A SMALL UTOPIA IN HE PACIFIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 50, 21 May 1927, Page 19 (Supplement)

A SMALL UTOPIA IN HE PACIFIC

Island of Radiant Loveliness Was Once a Place of Living Death. . . Prison Ruins Have Crumbled at Norfolk, the Tourists’ Paradise

(Written for THE SUN by G. I. PEACOCK.')

T first a purple smudge on the horizon, too dense to be a cloud and yet too indistinct to be land. It is like the initial stroke of the painter’s brush, the embryo of an idea

straighten out the chaos wrought by men. Its touch rested upon the only white man left, one John Adams. In a dream he saw, set out in lurid colours, the enormity of his crime and the punishment that must surely foiiow. A terrible dream, and one that awoke his dormant conscience and taunted it into activity. He began to read his Bible and there found the guidance that he sought. With a

that he can form as he will. Slowly under the master hand it grows until it takes length and breadth and becomes a blot. Quicker now, the painter works giving shape to the blot and adding trees and rocks. It is finished, and he trembles with joy at the result. A shaggy island in prominent relief, canopied by a blue sky and worshipped by a bluer sea at its feet. Under the picture he adds an inscription: “Norfolk Island in Summer time.” A sturdy Englisn name—it imparts stability to a fairy thing. A poet wor call it Utopia; would envy the little community who call it home. There dwells on Norfolk Island a people who are a race unto themselves. hheir soft brown eyes and a skin that the sun has kissed to a light brown marks them as true sons of the Pacific. They love to play, these children of the sun, and yet underneath their brown skins, and deeper than the soft idleness of their Tahitian nature, there is a streak of something hard and British that keeps them stra.„at. It manifests itself in their unswerving loyalty to England and to their religion. It has seen them through hard times and privations, and brought them into a land flowing with milk and honey. Theirs is a strange history. It rivals any that has fallen from the pen of an author. They are a living proof that truth is often stranger than fiction. In the year 1787 there sailed from England the good ship “Bounty.” Day by day she ploughed her way down through the seas until they reached the Pacific. The days stretched into weeks, and the weeks into months, and at length they reached Tahiti. For three and twenty weeks the crew remained on that island in luxurious idleness, and then came the parting. It is small wonder that the bolder spirits rebelled. The days that followed were dark days in the log of the “Bounty.” At first there was discontent, and leading to secret breaches of discipline, like the rumbling of thunder that comes before a storm. And then the storm broke. The crew mutinied; turned its superiors adrift in a small boat, and sailed back to Tahiti to the life they had grown to love. But fear would not let them rest, and so each taking a Tahitian wife and accompanied by a few native men, they set sail again in the “Bounty” until they reached the lonely isle of Pitcairn.

new found wisdom he gathered around him the children and young people and instructed them in the stories of the Bible in their entirety. There was no cutting out of portions to suit the fashion of the day. His pupils received the full glory of its words, and the seed fell into good ground and brought forth fruit. John Adams in time passed away to his Maker, loved and revered by all. He was only a rough seaman, but unto him a great task was given and he did not fail. For years the little community

Then follows a shadowy history of primeval passions unloosed, of the killing off of the Tahitian men, of fighting even amongst the women, and when the curtain is again raised the strife is over and all is peace. There remained of the mutineers only one; the others had found their freedom only to lose it in a violent death.

It was at this critical time that a divine hand war stretched forth to

grew and flourished, and in time the | island grew too small to supporr the ’ increasing number of people. With | the trust of children they looked to England for a solution of their difficulty. Their loyalty found a ready response, and in the year 1556 they sailed from Pitcairn and took up I their home in Norfolk Island. ] Who would think to look at it now in its radiant lovelines that Nor- ! folk Island had once been a place lof living death, a convict settlement : for criminals of the worst type? It j has been called the “Ocean Hell,” so hideous was the existence of the ; prisoners, and yet with the* clearing away of the convicts and the coming j of these simple people the place was | transformed, the dark and blotted j page in its history was turned over, and a new page, fresh and clean, was entered upon. The ruins of the old prisons are still there, but they are crumbling away, they have no place among that happy and carefree peoi pie. j It is a pity that the history of the island could not stop at this point. I like a tale that has reached an end that is satisfying, but the charm of I the island is becoming known. There

is an ever Increasing number of tourists, and white men have found that the rich and fertile soil will yield yellow oranges and bananas that are of high commercial value. One wonders what is the future of the Islanders. Surely they are not to be absorbed into the white race until they finally disappear? It is better to think of them as going down through the ages as they are to-day, a people who have emerged from a chaotic beginning into a state that is one of perfect happiness, for they receive of the gifts of nature and are satisfied.