Years Of Plenty

Before Twilight Engulfed the Tuamotus

From Our Own Correspondent.

Papeete, Aug. 16.

THE long barrier of reefs and atolls, to the east of Tahiti, called the Tua motu Archipelago, has been for nearly a century the Golconda, the Cathay of Kubla Khan, and the Fafner’s Cave of the South Pacific. With its treasures of pearls, pearl-shell, and copra on a hundred isles, and misty tales of buried Inca gold, this group has been the lode star of every South Seas trader since the first adventurer sailed these waters.

In practice, the figurative likeness to the Cave of Fafner has, through the years, proved the most appropriate: for the dragon within the cavern has taken far more than it has relinquished. Fleets of argosies have been shattered and ground to fragments on the sharp teeth of its merciless jaws; while their cargoes have disappeared forever into its insatiable maw. Every ship navigating the Tua motus eventually leaves its bones on one of the reefs of those treacherous seas.

If rumour be founded in fact, enough treasure (in the form of merchandise and coin of the realm) has been swallowed up beyond recovery if! commerce with the Inhabitants, to encrust the circles of several atolls with a blazing mosaic of emeralds, sapphires, and pigeon-blood rubies.

In the days when copra, pearls, and pearl-shell were of high value, the Tua motu native lived sumptuously. His table groaned under the weight of ample sup plies of luxuries brought in tins from far countries. His women folk were clad in fine raiment and their fingers and ear lobes glittered with jewellery.

If his requirements exceeded his pre sent resources, there were always at hand men inspired by optimism and a lively expectation of favours to come, eager to provide for his future.

The most generous of these, and cer tainly the most spectacular, was a com pany of optimists who descended on the Tuamotus from the United SGates of America, in the early 1920’5. Their trea sury apeared to be inexhaustible. Buildings were built, stations established. The seas of Oceania became populous with their power schooners. Foodstuffs, wares, and com of the realm were dispensed with lavish hands.

During this period the Tuamotu native abided in the seventh paradise of Tane- Ahu-Ura (Tane of the Red Feather Mantle), the Sun God of his ancestors.

The very atmosphere/ above the atolls glowed perpetually with a pink radiance.

What was the sum of the tribute left by these adventurers at the Cave of Fafner is Imown only to the grim-faced emis saries of soul-less money changers who eventually seized the property of the com pany in the States and abroad.

As in many another land, twilight now broods over the Tuamotu coral isles.

Whether it be the twilight of evening or the dawn, time alone will reveal.

The native of the atolls has returned to the ways of his forebears for a season; but memory and his experience with the undying optimism in the heart of man. encourages him in the belief that the glimmerings of light come from the East— or, rather, from the North-East.