Cruise of the Yankee

Review :

The Johnsons Tell the Story of Their 18 Months Adventure

THE many friends made by Irving and Electa Johnson, of the schooner Yankee, when they cruised into the South-West Pacific with their crew of American youngsters in 1948, will be in terested in the long story of that voyage that is published in the March issue of the National Geographic Magazine.

Even the staid sub-editing of the National Geographic, which usually re duces all writers to a common denomina tor, cannot altogether spoil this account of modern adventuring although the reader is left with the feeling that there must have been much that the Johnsons could have written about the Pacific end of their wanderings if space had been given to them. The photographs, both colour and black and white, are, as usual, magnificent—probably Melanesia has not before been so well presented photo graphically as this.

The cruise of the Yankee, originally a North Sea pilot schooner, took 18 months, and Melanesia was only part of the trip. After leaving New Guinea the schooner sailed north around the Vogel kop Peninsula to the Philippines and westward through the Indies, across the Indian Ocean to Zanzibar, around the Cape of Good Hope, across the Atlantic to the top of South America, through the West Indies and home to Gloucester, through New York Harbour and the East River.

Nineteen made the voyage—including four girls and Mrs. Johnson—for when 12-year-old Arthur Johnson was dropped off in the Philippines to return to the

US to school, his younger brother Robert took his place. There was only one paid hand—Donald Crawford, the cook.

Yankee visited Malekula, New Hebrides, and the crew saw the Big and Little Nambas on their own stamping ground; others of the Hebrides group; and went on to Tikopia, Polynesian outpost, apparently without the grace of Polynesian manners: The Yankee was besieged by mobs of howling islanders in canoes, all wanting to trade mats and tapa cloth for fish hooks and knives.

From Tikopia the schooner made for the Solomons and all those places in the Protectorate where, less than 10 years ago American Marines were making history.

Here, reported the Johnsons, many of the islanders still engaged in treasure hunts —not for pirate gold but for war’s left overs. In 1948 it was still possible to find hoards of coco-cola and petrol and other remnants of the valuable supplies that were dumped when the Americans moved out. . 1 *i i On Malaita they encountered adherents of Marching Rule; and in Rabaul, New Britain, learnt something of the giant snails that remained a pest long after the Japs, who introduced them, had been rounded up and sent back home. Then down to the Trobriands and back up along the New Guinea coast to Madang and Wewak, to Hollandia and Biak to the Philippines and the Indies.

SAILING south of Sumatra a fair wind took them to the Cocos Islands, domain of the Ross family who have ruled there for five generations, their subjects being five generations of Malays who have increased from the original 12 families to 1,800 persons.

The Johnsons describe their visit: “Landing on Home Island, site of the Ross coconut plantations, we were greeted by all the children of the Malay com munity. They trooped along with us through their village and led us to the 150 000 dollar Ross mansion, its rooms filled with Chippendale and Sheraton antiques. , , “Four bronze busts in the entrance hall introduced the first four builders of the Ross empire. One showed a full-bearded Scotsman, John Clunies-Ross, who im ported the 12 Malay families and estab lished his kingdom.

“The second Ross was all Scots, the third half Malay, the fourth three quarters. We remembered the fourth Ross, a wise administrator, from a visit 14 years earlier. He had died in 1944 fol lowing a Japanese raid on the group. A portrait showed the latest lord of the islands, 20-year-old John Clunies-Ross V, son of an English mother and product of an English education. He was away from home.

“We wondered whether the islands or the outside world would claim John’s interest. Already the Ross holdings on phosphate-rich Christmas Island, also an early family settlement, had been sold.

Now there was talk of settling the 1,800 Malays on Borneo and replacing them with indentured Chinese. If copra prices tumbled, the Malays unkeep would strain the Ross purse . . . The Malays had no money problem; their currency was celluloid coins minted by the Rosses for exchange at the company store.”

THIS was all in 1948. It seems that the Ross family decided to keep their Malays in their Kingdom. It will be remembered that last year the family refused Australia the right to build an aerodrome on Cocos, on the grounds that they did not want any part of the out side world to intrude or unsettle their people. Australia, therefore, had to aban don her plan for opening an air-route to Africa.