Mw Out Of Our Colourful Past

A. Michener's Hand a New Book

Reviewed By

R. W. Robson

tHE fact that a new book by . James A Michener (America’s most successful writer on Pacific cean subjects), and A. Grove Day l notable Honolulu historian, who is compiled much lively material jout the North Pacific lands), is tiled Rascals In Paradise, may give te compilation a wrong classifica- Dn.

Why do American writers and iblishers persist in describing the acific Islands as “paradise”? My d friend, Dr. S. M. Lambert, many jars ago, Started the fashion when 3 called his volume of remin cences A Yankee Doctor In aradise. Michener himself fol wed on with Return To Paradise. thers have used the appellation, nd now this.

It seems simply that writers and iblishers, flooding the world with ick, colourful examples of escapist terature, are playing upon pros 3ctive readers’ hopes that they ay be transported through these ties to another and much more Bsirable world.

The Pacific Islands are not mradise”. Life can be as un leasant there as in Guatemala, or le Champs Elysee or Pitt Street, he Islands have suffered so much i the hands of romantic writers xat the experienced person, seek ig historical facts, approaches lything with a “paradise” label pon it with caution.

Which is a pity—because Rascal s i Paradse represents a great deal I careful research, of adherence » historical fact, and of entertain- Lent. It is one of the most read ble Pacific books that ever have me my way.

Although the more notorioui iscals with which it deals number nly ten—nine men and one women -it introduces scores of persons ell known in Pacific Islands istory; and the lot are carefully idexed. So it also is a useful ook of reference. Because of that idex, I almost can forgive the paradise”.

The authors, very cleverly, have ung large slices of Pacific history -like exploration, and blackbirding nd whaling—upon the stories of leir rascals. The book has enter iinment value, plus a definite place i the world’s libraries.

Larquis De Rays (Charles I,

Emperor Of Oceania!)

(30 Pages) Probably the most shocking story i the book.

This French aristocrat, between 877 and 1881, organised “Nouvelle ranee”, based on Port Breton (at

the southern end of New Ireland) —a gigantic fraud whereby he ‘robbed thousands of their savings, sent hundreds to certain death, and lived in luxury on the proceeds of his villainy”.

He sent no less than four ship loads of people to a fever-stricken tropical wilderness in the New Guinea area, sold dukedoms, earl doms and baronies, and solemnly proclaimed himself “King Charles of Nouvelle France”.

In 1883, he was brought to trial

and sentenced to six years’ gaol.

Bits of the story have been pub lished from time to time in the PIM. Relics of the tragic expedi tion are still around, in the Rabaul area. Descendants of the expedi tion’s survivors live in Australia.

One survivor, M. Mouton, was a prominent citizen of Rabaul, be tween 1885 and 1940.

Gibson, The Hawaii King’S

Evil Genius

(34 Pages) The Pacific’s 19th century history provides many examples of Euro pean adventurers who attached themselves to Islands kings, made themselves prime ministers and, while directing the state’s affairs, fathered countless children through

imerous wives. Except for the ildren, that was Gibson’s record.

Walter Murray Gibson—a wander- ? sailor and adventurer-got into iwaii in 1861 as a Mormon issionary and 20 years later beme the chief adviser of King imehameha IV. The comic opera >rv is well told.

Two angles of the story are worth tnembering. Gibson was the first m to seriously urge a Federation the Pacific Islands—Hawaii was be the focal point, and its king »uld be the Emperor of the Pacific, In the ’Eighties, Samoa was torn struggles between powerful ieftains who wanted to rule, and tween the Powers (Germany, nerica and Britain) who wanted moa Gibson decided to interne and make Samoa a protectate of Hawaii. Gibson’s Minister d Hawaii’s “warship” arrived in >ia, entered actively into the itical discussions there, and were ially chased away by the in- ? nant Germans. it is one of the long-forgotten, t most entertaining episodes in moan history. It was the German irship Adler which figured in the ndent; and the bones of the Her (wrecked in the 1889 humne) still lie on the reef in front Apia.

