The Isle of Pines
pp. 35-36 · Read in the full issue
Former Haunt of Sandalwooders Now a Backwater
Prom Our Own Corresnondent BY courtesy of the US Commander in New Caledonia,who lent us his plane, I recently visited the Isle of Pines (50 miles south of New Caledonia), with a French botanist, M. Viret, to collect plants for the University of Harvard.
This little island is noteworthy for its beautiful orchids which dominate the heath-covered plateau like kangaroo paws dominate certain parts of the Darling Ranges of Western Australia; and strange shaped coral platforms along the coast are the home of a species of tobacco, Nicotiana fragrans, which is not found anywhere else in the world—not even on the New Caledonia mainland.
Apart from the official Resident—an ex-French naval rating—another French man exploiting timber, including the strange Cook pine, and the one or two priests at the mission who rigidly dominate life in the eight native settle ments, the island has no white inhabitants and is seldom visited. Yet in early days it was one of the most profitable haunts of Australian sandalwood traders, includ ing such famous characters as Towns, Paddon and Underwood.
Many a crew was massacred and eaten here, for the natives, then more numer ous than to-day, were notorious cannibals, regularly raiding across to Caledonia for women and human flesh. They were the finest canoe builders in these seas.
The French have a legend tha£ an English man-o’-war was sent to the Isle of Pines in 1853 to declare it a British
possession, but that the captain dallied so long that he allowed them —the French— to beat him to it by a day. They say that as a result the English captain shot himself when he got back to Sydney. A British man-o’-war was certainly making an unhurried hydrographical survey in the neighbourhood at the time the French hoisted their flag, but there is no valid evidence that they were there to take possession, and if the captain did shoot himself on his return I suspect it was for reasons of a much more personal nature than failure to take possession of the Isle of Pines. The story seems to be rather the invention of an old Jesuit writer whose book, “Marins and Mis sionaires,” gives a very one-sided account of early happenings in New Caledonia.
BUT war has reared its head even on the isolated Isle of Pines. A week after our visit, curiosity about a grenade they found in a box left behind by Allied troops, caused the death of a native boy, son of a local chief, and the wounding of two others. Trying to find out what was inside, they first hit the top of the grenade with a brick, and then, when nothing happened, hurled it at a coconut tree. This time it exploded. In formed by radio, two French doctors were flown to the island and brought the two wounded lads back to Noumea Hospital.
Captain the Hon. J. Carfax-Foster, who was a trading store manager in Atiu (Cook Islands), in 1930, was killed in the fighting in North Africa two years ago.
Lance-Sergeant R. S. Aubin, NZ forces, formerly a trader on Mangaia (Cook Islands), was killed in the fighting near Rome several months ago.
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Corbett, of Suva, Fiji, celebrated their Golden Wedding on October 31. Both are residents of long standing. Mrs. Corbett was born in the Colony, and Mr. Corbett arrived from New Zealand in the 80’s.
A social gathering took place at Christ Church, Launceston (Tas.) recently to mark the centenary of the missionary ship ‘‘John Williams.” The Rev. J. Hore, BA, of Devonport, recalled many interesting personal recollections of the three voyages around the Pacific, which she made with her father, who was then captain of the “John Williams IV.”