Islands & their mysteries ..

Front matter

ISLANDS

& THEIR

MYSTERIES

Introduction

This book is no attempt at a learned or scientific treatise on islands; its aim is rather to describe, in a clear, concise and easily understood manner, how islands are formed, how they resemble or differ from one another, how they become covered with vegetation and how they are peopled by animals; and to explain the causes and the reasons for many of the most puzzling and interesting features of islands and island life. To make the facts more vivid, chapters have been devoted to imaginary trips to various types of islands where the peculiarities, the formations, the vegetable and animal hfe, the marine fauna and the forces of Nature which have a bearing on the islands are depicted at first hand.

Finally, accounts of some reaUy remarkable islands have been included for the human interest they possess, and the author has touched lightly upon the romance of islands and their influence

xi

INTRODUCTION upon the development and history of the human race.

Much valuable and accurate information regarding geology, botany and natural history has been woven into the text, but in such a simple manner and so free from technical and scientific terms that it may be grasped and understood easily, even by young readers.

It must be remembered, however, that in a book of this scope it is quite impossible to treat of all islands, or even of a very small percentage of them, and that in the descriptions of imaginary trips to various islands the author has assumed islands which are, in reality, composite pictures of various islands. But there is no loss of scientific accuracy in this S5mthetic method; indeed, there is gain.

The author has spent many years on islands, especially on those in tropical seas and tropical lakes and rivers, exploring, collecting and studying, and he has always found that islands possess a strange fascination and attraction. As this feeling is shared by many, he hopes that there will be a welcome for a volume treating exclusively of islands and their puzzles or mysteries, xii

Contents

PAGE

PREFACE - - - - V

INTRODUCTION - - - - xi

Chapter I

What is an island ? Our geographies tell us that " an island is a body of land surrounded by water," but they should add " and by romance and mystery," for what would an island be if it did not possess these ? There is something about an island, be it large or small, which appeals to the imagination of everyone. Every schoolboy knows the fascination which the tiniest island in the miU-pond or the lake held for him, a fascination never shared by the mainland of the shores, even though this were far wilder and more densely wooded than the islet. What possibiUties for adventure and exploration does such an island not present; what chances for discoveries and surprises ! Once beyond its fringe of brushwood and, perhaps, blaeberry bushes, one seems in a

I A strange, new land cut off from all the world, even though a scant half-mile of water separates it from a farmhouse or a village. One feels that within its thickets may lurk strange and savage beasts, that its copses may hide unknown secrets, that somewhere upon it may be a robbers' or a smugglers' cave, or even that upon some rock or tree may be a strange symbol which, read aright, will lead to buried treasure.

And as boyhood gives way to manhood do we not still feel the same old thrill, the same appeal to our imagination when, on some tropic sea, we approach an unknown island with its snowy strands bare of human beings, its towering mountains covered with forests untouched by axe, its waving palms beckoning us to land ? And as we step ashore do we not feel our pulses quicken, our nerves tingle and our common sense desert us as in our schoolboy days of old ? It makes no difference if the island hes in the beaten track of great steamers or is in almost uncharted seas; it matters not if the seas about it are turquoise under tropic skies or green under northern skies of gray, for the lure is there, the mystery, the possibility for adventure and discovery — for is it not an island ? and in this fact alone lie aU the subtle charm and attraction.

From the very beginning of time islands have had a strange fascination for mankind, and ever since men first began to tell stories, islands have held a prominent part in all their tales. Sinbad the Sailor had some marvellous adventures on an island; Gulliver's Travels were mainly to strange, imknown islands ; the Greek heroes sought the Golden Fleece and performed many of their most memorable deeds on islands.

Enchanted castles and fairies have been located on islands by all nations; Shakespeare knew the romance and the fascination of islands, and laid the scenes of his " Tempest " on one of them. HaU the interest of Robinson Crusoe's story lies in the island on which he was shipwrecked; the Swiss Family Robinson were cast away upon a most remarkable island; Jules Verne was alive to the appeal which islands possess when he wrote "The Mysterious Island " ; and Stevenson gave the world a treasure in his "Treasure Island." Did anyone ever hear of a real castaway story or a treasure-trove which was not upon an island ? What would the swashbuckling, the blood-letting old pirates and buccaneers have done without islands on which to carouse and bury their loot ? A pirate without an island ! Why, he's totally lost, and might just as well retire and take to raising chickens.