~T Trt,

Bligh, Man Of Mutinies

(30 Pages ) The story of Bligh as the inlerable martinet, (Nordhotf and ill), and the similar film version harles Laughton), are sternly bunked by authors Michener and iy

The inferences drawn from the five mutinies in the career of Bligh are offset by the further facts that he was cleared of blame in respect of all mutinies and died, greatly honoured, as a British Admiral, The authors effectively bring out the facts that Bligh was a splendid seaman; that Fletcher Christian was a rather unpleasant type of person; that Tahitian wenches more than Bligh tyranny led to the famous Bounty mutiny; and that Bligh’s open-boat voyage from Fiji to Java was one of the greatest feats in the history of navigation.

Macarthur is presented as the villain of the situation when Bligh was deposed, in 1808, by the noton cus Rum Corps, from the Governor -ship of NSW. Most other writers have made a hero of the Merino Pioneer, and a poltroon of Bligh.

But Michener does confess em barrassment when he tries to ex plain why Bligh, on that infamous occasion, was found hiding behind a bed in Government House, „ ITTTV WAVF o qottth spas BULLY HAYES, sou ih seas

Buccaneer

(35 Pages) No Pacific islands character has been more written about than Buccaneer William Henry Hayes (1829-1877), or more mercilessly heated by journalistic pot-boilers.

Michener and Day have not im proved the picture.

The authors evidently have combed over the almost endless mass of stuff published about Hayes, and they frankly confess “it is almost impossible to separate fact from legend”. They have taken

enough of the legend to har misrepresented the old rascal character.

They themselves say there a extant “two almost Opposing viev of Hayes”—one shaped by Lou Becke, and one by A. T. Saundei Unfortunately, they have been moi influenced by Saunders than I Becke.

Forty yearsago, I personally kne the family of Louis Becke (Bed then was not long dead), and knew Saunders. Saunders was i very industrious, proper, sniffii little man, of mediocre ability, wll made a hobby of gathering Bui Hayes stories, and presenting the; always from the viewpoint of tl unco’ guid. The more he leanu about Hayes, the more he wf shocked.

About 25 years ago, I purchase the Kingsley Moore collection * Hayesiana. Moore was a retired nav officer. Somewhere about 1910, 1 decided that he would compile ti true story of Hayes. He brought j the task the passion of the re; historian—over some years, I searched the Consulates and tl newspaper files of half the worll Then he settled down to the wrii mg of the book. He had no literal flair, but he did cross his t’s an dot his i’s. He was called back ■ naval service in 1914 or 1915, an he never resumed the Hayes com pilation. . . I bought his collectic of material —a huge bundle— James Tyrrell’s second-hand boo! shop in George Street, Sydney, ; the mid-Thirties.

Moore had examined Saunder pamphlets on Hayes very closel He wrote off two-thirds of thr material as exceedingly biased « completely inaccurate. There ofte was another side of those discredit able stories about Hayes—most ■ which were published, with shocke comment, by the highly respectabc newspapers of a century ago. No; and again Hayes would reply—br usually he would hurry off acrot the horizon in one of his ill-gotte ships, and leave the story-tellers 1 their trade.

Undoubtedly, Hayes was a rascj —but he was a jolly, lovable rases and even the old men who told m about him in Samoa, 40 years aftx he was dead—and some of whou lie had robbed —could still laug heartily at his pranks.

In the buying and selling < ships, he was full of trickery, bn he was not a cold-blooded thief. K was an habitual wooer of women-; as were most sea-rovers of his ds —but he was not vicious; and ev© Mr. Saunders could not dig up an formal complaint of brutality by an ex-mistress.

He was a blackbirder —as wen most of the small shipowners ( that period—but I never found evio ence that he treated his blackbiro any more cruelly than other labom recruiters who were tolerated.

ik that some of the blackbirding jodes described by Michener and r as having occurred in the 1870l period are either taken from ie imaginative work, or attributed the wrong party, ayes was an habitual flouter of s: but he was never convicted a major crime by any court of i this new book, the old story ut Hayes’ missing ear is told in In Kingsley Moore’s collec i, there is an original letter bten to Moore by one of Hayes’ a daughters, in which she says t they often romped with their ler at their home in Apia—and h his ears then were intact, he dramatic highlights of Hayes’ larkable history are presented in ly correct sequence, and enter lingly; but the inferences drawn n these events are in some cases be wrong, good deal more Becke, and a less Saunders would have got mixture right.

