SUNDAY ISLAND.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 469, 7 May 1890, Page 6

SUNDAY ISLAND.

Auckland, April 30. The Government steamer Hinemoa, Captain Fairchild, returned yesterday afternoon from her periodical visit to the Kermadec Group of islands, which lie almost due north of Auckland, and brought with her thirteen people, nearly half of the "emigrants” who left the colony some six or seven months ago to settle for good on Sunday Island, the principal islet in the group. These people tell a tale which should have the effect of preventing others who may bo projecting a departure to the Kermadecs in the hope of making a permanent home there. They come back literally without anything, -poorer but wiser than when they landed on the beach at Denham Bay a few months ago. The Hinemoa left Napier on the 17th insb. with orders for the Government to proceed on a trip of inspection to the Kermadecs, as had been her custom since the annexation of the islands at frequent intervals. After visiting the other islets in the group, Curtis Island, L’Esperance Rock, and Macaulay Island, the steamer went to Sunday Island, arriving there on the 21st insb. The three small rocky islets were found in their usual uninhabited condition, quiet save for the immense flocks of seabirds. The depots of provisions and clothing left for the use of shipwrecked crews on Curtis and Macaulay Islands in case of need were found to be intact and unvisited. ARRIVAL AT DENHAM BAY. When the Hinemoa dropped anchor off Denham Bay, or West Bay, as it is generally called, where the new settlement had been formed, the whole population—only about thirty or forty all told—flocked down on the beach, very glad indeed to see faces from the outside world after an isolation of over four months. They had nob much bo tell Captain Fairchild in the way of news, save the doleful facts that they had discovered they could nob live on the island, their food supplies were very nearly exhausted, and they were, most of them, heartily sorry they had ever seen the hills of Sunday Island. As a result of their hard experience on the island thirteen people, including one family of six, embarked on the Hinemoa and were given a passage down to Auckland. Last evening Captain Fairchild told a Star reporter that the settlement was plainly

AN UTTER FAILURE. The settlers could nob exist on Sunday Island—that was the fact of the matter, and in his opinion the remainder of the people at Denham Bay would speedily follow those who came away in the Hinemoa. " They could hardly grow a single thing on the island successfully,” said he. " They planted their crops all right, and they had no very bad weather to speak of, except a bib of a hurricane that blew their beans out of the ground, but the rats of the island destroyed everything—cleared out every particle of growing crops that they could. They swept the cultivations like a fire, and left things just as bare. " The unfortunate people had little or nothing left, and had at last to rely on Mr John Bell, the pioneer settler on the other side of the island, for partial support. His plantations had not been much injured by the plague of the rats. Mr Bell behaved with exbieme generosity to the settlers, and deserves great credit for the timely assistance he gave them. You know he claims the entire island, and has a grievance against the New Zealand Government in that they allotted the bulk of the land on Sunday Island for settlement purposes without consulting him, or giving him any notice or asking his consent or opinion in the matter. Well, whether he was right or not, he helped these people as much as possible, and told them to help themselves out of his plantations when he saw they were running out of food. " He gave them as much as he could, but by the time we reached Sunday Island from Napier, things were in a pretty bad way. The people’s stores had very nearly all given out; in fact, there were only about 20l)lb of flour left on the island. The settlers would really have been

ON THE VERGE OF STARVATION if the steamer had not arrived. The Hinemoa was the only vessel that lias called at the island for four months past. The Wainui called in there last year on her way up to Tonga, and since then the settlers have been quite isolated. They took down only six months’ stores with them, and depended on their first season’s crops for everything, and so you see that when these failed they had nothing to fall back on. The people I brought back with me are almost destitute.” The following passengers returned from Sunday Island by the Hinemoa: Messrs R. McCulloch, T. Jackson, Wells and family, (4), A. Beckett, T. McNaught, J. E,obson, E. Cotter, H. Carver, and A. R. Tayler,

