A ROMANTIC SPOT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 174, 22 January 1914, Page 8

A ROMANTIC SPOT.

Till- FAXI IFI I, AM) TIIK IIKAL. Jlany years ago Mr. Edward Tregear, in a romantic mood, wrote si novel culled ••'Hedged bv Divinities." in which .he painted a kind (if Adiuiiles.s Kileii (says the- I.ytfcllon Times). All (lie miife iiiliiibitsints of New Zealand had j been destroyed bv some nivstciious disaster, and 'only'llie women ami girls were left. The'despair of llie ladies was loucliingiy depicleil. At last an Adam was (liseovei'eil. a youthful stranger from a far laml, and the ieiniiiine I'ar- ' lianieiit proviileil him with nearly as I: many wives as Solomon possessed in a ■ heroic ell'ort to preserve the race from exlinction. Mr. Trcgcar's humorous l and imaginative Utile book astonished ' some of his staid friends, who considered thai an important (iovcrninenl olii- I cial should lie above Mich frivolities as novel-writing, ami apparently the all- ■ thor repented of his imiiable Weakness, but lie eschewed liction, except, of course, such liction as appeared in his semi-political works. ]iut were .Mr. Tregear lo visit a certain South Sea island in which he has always been interested from a Rcientilic standpoint, lie would lind his old dream partially 1 realised. This romantic spot is Ka.-ter Island, far away in the Kastcni Pacific, the most distant outpost of Polynesia. There tile female inliabilaiifs, according lo recent reports, far outnumber the male. Many of the men go away to distant islands in search of work, and this and other causes have so reduced the masculine population that more than half the women are without I husbands. An American schooner, the Annie M. Campbell, was cruising in the Eastern Pacific some time ago, when a deputation from the young ladies of Raster Island beggfd the crew lo settle I on the island anil become their liusI bands, masters of their fields and ownI els of their sheep and cattle. The eapi tain, the story runs, hastened to set I sail before these matrimonial induce- | meats could rob him of his men. Another American schooner's crew hail a rather dill'ercnl experience, 'flic Kl Dorado's hands, shipwrecked in miiloceau recently, landed on Kaster Manri after a perilous boat voyage, and were received with open anus by llie solteyed beauties of storied llapanui. 1 Klcvcn of them straightway became "pakcha-Maori" husbands, and the capI tain could induce only two of the crew to accompany him when he continued his voyage in his open boat. The . eleven sailora would have been on . Kaster Island to this day bad not » irani]i steamer, the. Knight of the Hurler, unexpectedly called. She landed them at Sydney a few days afi'o, after an experience which was somewhat more romantic than, the usual lot of the shipwrecked sailorman. As for the Master Island brides, no soon abandoned by their husliands, prolmbly their feelings found vent in mournful songs after the manner of the .Maori women " of die old whaling day*, when the snil- • ors loved and sailed away. Kaster Is■l laud is still awaiting at least a hundred ■- husliands. according to the latest rc- ;- ports, to balance the sexes in its popue lation more satisfactorily. Clearly there e is "local color" here for the novelist n wJio looks for his theme in the romantic a atmosphere of (he .South Pacilie.