Islands have held just as important places in fact as in fiction, for many of the most noteworthy events in the world's history have taken place on islands, and many of the greatest men and the greatest races the world has known have been island dwellers. The Greeks were islanders, the British are islanders, and, somehow, men who dwell upon islands seem always to be hardier, braver and more influential than those who dwell upon the mainland. Moreover, as a ride, they are more patriotic and home-loving than men who dwell on continents.

And there are excellent reasons for this, as well as for men choosing islands as their homes in the first place. An island, figuratively speaking, is a fort, for enemies can approach only by water, and if the coasts are defended the inhabitants are safe. It is little wonder, therefore, that races who could find islands and could guard the coasts remained far purer in blood and developed qualities more characteristic of their race than those who dwelt upon the mainland, where they constantly associated and mingled with other races. Moreover, it is a difficult matter to maintain definite boundaries on a continent; but an island always has its boundaries clearly defined. And as island dwellers could only travel or move about by way of the water, they necessarily became excellent sailors and seamen. All this tended to make islanders hardy, venturesome, self-reliant and independent. There is nothing like the sea to develop such qualities in men.

Then, when the insular people found they must go forth from their island homes to sell and barter and to trade and buy, they were fitted by nature for long voyages^ and sailed to the uttermost parts of the earth and developed into famous traders. The boundaries of their homes could not be extended as on a continent, and as the island people increased, and produced more than they could use, they were obliged to depend upon commerce and shipping for their livelihood. So, too, they soon learned that it was a difficult matter for an enemy to follow them across seas to their islands, and, knowing this, they made war upon other nations, and became corsairs and pirates, and performed reckless feats of daring which they never would have attempted had they dwelt on the same land as their victims, who might have retahated at any time.

And with the increase of their race and the necessity for more room, came the conquest of other islands and of portions of the mainland, until the little groups of islands, which had originally been their homes, controlled countless thousands of square miles of other territory and countless thousands of other people. The history of every island race is the same, be they naked savages or the most highly civihzed of men. The Greeks conquered and colonized many lands; the British acquired the greatest empire in all the world; the Caribs of the West Indies were feared throughout the coasts of South America, and the Malays raided and conquered far and wide. In every case, these islanders have been bigger, braver, stronger, more intelligent and more reckless than their fellows on the continents, and there is no doubt that commerce and the control of the seas have had a large role in controlling the destinies of the world.

As it is with the insular nations as a whole, so it is with the individual, and among the great men of the past and present we find that a very large number came from islands. Napoleon from the Island of Corsica; Dumas from the Island of Haiti; Alexander Hamilton from the Island of Nevis, are but a few of the famous men who were born upon tiny bits of land surrounded by the mighty sea. And, if we look carefully through our histories, we shall find that many an important event, many a great battle, many an occurrence which has changed the course of nations and has had a mighty influence upon civilization and mankind, has taken place upon some island.

History and fable alike are filled with famous islands. Probably the most famous island of fable was Atlantis, and yet there is a great question if Atlantis was fabulous, for many scientists believe that there was such a mid- Atlantic island, and if that is so it will account for many puzzling things regarding the races and the fauna of Europe and America which they have never been able to explain. But we do not press this point, especially in view of Wegener's recent suggestions in regard to the jig-saw puzzle of our present-day continents.

Perhaps you may think that Robinson Crusoe's island should be included among the fabulous islands; but Robinson Crusoe's island was very real, for the original of the story was the little island of Tobago, just to the north of the mouth of the Orinoco. If anyone doubts this let him read his thumb-worn tale of De Foe's again with care. Does not Crusoe state how they were bound for the Barbados ? Does he not describe the course they took after they were driven from their route by storm ? Does he not mention the current and the muddy waters of the river " Oronoque " ? Does he not speak of looking southward and seeing the mainland ? Does he not speak of the Caribs ' who came to his island and left Man Friday ? All this and much more proves beyond doubt that

Crusoe led his lonely life on Tobago, and if anyone questions it let him travel to lovely Tobago and he will find it just as described. He may see Crusoe's cave; he will see the descendants of Robinson's goats upon the hills; he will find the very beach upon which Man Friday left his footprint, and, if he takes the word of the native guide, he wiU see Crusoe's own footprints still preserved in the limestone rock of the island !

