NAURU, THE RICHEST ISLAND IN THE SOUTH SEAS 



58: 



sport is catching the wild birds, using the 

 tame ones as decoys ; they are lassoed by 

 a weight on the end of a fish-line. The 

 children play a game in imitation of this, 

 in which the bird is a pair of feathers 

 weighted in the middle. 



The birds which are not fully tamed 

 are tied to the roost by long lines and are 

 fed daily, just before sunset, with pieces 

 of fish. The owner tosses the fish into 

 the air and the birds swoop down and 

 catch it. The native gives his pet water 

 by squirting it out of his mouth, as the 

 Chinese laundryman used to sprinkle 

 clothes (see illustration, page 578). 



FEW GODS IN THE) ISLAND'S MYTHOLOGY 



The native myths are not populous with 

 gods, like those of richer lands. They 

 say, in common with those of the other 

 South Sea islands, that the sky originally 

 lay flat upon the earth, and men wriggled 

 beneath it prone upon their faces ; when 

 it lifted a little they went stooping; when 

 it was finally hoisted to its place by the 

 Spider, they stood upright. The first men 

 were immortalized by being changed into 

 coral pinnacles. 



There appears to have been no organ- 

 ized priesthood, but an altar formerly 

 stood before the hut of each chief, upon 

 which were laid offerings of food, either 

 devoted to gods, to the ghosts of their 

 ancestors, or, what is more probable, to 

 devils, in whom the natives have pro- 

 found belief. 



As late as 1889, a man-of-war called 

 at the island and the sailors desecrated 

 one of the altars by seizing the coconuts 

 and other food upon it. The ship steamed 

 away to Apia, in Samoa, was caught in 

 the great cyclone on Saint Patrick's Day 

 of that year, which destroyed most of the 

 shipping in the harbor, including six war- 

 ships, and was wrecked. The sacrilegious 

 sailors were drowned. The Nauruans 

 look upon this as a punishment by the 

 spirits. 



Some of these altars, which were coral 

 pinnacles the height of a table and higher, 

 are still standing, but are not used save 

 as indications of the chiefs' houses. The 

 government is substituting "chief posts" 

 with the names of the chiefs inscribed. 



The last of the witch doctors is still 

 living, but the court has put an end to her 

 practice. A native, whose abdomen was 



vastly distended by dropsy, sought her 

 for relief. She took a woman's weapon, 

 a short, stout handle with a head beaked 

 with a shark's tooth, and ripped open the 

 abdomen. The dropsy was cured, but the 

 patient died, and the doctor was tried and 

 convicted of murder and sentenced to life 

 imprisonment in the house of the head 

 chief, where she may be seen any day 

 sitting on the mats in company with the 

 chief's family. 



AN ISLAND TYING IN TONETY SEAS 



Nauru lies in lonely seas. There are 

 three steamship routes between America 

 and Australia, but the nearest one crosses 

 the Equator about 1,400 miles to the east, 

 on the way from Honolulu to Sydney ; the 

 steamship lanes across the Pacific from 

 east to west lie about the same distance 

 to the north; those from Sydney to 

 Hongkong about as far to the southwest. 

 Once in three months a small steamer 

 plying between Sydney, the Solomon 

 Islands, and the Gilbert Group, trading 

 in copra and carrying a few passengers, 

 touches at the island. 



The mission ship, John Williams, carry- 

 ing missionaries of the London Mission- 

 ary Society to and from their stations 

 throughout the Pacific, calls once or twice 

 a year. The Pacific Phosphate Com- 

 pany's cargo boats, which come up from 

 Australia every three or four weeks, are 

 the main connection with the outside 

 world. They carry mails, supplies, and a 

 few passengers. 



Time is not reckoned by the calendar, 

 but by the arrival and departure of boats. 

 The weather is never a topic of conversa- 

 tion, but the coming of the next boat is a 

 vital subject. 



TROPICAL HOUSEKEEPING 



There are about 80 white residents. 

 The greater number compose the "white 

 staff" of the phosphate company — man- 

 agers, clerical force, medical officers, en- 

 gineers, overseers, and storekeepers. A 

 garrison of a dozen men with a commis- 

 sioned officer, a wireless staff, an oc- 

 casional visiting missionary, the agent of 

 the steamship company, whose boat calls 

 four times a year, and the administrator, 

 with his clerks, customs and post-office 

 officials, make up the remainder. 



Housekeeping has difficulties peculiar 



