NAURU, THE RTCHEST TSLAND IN THE SOUTH SEAS 



561 



Photograph from Mrs. Rosamond Dodson Rhone 



OBVIATING THE DIFFICULTY OF HARBOR NAVIGATION AT NAURU 



Because of the coral reef, which slopes beneath the sea at an angle of 45 degrees off 

 Nauru, the phosphate company has provided deep-sea moorings. Large buoys lie on the 

 surface of the sea at a safe distance outside the edge of the reef, while small ones are lined 

 close to it. A motor launch operated by a native engineer is seen leaving the small-boat 

 harbor and crossing the reef through the surf at high tide (see text, page 573). 



moan group, one of which was the last 

 home of Robert Louis Stevenson and on 

 whose summit is his tomb (see page 558). 



In this way Germany acquired her 

 island possessions ; she held them for 

 about thirty years ; we all know how she 

 lost them. 



When Germany took possession of the 

 islands she made Jaluit the seat of gov- 

 ernment for the Marshalls and assigned 

 Nauru to that group, although it was an 

 island altogether on its own, as the Brit- 

 ish say, having its own language and cus- 

 toms and lying 300 miles distant. There 

 is no physical likeness, as it is an up- 

 heaved coral island, while the Marshalls 

 are low-lying atolls. 



at the; "jumping-off placf" of the 



WORLD 



Nauru, or Pleasant Island, is almost at 

 the jumping-off place of the world; it is 

 not exactly "East of the sun and west of 

 the moon," but it is almost the farthest 

 east, being only thirteen degrees west of 



the international date line, and it is a 

 half degree south of the Equator. It is 

 one of the Line islands. 



Before it fell to Germany it knew no 

 white rulers, but was governed by its 

 own immemorial laws, enforced by its 

 own chiefs ; but white influence had im- 

 pinged upon it for many years. Whaling 

 ships from New England ports called 

 there and traded firearms for drinking 

 coconuts and island pigs. It was rather 

 a poor island in those far-off days, before 

 its great wealth was discovered. It had 

 no sandalwood or tortoise shell ; no pearls 

 or beche-dc-mer ; not even copra, for 

 copra was not made in the Pacific before 

 1872 and coconut oil was not an article 

 of commerce. 



There are on Nauru two monuments 

 to contact with American whalers. One 

 io of flesh and blood — a native family 

 whose curly hair is in striking contrast 

 to their straight-haired neighbors, wit- 

 nessing that the ancestor was a runaway 

 negro sailor. The other is a small can- 



