NAURU, THE RICHEST ISLAND TN THE SOUTH SEAS 



565 



Photograph from Mrs. Rosamond Dodson Rhone 



SOIvVING THE SHIP-TONNAGE PROBLEM IN NAURU 



In the building of an outrigger canoe, one man is in charge and does most of the work, 

 but timber for the outrigger and platforms must be provided by his assistants. Coconut 

 sennit is used to fasten the timbers together. The woman in the background is holding a 

 roll of pandanus strips used in basket-making and in weaving mats such as the ones in the 

 foreground. The latter constitute the "weather boarding" for native houses. 



schooner calls, the surf-boats go in and 

 out, over the reef at high tide or through 

 intricate channels when there is an open 

 lagoon, carrying trade goods and return- 

 ing with bags of copra. 



The Germans promulgated laws, the 

 chiefs being held responsible for their 

 enforcement. Taxes were imposed — 

 head tax, dog tax, and bicycle tax — and 

 the men were required to work on the 

 roads three days of each week. 



THE STORY OP THE DISCOVERY OE 

 PHOSPHATE 



The colonial government did not know 

 what a treasure they had under their feet, 

 but were content to run a little trade 

 store, a branch of the Jaluit store, which 

 sold to the natives tobacco and beer, 

 Alaska canned salmon, sugar, rice, and 

 ship biscuits in exchange for copra. They 

 also sold prints and thin Japanese silks 

 for the Mother Hubbard dresses which 

 the American missionaries taught the 

 native women to wear and for the lava- 

 lavas which the native men wore to the 

 mission churches. 



Then came a great change, owing to 

 the discovery of phosphate. 



One day Nauru, like Aphrodite, arose 

 dripping from the sea. The date of this 

 emergence cannot be more nearly indi- 

 cated than ages ago, and the term day is 

 not limited to twenty- four hours, but is 

 to be construed liberally, like the days of 

 Genesis. The island may indeed have 

 been thrust suddenly into the air, with 

 all her lovely polyps gasping and shrivel- 

 ing in the tropic sun, and scarlet fishes 

 and long-armed octopi leaping affrighted 

 out of the exposed caves to the safe 

 shelter of the sea, while slow-moving sea- 

 urchins and mollusks perished in the pot- 

 holes and labyrinths of the coral ; or the 

 process of elevation may have been grad- 

 ual, life in the coral dying gradually at 

 the emerged top, while it remained in full 

 vigor just beneath the level of low tide. 



At any rate, when the upheaval was 

 complete, when the fairy towers and 

 pinnacles and the unsunned caverns of 

 the sea had been lifted into the blaze of 

 the sun, life at its base beneath the sea 

 continued unabated and the fringing reef 

 was slowly extended around it. 



At this period the island must have 

 looked like those fantastic artificial struc- 

 tures which we see in aquariums. No 