THE KERMADECS ASSOCIATION Several men were taken away from tho colony to Sunday Island to work at £la week on a three months’ engagement. This was seven or eight months ago, and they were only able to leave in the Hinemoa last week. They were under engagement to the “Kermadec Islands Fruitgrowers’ Association.”a sortofcompanywhichhadbeen formed byMr Hovell,of Hawke’s Bay, to cultivate a portion of the presumably fertile soil of Sunday Island, and export tropical and sub-tropical fruits to the New Zealand market. Several families from Lyttelton, Timaru, and even further South, came up from the South to Napier with all thoir belongings, embarked on the schooner Dunedin, joining several Hawke’s Bay families there, and sailed for Sunday Island via Auckland. This was in September of last year. At the island they took up sections of land under the auspices of the Association and started to clear and cultivate the land, expecting their efforts to be rewarded by a teeming harvest of all sorts of good things. Such highly-painted reports had been circulated regarding the boundless capabilities of the Kermadecs soil and climate that the settlers’ expectations were very high—indeed, too high for realisation. Several more settlers went up by the s.s. Wainui in December last, and joined those already there. Since that time nothing has been heard of the people until the arrival of the Hinemoa here yesterday, and during the interval many people here had expressed fears as to the condition of the families at Denham Bay. The returned settlers tell art interesting story of their four months’ isolation on the island, and of the manner in which their growing crops had been destroyed by the voracious rodents and caterpillars. NARRATIVE OF THE SETTLERS. In conversation with a Star reporter last evening on the Hinemoa the returned men said that they were heartily sorry they had ever gone to Sunday Island. The place could not support so many.people. The Bell family made a comfortable living, but they occupied the only really good spot of land on the island. “To put it briefly,” said one of the men, “you can live, there right enough if you have stores sent to you from Auckland regularly every three months or so to keep you alive. I think

it’s impossible for a settlement ever to be formed there successfully, for if the people can’t support themselves on their crops and have bo be supplied with stores every now and then they might as well stay at home in New Zealand, far better in fact.” The place where the settlers were located in Denham Bay, was merely a narrow strip of flat land along the beach, about a mile and a-half long and nob more than four hundred yardsbroad, with high hills or cliffs rising sheer up at the back to a height of 1,200 feet and more. "In the centre of the flat,” said one of the men, “there is a shallow raupo swamp, which the promoters of the Association had been led to believe was a lake containing good water. We had to dig wells on the edge of the swamp, and be content with the redcoloured stuff we gob or with the

BRACKISH WATER in our wells on the shingle beach. The land is very poor, and here it was that we were so disappointed. It is nearly all sand and pumice, overlaid with two or three inches of soil, with here and there comparatively fertile patches where vegetable mould had been washed down from amongst the treeroots in the bush upon the hills. The pumice hills are only held together, as far as I could see, by the roots of the pohubukawa, which grow all over the cliffs and the mountains. It is utterly impossible to cultivate the steep slopes—in fact, climbing them to reach the crater in the middle of the island or going over the cliffs to Bell’s homestead was quite difficult and dangerous enough without thinking of raising fruit or crops there. The only place'where we could do anything in the way. of cultivation was on the flat, and the soil there was poor enough, goodness knows.” They state that the whole of the people had to “rough it” very much at Denham Bay. Most of the people went about without boots—it saved shoe leather, they said, for the scoria and shingle would destroy boobo in a very short time. They managed to plant their crops all right, getting in, besides wheat, oats, and potatoes, a large quantity of useful vegetables, pumpkins, melons, kumaras, beans, etc. The weather was, as a rule, fine, but occasional gales swept over the island, doing a little damage sometimes in the way of unroofing a nikau whare, or blowing down a tent. About Christmas time very heavy rain fell, and it is stated that when there had been a tremendous downpour during the night, Mr Hovell’s rain-gauge next morning registered three and a-half inches rainfall. All went fairly well until the young crops had poked their heads above the ground, the people living on their stores meanwhile. Then in the beginning of January

