YAP AND OTHER PACIFIC ISLANDS UNDER 

 JAPANESE MANDATE 



By Junius B. Wood 



WitJi Illustrations from Photographs Taken by the Author in the Spring of 1921 



LIFE is easy and time drifts slowly 

 by on the little tufts of green in 

 ithe warm blue of the Pacific which 

 now are under Japanese mandate. The 

 largest is less than 13 miles in diameter, 

 while a half dozen coconut trees, sur- 

 rounded by nature's breakwater of man- 

 groves, tells the whole story of many of 

 the smallest. Nobody knows how many 

 or how large they are. One careful esti- 

 mate is 1,000 islands, with a total area 

 of 970 square miles. 



Sown in the form of an inverted T, 

 the islands stretch 2,462 miles east and 

 west, just north of the Equator, from 

 Lord North Island, the westernmost of 

 the Carolines, to Mille Atoll, the eastern- 

 most of the Marshalls ; and 1,170 miles 

 north and south from Pajaros, the most 

 northern of the Marianas, to Greenwich, 

 in the Carolines. Small as they are, they 

 stake out about 1,500,000 square miles in 

 the North Pacific* 



Men of many nations — Portuguese, 

 Spanish, English, American, French, 

 Russian, German, and now Japanese — 

 have wandered through the islands in the 

 centuries since Columbus dared the un- 

 known sea. 



They came as explorers seeking El 

 Dorados, soldiers to conquer new lands 

 for their kings, pirates to recuperate in 

 the balmy tropics, missionaries to teach 

 and trade, "blackbirders" gathering la- 

 borers for the plantations of New Zea- 

 land and Australia, beach-combers drift- 

 ing out their aimless existence, and all 

 the strange medley of humanity that 

 life's eddies cast into strange corners of 

 the world. 



Each has left a mark, a mere fleeting 

 touch — the name of an island, a river, a 

 mountain peak, or a family. But uncon- 

 querable nature is unchanged and the 

 tropical jungle has covered the scars of 

 their works, while the white skins darken 



* See map supplement with this number of 

 The Geographic. 



with each generation of children and the 

 family name is but a memory of an an- 

 cestor gone and forgotten. 



They were but ripples on the surface. 

 The old life runs along, deep and un- 

 changed ; the new is there for a genera- 

 tion, fading and disappearing in the next. 

 At home amateur theatrical and movie 

 companies don strange costumes to por- 

 tray spectacles of departed ages. Here 

 the past is masquerading as the present — 

 whatever may be pleasing to the rulers of 

 the day — and the costumes are as weird. 



A GOVERNMENT IS POPULAR IN PROPOR- 

 TION TO THE FREQUENCY OE HOLIDAYS 



The last time our ship anchored in 

 Ponape Harbor was on the Japanese na- 

 tional holiday celebrating the accession 

 of the first mythological emperor. In 

 192 1 it was the 2,581st anniversary. 



During the hour's ride to shore in the 

 little launch, winding between the sunken 

 coral reefs showing white through the 

 clear green water, the genial naval com- 

 mander of the island explained that a 

 holiday and big celebration had been ar- 

 ranged. Any government is popular with 

 the natives in proportion to its holidays. 



That afternoon the flag of the Rising 

 Sun was flying over the big parade 

 ground above the village and the naval 

 band played the Japanese national air. 



The natives were there to watch the 

 athletic games, just as they or their 

 fathers and mothers had come on other 

 national holidays when the Spanish or 

 German colors flapped in the breeze over 

 the same parade ground and they joined 

 in singing other patriotic songs in other 

 languages. Some remembered the even 

 earlier years, when Fourth of July was 

 the big holiday, and a few could recall 

 two occasions when bloody revolutions 

 started against the Spanish rulers as part 

 of the celebration of the American natal 

 day. 



59i 



