1956-10-20 — Page 7

THE CHINA---MAIL,

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1956.

Page

A GHOST VILLAGE'S EXPORTS

By

ALAN CARSTAIRS

P

EOPLE who live only 21 few miles from Usun will tell you that it is "ghost" village on which the "death sen- tence" Was pronounced years ago.

When you tell them that Jewellery is exported frum Usun to the United States of America, they arc amazed.

For months Un had nest hau a stranger on: He doorstep there the other

until i called

day.

Usan la in from the

Scotland, not lat

east coast

town al

Montrose, The road twia out of Montrose for four miles and dips down to the meu. No sig

poal, nulling on Ure map, in- dicates the presence of Usan.

"There's nobody there.** WIS told. "Us21 Is deserted. And has been for yours."

White-freed cattle Joze und Joist in the mihály of the big

Thy poke decontaging

Bout at my ca

Tw

tt

**

Roofless

m. 14141

Cummings

Palmerston to Bu

1500 cules

FIS 1.

Us

LIE

rises the gholly apparition buy

The houses numeri tal codes. Tarcy remind aw Den with their scat wit Tand shesh. Bland There is not a living insight. Thu might

Thu's setilt ment

Lipity

600)

whil

i

have

looks likN DEL the old of ys of the American fronder alter visitation by hostile tesikins

ear

23u1

16 the pul your run for a 144.meni ni listen. a terrine noise. Klosi village There is a clanging

You may hear

Underground, the

És and ing.

as of chains.

}

15

r

merely someone dawing Wiler troen the old village pump. It is Ruby Dick- son, who is eighteen.

to

"10 I 201

1.

bored" she said question

echoing my when i luvated her and apoke to hur "What do you think? There used

dances and Now all that has concerts here. Kont

the

Ruby picked up her peil o water. Got to boll it now" and ntered house Number 20.

different from This 15 majority of the others, Number It has sintes on the roof. Slates below the yellow muss.

this of the DLA-

28.

Beneath

8 family have lived for years, Six Families

"The village as fondemned,” says Mrs Dicken. "There is no sanitation.

proper water SYBAI, No pince so put up a stranger. But six tamilles live here. There used to be Thirty. The other folk jeft three or four years ago.

"The authorities have told us we are living here at our own risk. But they haven't found us another house elsewhere.”

Mrs Dickson runs the village shop.

three consists shelvey in " cupboard of her house! It must be

Sydney to Palmersion

2800 miles

CHRISTMAS IS.

TAHITI IS

PALMERSTON IS.

PACIFIC OCEAN

SIR ANTHONY EDEN SHOCK-SUSTAINED FROM EFFECT OF CHAIRS BEING REMOVED FROM

UNDER HIM

BY J. F. DULLES

and tell the Press that he's simply in bed with a feverish chill"

TROUBLE LOOMS IN

AN ISLAND PARADISE

AN EDEN WITH THREE EVES

O

four.

UT near the middle of the deep Pacific tes a tiny island of happiness and

On it live about a hun- dred

und men, women children, all of whom have the same name for the per- fectly good reason that they are all related to one an- other.

They are descendants of

white

und his three Polynesian wives.

0118

man

ibe insander?

only learn Engil h. That is why the dark skinned descendants pow juk old Midlands, wil drawi

effect are

val worries,

Primerton 1 en l When at tulekly enough saw the reason for such fears. The main island is only as high above The water as a rryboat.

aut

Members of the Marsters in in the South Sas talked to me H-bomba. But they pre es entrady a merry people, and to to dance They prefer

in their sing rousing old tunes

Vous dialect.

T... realuring macestor comes The eat in sprit when Palinerston

unch sanders are sailing on Lagoon with expressions such as: "Back pull. "Coom, land," They are coffee-coloured ye bluuddy fuhllas," and, during and the language they all lightening of ship to cross revis speak is brond English Mid- Into lagoons, "the xharks! ყიე wtih

land in a quaintly old- Into the buddy

thee."

fashioned dialect.