But while all this is so, yet it is Juan Fernandez which has become famous as Crusoe's isle, for islands, like people, often get credit which belongs to others. But when we come to islands which are famous in history, in story or commerce, or for one thing or another, we find hundreds. Cuba is famous throughout the world for its tobacco and cigars; San Salvador is famous as the first land of the New World discovered by Coltunbus; Haiti is famous as the spot whereon Columbus was shipwrecked; Santo Domingo, which is part of Haiti, is famous as being the first spot settled by Europeans in America, and for the fact that it was here that Columbus was in chains and here his body still lies, and the island of Jamaica was where he foretold the eclipse of the moon. Newfoundland is famed everywhere for its fisheries, and has become still more famous since the first non-stop aeroplane flight across the Atlantic started from its shores. The tiny Galapagos Islands off South America are famed for their giant centenarian tortoises; Ceylon is famed for its teas and Java for its coffee; Trinidad for its asphalt; Bermuda for its vegetables and the fact that it was the scene of Shakespeare's " Tempest." The Canary Islands are known to everyone as the original home of the most common of cage birds, and there are countless other islands whose fame has spread throughout the world; and they are not all large islands either, for size has little to do with fame, and some of the most famous of all islands are tiny islets which appear like mere dots upon the map.

lo

Chapter II

There are almost as many different kinds of islands as there are sizes, and scarcely two are alike, or even remotely resemble one another. There are islands which are high, with lofty mountains piercing the clouds; there are islands so low as scarcely to be visible a short distance away; there are islands bare, forbidding and desert-like, and there are others densely wooded, rich with vegetation and gorgeous with flowers. Some islands have rocky shores carved and worn into picturesque forms by the sea; others rise in sheer precipices from the waves; others have tiny coves and harbours; and others possess long, crescent-shaped beaches of sand. Many islands are well watered and have tumbling rivers and beautiful cataracts, while others are dry and without water. Mountainous islands may be flat-topped, or their hills may form a jagged chain

II or a confused mass of peaks, while others may taper upwards from the sea in a single skypiercing cone. Many islands are honeycombed with caves and caverns, but many others have no caves at all. Some islands teem with bird and animal life, and many others possess no native birds or mammals. Man has dwelt since prehistoric times on certain islands, and yet others, which appear just as well adapted to man's use, have never been inhabited. In fact, islands vary just as much in their character and appearance as do continents.

And now the question arises as to what is an island and what a continent. Some authorities have claimed that any body of land containing two distinct mountain ranges is a continent, but there are many islands with two or more distinct ranges of mountains, and if this definition were accepted, the world would lose many of its most famous and important islands. If the difference between a continent and an island is merely one of size, where do we draw the line ? Australia is the largest recognized island, but is Greenland an island or a continent ?

Moreover, many islands are merely the tips of continents which have been submerged; but if North America should sink until only the tops of its mountains and highlands rose above the water, would it be an island or an archipelago, or would it stiU remain a continent ? It is difficult to say just where an island and a continent differ, and the easiest way out is to call any body of land cut off from adjacent lands by water an island.

And just as islands vary in form and size and appearance, so do they vary in their character, their formation, and the reason for their existence. There are volcanic islands, coral islands, limestone islands, sand islands, rock islands, and even floating islands; besides islands which are combinations of two or more of these, each with its own peculiarities, its own character and its own interests.

It is hard to say just which kind of island is the most numerous, for in some places one kind is more common than another, while in other places every kind is represented. But there are also certain kinds of islands which are never found save in certain parts of the world. Coral islands, for example, can only occur where corals grow, and hence all coral islands are in tropical or semi-tropical seas; while islands formed by ice action are never seen save in arctic or semi-arctic seas. Even among the various kinds of islands we have mentioned there are many varieties of each, for almost any kind of an island may be formed in any one of several different ways. Thus, volcanic or coral or rocky islands may be formed either by subsidence, by uprising, or by volcanic action or even by erosion. Sandy islands may be formed in any of these ways or by winds or waves in addition, while floating islands or islands in lakes may be formed in any one of several ways.

When we see an island we seldom stop to think about how it was formed, and still less often do we think how it would appear if there was not water surrounding it. For as we see it, it gives the effect of resting on the water rather than in it. But if the water should be drained from the sea we would be wonderfully surprised to see how the islands would appear. When we 14 look at an island with great mountains towering upwards for five or ten thousand feet above the sea we are greatly impressed, and are even awed by the subUme sight of the peaks rising from the sea; but imagine what these would look like if the water was not there. Many of the loftiest islands are surrounded by water many times as deep as the islands are high. In other words.

