill the sperm-whale fishery establish posts and stores and trystations (for boiling down the blubber).

"The remote Bermudas" of Andrew M arvell's poem are among the fairest spots in the whole of our island empire. S:tuated in practically the same latitude as New York, these happy islands have derived from the warm influence of the Gulf Stream a climate well nigh periect. These may well have been the original "Fortunate Isles" of early travellers' tales, with their glorious climate, wealth of beaut ful flowers, and gorgeous birds of all colours, and Prospero's island in the "Tempest" is often identified with one of tins group. Tlic Bermuda group comprises some DliO islands, (if which only a few are inliab ted. Coral is the building material used, and wic frost would make all the houses ill the place crumble ! The only exports (prosaic but useful) ate onions and potatoes. OFF THE CAPE ROI'TE.

Leaving out of our survey the West Indian islands, which are tolerably well known, we now turn to the two solitary volcanic lumps. Ascension and St. Helena, in the m'dst of the Allan tie Ocean. The latter, of course, is clrefly famous as the prison of the Emperor Napoleon, who spent liits last years at Longwood oil that island. Ascension, an important naval sta-

tion, has the peculiarity of being rated (like Whale Island, Portsmouth. "H.M.S. Excellent") as one of His Majesty's ships. It Is also remark able for turtles, which arc annually "turned" there In great numbers, and then kept in a small lagoon foi shipment as required. The islet of Tristan Dacunna lies considerably to the west of, and ih the same latitude as, the Cape of Good Hope. When the garrison of this island was withdrawn in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, a Corporal Glass and two others elected to remain permanently set tied there. In ISSS a sad disaster befe'l the islanders, nearly all the able-bodied men being drowned while endeavouring to board a vessel which was anchored oft the Island. Among our island possessions 'ii the Indian Ocean i'nd Arabian Sea, one of the most important is Socotra, which commands the entrance to the Gulf of Aden. U exports the gum known as " tragacanth " and "dragon's blood." Further south are the Seychelles and Aninantes. With a passing glance at the considerable island of Mauritius, off the coast of Madagascar, a beautiful island with a thriving port, Port Louis, whose name shows its French origin, we now conclude our world-wide survey with a mention of the Cocos or Keeling Islands, a solitary archipelago to the north-west of the Australian continent, which will always be remembered in the future as the spot where a certain notorious pitcher called the "Emden" went once too often to the well!