Midway Island cable station and bird paradise

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Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title: Midway Island cable station and bird paradise
Language: English
Source: The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume 7 (Issue No. 10) October 1927
Year: 1927
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Fulltext: 6 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL October, 1927 one who has sought subjects for the canvas in the Philippines approaches, even in a single canvas, what LeGrand Cameron has placed upon many—literally dozens—just as Velasquez, among a host of aspirants, stands alone in his interpretation of Spain. The Cameron picture of General Wood was done about three years ago. One of many, perhaps seven or eight, that followed, it received the cordial endorsement of the subject, as well it might. Wood the man sitting for his passport likeness is not there, not at all; but Wood the man, he who could quell the Chicago strike, he who could formulate Cuban government, he who could marshal the forces of the Christian and pagan world alike for the eradication of leprosy, he who could stick at Malacanang in Manila until he merely staggered home to die—that is the man LeGrand Cameron has painted. Turn next to the Recollect friar, sketched from a wood sculpture of one of the 16th century martyrs. Comment upon such a work would be altogether superfluous. The peasant soul has indeed been lifted to the heights, the man knows that when the savages have sent him west he shall see His Maker face to face. A great deal of LeGrand Cameron’s work is devoted to these Recollect friars. Generally recruited from the lower ranks in Spain, they were the fundamentalists of their period; the faith they brought to the Far East was simple Hidalgo and the rest. He recognizes in To lentino, the young Filipino sculptor who was the protege of Baruch in New York and Wash ington, a workman capable of modeling the spirit of the Philippines. But he believes no and'devout.^ It remains so among them today. See the facade and tower of their monastery church, worshipers passing into the vaulted transept through a portal that has swung thus open daily for 300 years. Unchanging creed, tranquility of faith, satisfaction in belief—the Midway Island: Cable Station and Bird Paradise By Walter Robb The gallant world fliers, Brock and Schlee, compelled by universal opinion and wifely appeals to abandon their aerial circumnaviga tion of the globe at Japan, could hardly have found the Midway islands, their projected refueling station in the mid-Pacific, even had they gone on to try it. For, according to the navy department, neither was a navigator; and many a good navigator safely ensconced on a steamship has miscalculated about Midway and sailed past it. Midway is but a dot on the mid-Pacific map. Yet I am inclined to believe that had thej,supplies of gasoline and oil re truth about the Recollects in Manila shows in the picture of the brooding church and plaza. The portrait of the Chinese mestiza might be captioned, “Is your laundry ready, Senor?” It is the very spirit of the work-a-day Philip pines, and surely will appear as such even to eyes that have never seen Manila, never wandered along its sequestered by-streets or jostled its friendly but uninquisitive crowds. If the laundress finds your wash isn’t ready for her to take away, she supposes there is a reason and, without further inquiry, comes for it again. The artist, in fact, encountered this woman on the muelle by the river, and was struck so forcibly by her face that she asked to be allowed to paint it. When the woman understood, she said, “Si, senora.” She submitted herself for half an hour to the will of the brush. All over, she was told so. Again, “Si, senora!” and without the least show of emotion the woman went on her way. This Malay psychology is something pre cious in the world, and LeGrand Cameron depicts it admirably. The picture of the two girls shows other mestiza types. The Malay eye, verily a wonder of nature, is seen in all the women. quisitioned by Brock and Schlee been sent to Midway, they would have essayed the flight from Japan. What if they had made it! What if they had safely landed! The blood does not yet run so sluggish through one’s sclerotic veins but that it warms to the very thought of this foolhardy heroism. Oh, they could not have found Midway, of course * * ♦ and yet * * * “How can man die better than facing fearful odds For the memory of his fathers and the temples of his gods?” The memory of our fathers is the memory of pioneers who did many impossible things, Retail Importers American c v BOTICA BOIE 'O. Wholesale Agents MANILA We have been selling drugs for 97 years IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL October, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 7 and the temples of our gods are the towns and cities and practical applications of scientific inventions and discoveries built and erected upon first achievements that simply could not come to pass—but did come to