Bahamas and Cuba.

Bermuda.

their height from the bottom of the sea to the surface of the waves is far greater than the height of their tallest mountains above sea level. Thus, if the water were drained from the sea about Cuba and the Bahamas, one would see, instead of a sloping coast rising gradually through hills to the Sierra Maestre of Cuba, a vast, stupendous, precipitous cliff 1,200 feet in height and over 700 miles in length, topped off by the Sierra Maestre with their tops over 28,000 feet above the plane which once had been the sea-bottom.

And it is not only the lofty and mountainous islands which would be thus transformed if we could see them without the surrounding waters. Many of the lowest and most insignificant islands are really the tips of enormous, isolated mountains rising from the bed of the ocean to almost inconceivable heights ere they reach the surface of the sea. The Bermudas, for example, are very small and very low — ^scarcely ten miles long by a mile in width and nowhere over 200 feet above the waves, and yet if the waters that surround these tiny, mid-ocean islets were withdrawn we should see, not the low, rounded hills of Bermuda, but a vast mountain bulk looming upwards for thousands of feet and with its summit tapered to 'the needle-like points which support the busy life, the cedars, the lilies and the onions of Bermuda !

But, on the other hand, many islands, either low and sandy, or rocky and majestically mountainous, are surrounded by such shallow water 16 that if the sea should drain away we would scarcely note any change in their appearance. Indeed, many islands are in such shoal water that they become portions of the mainland at low tide. This is the case with St. Malo,.off the coast of France. At high tide it is a rocky, picturesque island with its lofty summit covered with an ancient castle, but at low tide one may walk dryshod across the sands from the mainland, and thus the island is transformed into a cape every six hours.

Between these two extremes there is every gradation, for the bottom of the sea is as irregular as the surface of the land, and there are vast mountain ranges, slender peaks, enormous tablelands and tremendous canyons and ravines, all of which are hidden from our eyes, save where the highest points reach to the surface of the seas and thus form islands. In places, too, there are submerged mountain tops, and huge tablelands and plateaus which do not quite reach to the surface of the ocean, but which come so near it that a very slight subsidence of the sea or a very slight uprising on the earth below would transform these so-called " banks " and reefs into islands. And such changes may set in at any time; and they may be gradual and take thousands of years as the banks move upward inch by inch, or they may occur suddenly so that an island rises from out the sea in a few hours or even minutes. Such things have happened many times within the memory of man.

So, too, islands which rise above the sea may be lowered or even sink far out of sight beneath the waves either by slow degrees or suddenly, and this, too, has occurred within historic times. Indeed, there are few islands which are not constantly rising above or sinking below the sea, though so gradually that we cannot detect it, while others have been raised far above their present level and have been sunk down, or have been buried far beneath the waves and have been then raised again. For islands are far from being the stationary, solid things we usually consider them, and almost any island, no matter how large, may be here to-day and gone to-morrow for all anyone can say.

But there are certain kinds of islands which i8 do not subside or rise up. These are the floating islands which occur in certain parts of the world, and instead of being fastened to the bottom of the lakes or rivers where they occur, actually float upon the surface. You may think that these must be very small and unstable islands, but this is not the fact. There are floating islands scores or even hundreds of acres in extent, and bearing large forests and even houses and villages which you would never suspect were resting upon the surface of the water like enormous verdure-clad boats. There are also certain kinds of islands which may appear or disappear very suddenly without being pushed up or sunk down. There are sand islands which may be formed or destroyed in a single day or night of storm and which are always changing in size and form. Still another class of islands which appear slowly to rise from the sea and which are not pushed up from below are coral islands, for true coral islands grow until they reach the surface of the sea and then begin to increase and rise above the waves by sand and drift stuff accumulating on them. The fact is, an island may be made by a combina- 19 tion of two distinct kinds of islands, or by half a dozen kinds for that matter, and each and every kind or combination of kinds may be formed by any one of an almost endless number of ways, or by a stiU more perplexing combination of ways. As all this is very important and very interesting, we must consider each kind of island and discuss all the various ways in which it may have arisen.