Xinga, Lord Of The Seas

(40 Pages ) Chinese merchant and a Jap >se girl in 1624 begat Coxinga, ich is the way the Dutch spelled name “of the greatest pirate a, and possibly the world, has r known”. n telling the extraordinary story this man, the authors present us h a picture of life on the eastern st of Asia, as it was 300 years i. Coxinga led an expedition inst the Dutch, and took Formosa m them. His is a famous name Far East history.

Dona Isabel. The Lady

Explorer

(35 Pages) ’he Spaniard, Alvaro de Mendana, covered the Solomons in 1569, i named them so because he 3 convinced that they were

ivily gold-bearing,

n 1595, he led another expedi i, of four ships, out of Callao, •u, to re-examine the Solomons, iros was his pilot, and he took h him his wife Dona Isabel »ne of the supreme bitches of all ie”) and a cabin-load of Dona bel’s relations. The second ex iition missed the Solomons com tely.

Jnder the treatment of Michener i Day, this most important ipter in Pacific Islands history ;omes the story of the “supreme ch”—the part the woman played finding and murdering the irquesans; in trying to colonise ; Santa Cruz instead of the lomon Islands; in meeting diseases ndently virulent malaria) which simated their new Colony; and getting the starving survivors d the last of the four ships finally Manila. [n the few history-books which

describe Mendana’s voyages, Dona Isabel is mentioned with respect, and praised for her courage in lead ing the sorry party to Manila after Mendana’s death in Santa Cruz.

But her 300-years-old reputation here is thoroughly debunked.

Louis Becke, Adventurer

And Writer

(28 Pages ) This is a surprising section. I have many of Becke’s books—in fact, it was an early diet of Louis Becke, over 50 years ago, which first aroused my interest in Pacific Islands life and affairs —but I had never regarded him as anything more than an irresponsible storyteller.

Michener and Day claim, flatly, that Becke is the best writer about the Pacific—and they say this after considering James Norman Hall, R. L. Stevenson, Herman Melville, Robert Dean Frisbie. After reading their argument, one is inclined to agree with them.

I do not know who tracked the career of Louis Becke—Michener or Day—but he certainly rendered good service to South Pacific records and literature. I knew Becke vaguely through his books, and through his family—his widow and his two daughters were residents of Sydney for many years—Niya Becke for a time was on the staff of PlM —but I never realised the width and variety of his Pacific Islands experi

es. And I never accepted him any sense as an historian. :is accounts of his wanderings [ adventures change from book book, and article to article. The bors complain that, to piece to ler the events of his colourful and reconcile his accounts of events he knew in Bully Hayes’ they had to undertake endless ing. I can believe it. see no justification for bringing ke in under the generic title of seals”.

The Globe Mutineers

(36 pages) his story belongs to the Northern ific. he whaleship Globe left Nan- Let in 1822, made her way around Horn, sought whales in the th Pacific, between Hawaii and an. The crew mutinied, murd l all the officers, seized the ship headed into the Micronesian nds, seeking a place where they ht establish a kingdom. They 3e Milli Atoll, in the Marshalls, re were fights, and a section of crew ran away with the Globe, got to South America and, itually, home. Natives murdered except two of the party left be i at Milli. Those two youths itually were rescued by an ex ition, sent to look for the ineers. A very dramatic story, told.

Leeteg, The Legend

(50 Pages) bis is an unexpected section. It he story of Edgar Leeteg, the man-American craftsman who d e an artistic sensation in iti after World War II by paint on velvet. Say the authors; solved the technical )lems of painting on velvet— lally, he used velveteen most of time, originally from France, r from New York”—and ultim y turned out paintings that were inically flawless. Each strand of stood free, with its own specks colour. The dye of the velvet been neutralised so that it no ;er chemically affected the pig its. And the entire painting was ; in balance. Many artists con i that anyone who wanted to d have mastered the problem lilpaints on velvet, if he had lied himself. Leeteg did it.” ;eteg’s paintings became famous me are worth £l,OOO. But other iters hated him—they said he not an “artist”. nee a week, Leeteg went from »rea into Papeete for a “party”— er the influence of liquor, he practically a madman. He also ribed himself as Tahiti’s most irious fornicator, e was killed in a motor-cycle dent in Papeete, in February, , after one of those parties, ichener and Day provide a

fascinating account of Leetegs career, his strange art and his shockmg way of life, They describe, for exampie, how he built for himself, at Moorea, the most decorative and luxurious privy-outhouse in the whole Pacific ' '