A PLAGUE OF RATS swept over the whole place, destroying almost everything. They had evidently been hiberanating for the winter, and came out in great numbers. They are described as small bub voracious little nuisances, which ate or destroyed everything they could, and burrowed like a mole. When they did nob eat off the corn as it peeped above the ground, they climbed the stalk to get at the ear; they scooped out watermelons, leaving only the shell, went for the kumaras, and in fact did great mischief. Then three or four different varieties of caterpillars came along, and tackled the vegetables. They left very little worth eating. What the caterpillars left the rats appropriated, and vice versa, and, between the two, the unfortunate cultivators of the soil fared badly. Some patches of vegetables were sowed, but the returns from these were very unsatisfactory. The potatoes and maize would have been almost unsaleable in New Zealand. There were some fair returns Irota the beans and kumaros. When the crops failed thus the people had to fall back on their diminishing stores, and eke these out with the aid of Mr Bell’s plantations. That gentleman very kindly gave them the run of his cultivations, and behaved very well to them. “ Whenever we went over the hills to see Bell, or round in our boat to his homestead, 1 ' said the men, " he always sent us back loaded with everything he could spare for our people.” Mr Bell showed

THE GREATEST KINDNESS to the settlers, and but for his help they would have been very badly off indeed. Their stores would not have lasted much longer when the Hinemoa arrived at Sunday Island. Fish was abundant round the island, of all varieties, bub the high sea running generally prevented the men going out to fish. Three of the settlers, Mr and Mrs Bacon and son, have left Denham Bay and taken up some good land from Mr Bell, across the island, and Messrs Taylor, Lord and Andrews have started a cultivation in the crater of the mountain rather than remain in the settlement. The settlers claim that the Association have not made any attempt to fulfil the agreement with them, bub virtually left them to shift for themselves. Some of those who returned by the Hinemoa were men who had gone up to the island on wages for tho Company. The people still remaining on the island, besides the Bell family are, Mr Hovell (promoter of the settlement), Mrs Hovell, Mr and Mrs Bacon and son, Mr and Mrs Robson, Mr and Mrs Carver and four children, and Messrs Rasmussen, Lord (from Onehunga.) “Those people we leave behind us will all come back,” say those who arrived in the Hinemoa. “ They simply can’t stay 1 on Sunday Island, and we firmly expect to see them all back at the earliest opportunity.” Mr Hovell would have left, if bub he was detained on account of Mrs Hovell’s health being too delicate to allow them to leave in the Hinemoa at the time. . • • > ; There has been sOme- talk of starting a whaling station on Sunday Island, but the prospects of the enterprise are uncertain. . • One of the greatest drawbacks to Sunday Island is its lack of a harbour. Even in fine weather it is rather difficult to land through the surf at Denham Bay. A couple of months ago the people sighted a man-o’-war (the German warship Alexandrine, from Samoa to Auckland) close in to Denham Bay. They lib two huge fires at once on two of the blufis, hoping to bring her inshore and communicate with her, but she took no notice, apparently, of the signal, and continued on her voyage. The Hinemoa left Sunday Island for Auckland on the 22nd. She will make another trip to the Kermadecs in about six months. The schooner Olive, which leaves here for Tonga in a couple of days, will probably call at Sunday Island on her way. The s.s. Little Agnes, expected here from Rarotonga at the end of this week, calls at Sunday Island on her trip, and will probably bring some of the other settlers. The s.s, Wainui, which leaves here next week for tho islands, was most likely to have taken several new settlers for the island, bub in view of the news received by the Hinemoa, it will be surprising if there will be any inducement for the steamer to call there. As far as we can gather the ;Sunday Island settlement has been an

unfortunate failure, and it is surprising to find people ready to isolate themselves in such a place when there is abundance of better land in New Zealand awaiting selection.