Chapter III

Many of the most famous and most remarkable islands, and also many of the largest islands in the world, are volcanic islands. But this tferm " volcanic " covers a great many forms and kinds of islands, for any island which is formed by volcanic action is a volcanic island, and yet it may not have any volcanoes or even signs of volcanoes upon its surface. Roughly speaking, volcanic islands may be divided into three classes, as follows :

1. Islands which consist of one or more volcanoes.

2. Islands which are composed of lava or other

matter thrown out by volcanoes.

3. Islands which have been forced up from the

bottom of the sea by volcanic action, but which have no volcanoes upon them.

Oftentimes an island may be a combination of aU three of these classes, and still oftener all 21 three kinds may occur in the same chain or archipelago of islands, which may all be related to one another and formed by the same volcanic action. The commonest form of volcanic islands is that on which there are volcanoes, although to the casual observer there may be no signs of them, for the volcanoes may have been dead so long that they have been eroded and altered until they do not resemble craters or cones in the least. But it must always be borne in mind that a volcano is never really dead, but that it merely sleeps, and no man can say when an apparently dead volcano may burst into life, with terrible results. The term " dead," as applied to volcanoes, refers only to the fact that they are not active, and the word " inactive " is far better 'and more accurate. Many of the worst catastrophes the world has known have been due to the sudden awakening of a sleeping or so-called " dead " volcano. The awful eruption in Martinique in 1902, which destroyed the entire town of St. Pierre and killed nearly 30,000 pebple, was from a long " dead " volcano, Mont Pel^e. This mountain, which towered upwards for nearly 5,000 feet, a few miles 22 from St. Pierre, was not only inactive, but held a good-sized fresh-water lake in its ancient crater, and yet, without any apparent reason, it suddenly came to life with terrific results.

The same was the case in the neighbouring island of St. Vincent, the two eruptions being coincident; but there was no apparent increase in the activity of really active volcanoes in the nearer islands of Dominica — barely thirty mUes from Martinique — in. St. Lucia, scarcely farther away, or in Guadeloupe, or St. Kitts, all of which have active volcanoes which const^tly emit boiling water, steam and gases from their craters. So you see it is not always the active volcanoes which should be feared, but rather the dead ones.

Perhaps the most disastrous eruption of a volcanic island in historic times was the eruption of Krakatoa, a large island in the Indian Ocean, which, without any warning, was blown to atoms with all its inhabitants. So fine were the particles into which the island was pulverized, and so far were they blown by the explosion, that for many months the dust of Krakatoa caused the sunsets to be strangely coloured in reds and yellows throughout the world.

The causes of these unexpected eruptions are not known precisely, and mapy theories have been advanced to account for them. The most generally accepted is that a crack opens beneath the sea and permits the water to reach the hot interior of the volcano, and the steam thus generated, together with the other gases, blows off the top of the volcano

When such an eruption takes place it is always accompanied by terrific earthquakes, and usually by great changes in the land and also in the sea-bottom in its neighbourhood. The land may be raised many feet or sink as many feet in a few hours, and shallow places in the sea may become almost fathomless, while deep places may become shallow or even be forced up above the sea and made into islands. But as the sea is of much greater area than the land, and as we cannot see the changes which occur beneath it, we do not cdways realize the great alterations which a volcano may cause.

At the time of the Martinique eruption the 24 bottom of the sea was greatly changed in the vicinity of the island; but the island itself was very slightly altered, if at all. On the other hand, some volcanic disturbance, or even an earthquake, far beneath the surface of the sea, may produce marvellous changes on the nearby islands. A few years ago a good-sized island suddenly rose above the sea off the coast of Trinidad in the British West Indies. It was new-born land, wet, muddy, and bare, but it was land nevertheless and apparently stable. The authorities visited it, took possession of it as a dependency of Trinidad, and set up the British flag; but a few days later this new acquisition to the British Empire disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared and ships now sail over the spot.

The same thing has occurred in other parts of the world. One large rocky island came into existence off the Alaskan coast. It was discovered by a United States naval vessel while still so hot that the officers reported that seabirds, trying to alight on it, burned their feet. It was charted and reported, but a short time afterwards it had disappeared completely. Even when an eruption or an earthquake does not alter the island directly, it may produce results which in a few years completely change the appearance of an island. Stupendous quantities of mud, lava, or cinders may be thrown out and block rivers, thus changing their courses; bays and harbours may be filled up or may be made so shallow that they become swamps, or bars may be formed across their mouths so that they are transformed into lagoons or lakes, or great valleys may be sealed and in a few months become filled with rain water and thus become large and beautiful lakes.