The man

who started the Island

was I flew to the atoll a few Palmerston

saga

took Birminghem and It is Palmer- born in weeks ago. ston Island, the "kingdom" part in the Klondyke gold rush. In the 1850's he turned up in the William of the clan of

Zealand, New Tay of stards,

Marsters, whose descen- board a whaler. dants in various parts of the Pacific total about 500.

A

NOW

his own

Mc ulo laid down simple system of law. Members of the three families were taught

their fidera Cpect there was no serious crime,

come restless and decide voluntary

to see the outsid world.

There was the

epic voyage, for instance,

of James Marsters and

his

sweet-

theart Topeu, who me; oub

island-bullt

and

in

1

-101:

There was no disease-prob- ably due to the complšie ab- sence of flies and mosquitoes on

that Palmerston, and the fact the island was well out of the trade routes.

cutter to moji from rhyn.

Six laland. sra WEDD

Pen-

with them

• Over-populated

his island

Oensionally schooners

Canic

ther

at the stan

but these became fright.

oned

and

dived over- and board swam zshore, to take aboard she, beche-de- leaving James mer and cured fish which had a and Topou with high market value in Rarotongo. four gallons of

and water Mars' ers ordered

of coconuts, and planted.

a

shipload coconuts.

these wers When they began to

ጊዜ For

60

night.s

bear It WDB not long be- James lashed the fore some of the young tiller

Laler he worked for a South bloods" Seu trader whose headquarters brew, were in Tahu.

He was an English sailor. He settled there nearly century since with his three Island

in with became, vahines and truth, the father of his people.

It is still a patriarchal unique in the kingdom world, far off the route of the uniest white travellers, orderly, shop in all Scotland-perhaps healthy, strictly ruled ac-

in the world.

"5:1

and

cigaretics,

cording to the edicts of its lemonade, virile founder.

explains, over the 'shop' after

potato crisps," she

"I took

the last owner left."

Mr Dickson is another asral

to this once prosperous Ashing

po.. He works

a

living

stones in

American

Decklaces.

cha farm for

and collects attractive

itis

time.

Брате

Usan women wear

• They prefer to sing

On the Eden-like South

Says Mr Dickson: "My agates Sea atoll there are

There they are

go to Glasgow. polished and sent to America In exchange for some

of their stones."

On his doorstop he lays out necklaces. earrings, brooches,

tioping and

cufflinks made ho has chiselled

from atonce from Usan rocke.

Laid. Out

concocted A

and went polent to sleep with

Topou in his arms.

arrived After they

at Hull Group Island, in the Phoenix

was 700 miles away, James oentenced to six months hard labour for scaling the boat, and another herself got Topou flame.

The old man was a Methodist. He was sent from Perthyn The only challenge to his relg: from A roving young to Palmerston Island cam:

to Marsters who returned to the a nalivo labour crew

atoll a convinced Baptist

Methodism won out. Hymns like "Onward, Christian Soldlers" are still the clan's favourite work songs.

By JACK PERCIVAL

collect beshe-de-mer. When the

schooner put them ashore

promise departed with a return in a few months.

12

Intermarriage among the clan has apparently had no serious effects.

The

virile

firat

• Refuge on a mound

man

Today throughout the Pacife you can meet members of the dozen men are

and Marsters clan on 0 mentally aleri, the wonen Pacific islands. They are all

can athletic-they pr ity, and

proud that they are descended three and swing a copra bag over their from ong

the shoulders and walk off with it women, and the rest of as if it was no weight at all. communities are proud of them,

The old

man

son, too. to William Matsiors II, became

icgal The clan holda full the second patriarch and died

Its homeland. in 1948 aged 84.

The present ownership of But the schooner did not re- boss is Nod Marsters,

gave the a lean. The Briish Crown hardly turn for six years. When it did,

leathery

patriarch a lease of the atoll in islander. He rules with cheerful firm- 1888. any diseases, seldom any he was told that his employer crimes, no politics and no was dead, so he took a llen over

When this lease expired in questioned.

tho "Pacific Islands taxos--in fact there is no the Palmerston atoll in lieu of ass and his orders are seldom

William the First did not 1954

reported that the need for money.

The atoll was uninhabited. merely populass his island. He Monhtly" community's

turies and there was

a good 41.. peaceful life now lies a cloud catchment area for fresh water.

Marsters liked the place, The inhabitants

When ho got back there in suffering from an acute at- 1002 he was accompanied by his tack of nerves. They fear Polynesian trife and her sister. that the hydrogen bomb Later they were joined by a which the British are pre- woman from Penrhyn Island,

He shared out his affections, paring to explode next year

Wakes.

But on the horizon of the The lagoon was full of fish and and his progny over-populated Cook Islands Act was amended

and quiet

mushroom-shaped.

are

to trant the atoll to the inhabi- which tants except 10 acres must be kept aside for adminis irative purposen.

William Marsters the First- the Patriarch who started it all!

TO

A rescue schooner fcolt some of the survivors to Rarotonga.

Another hurricane struck the island in 1928. The sea claimed the patriarch's house built from selvige, and the church was driven inland hun- dreds of yards.

The whole population got to work end trundled the church back on coconut trunks to its hallowed.original site.

In 1934 a tidal wave washed coconut frces, houses and copra shes into the sea but drowned only two of the tough little clan,

сап

Old ways and

a now fear

war,

PaciAc the During Palmersica coward the Ameri: "invasion." The. potest established American bajo wan on Penrhyn Island, where a Ionut-plane strip and a flying- boat base were built.

To this day the edict of Willem Marsters I is still oboyd --all the children are taught old English by their mothers. Few of them speak Polynesirit well.

They have one paramount fear the might of the sea.

That is why they watch the movement of British troops and sppplies 10, Christmas Island.

The Palmerston Islanders, like

• Obeyed orders

la But. Palmerston

very to migrate

small-a series of six motus (pieces of land) shaped like "Unfortunately," he observed

Today, In

a reef about 25 addition to the pancakes on to me, "they don't fetch much, You can buy necklace far ten

hundred Living there, about. 400 miles in circumference, hearing the name and ap The molus are, just out of shillings or so."

There

In a costat lock-out nearby. There, Station Officer ut Christmas Island 800 and three families came into pearance of the clan are living reach of the sea, which creams 8:0 having obaved orders You con circle it in a dying. Frederick Day of Her Majesty miles to the northeast, will being. When his children were in other parts of the South over the reef into the lagoon,

strong enough, they were put to migrate when the numbers.

best in 10 minutes. Field its

The main motu le less than a church were bullt,

of coconuts, flah, For himself Marators built a birds

tid Mountain

In a hurricane: the salvage

from three wrecked migrants appointed their leader of a mound of Carth 20 H-bombs, 1 alpe, Massive oak beard were and set up their code of law Moralers clors rush for the refuse

this year I met my Jong || At- fastened together with

De tomily

In- nak

and were seeking transport in my kinds mber re-, back" to theft"omiƐvelas

some of the They put up hard ore willing to pay theirfares:

eta beyond desolate Usin, as he will engulf their idyllic little

120

Coast Guard surveys the arc of not up a' tidal wave which to work, and · a vllage and a palmers'on rtles square "mikonin "ereni (On": it ́inths people of many other, atolls,

has been surveying it for who world.. hus acemed"

Actually, ho his..only

there four years.)

L

*T

etern

The same fears, I found, are

held by tho inhabliszta of many; fine, house' from ^«jtimum) and, la cach PURKKANA wwhat the fohrbitante call "There | fooling: horveus bouti

Does he like it there? Mr Day, other low-lying atolls in that

Scotaman, stretch of the Pacific. buter m

from De-(Eves in mountains Somoy

nota

vonshire, and ha

new

dour not waste † (Cere is remo, alirm. The Pars copper, rvalaj, gindahipa bolta viwho had "become home 100%

words "No" he replies, and

or {Haftrit Wantern

add that i hele beginning sa cently petitioned the United

Notions to interyers; agairies: ina

think he famo la noi Frederick etme Island H-bomb pre

Day but Robinsodarytiems,) APR

The clan'

saved most

The Amerkan nuclear bombs worried them, lem., Bikini, is 1,500 kilèn Hway to the north-

But, the Briksh H-bomb base Ja:700 miler olower, ka the north-

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