pass in spite of all doleful and foreboding readings of the auspices and prophecies of the oracles. How ever, this is a story about Midway, not about gallant pioneers in Pacific aviation. Midway itself is a fine piece of pioneering. Midway is a pair of coral islands lying at 28:14 north latitude and 14 minutes off the 180th meridian. It is a property of the United States staked out in 1898 and placed under the administration of the navy department. It is a relay station of the Commercial Pacific Cable Company, the American line across the Pacific. In 1898, when America came into the extreme east with the objective of acquiring the Phil ippines as a base from which to make her open door policy in China effective, preying upon China—and, to a much less degree, upon Japan as well—had been merrily going on among the powers for upward of a generation. America had to have communications, but no cables could be laid westward out of Japan, i. e., to China, save by the Belgian syndicate that held this particular concession. America had Hawaii, Guam, Midway, the Philippines and as much liber ty in China, once she got there, as the next fellow. Early in the summer of 1903 the direct cable was laid from San Francisco to Shanghai and the first official messages were interchanged between the extreme stations July 4 of that same year. Subsequently America has been communicat ing across the Pacific without saying to anyone, “By your leave.” That is the economic side of Midway in a nutshell. At an outlay of $2,500,000, the cable is to be supplemented with radio, making the third American radio service across the Pacific. While the original build ing of the cable station on Midway was in progress, a good many orientals were employed as workmen and craftsmen and a marine guard was kept there. Also, when the landing was made by the Americans in 1903, some thirty Japanese fishermen were found to have taken up headquarters there, and diplomatic intercession brought about their withdrawal somewhat against their will but with the utmost goodwill upon the part of Japan. After a few years the marine guard was removed, and for many years now the colony on Midway has consisted of some nine or ten Americans, the station force of the cable com pany, seven or eight Japanese employed on outside work and five or six Chinese household servants— twenty-three to twenty five souls all told. Four times a year the company’s steamship Dickenson voyages from Honolulu to Midway, a distance of about 1200 miles, with supplies. Otherwise the calls of ships are very rare. The Dickenson, of light draft, can go inside the reef except when a westerly wind is blowing. Like all atolls, the one at Midway is open at the northwest and the southeast, and the tides pour through from the north. The cable station is at the northern end of Sand island, which is 1-1/4 miles long and 3/4 miles wide. The other island of the Midway atoll is Eastern island, sometimes called Green island on account of the foliage, of which Stevenson gives a masterly description in The Wreckers. At the time of the American occupation the dwarf magnolia and various hardy beach grasses had found lodgment on Eastern island and were flourishing, birds having probably taken the first seeds of vegetation there in their annual migrations. Sand island was bare. Westward of Midway about 60 miles lies Ocean island, and eastward toward Honolulu lie reefs and coral barriers, some of them dignified with names. Had Brock and Schlee reached Mid way and taken off safely, over a route of 1100 miles to Honolulu, as the gull flies, their way would have been marked out ahead by the green waters and the breakers along this coral chain. But the islands are uninhabited by men; forced landings would be unlucky. Sand island is no longer bare. On the contrary, it is quite well carpeted over and very gener ously wooded. This and the birds are the most interesting things about Midway. In order to bed down the sand and prevent its blowing up into dunes, marram grass was introduced in 1906, from San Francisco, where it had been utilized in the reclamation work at Golden Gate park. This Australian desert grass thrives in sand; you plant it deep and cut it off at the surface, and soon it stools so that you can take new cuttings and plant more. Aside from its deeper roots, it throws out a net work of roots that intertwine just beneath the surface of the sand and tend to protect it from the wind and convert it into soil. Ten rows of this grass were planted athwart the island like a belt, where the dunes had blown up, and then it was possible to plant as much more as was wanted. It was now also possible to plant trees, shrubs and flowers. David Haughs, territorial forester of Hawaii, regularly sent seeds and cuttings; Australia again contributed, this time the iron wood tree; and there are now ironwood trees on Sand island 40 and 50 feet high. Indeed it is said that the foliage on the island has grown so dense in places that lanes have to be cut through it, and between the plants and the birds the place is truly a paradise. The station is of course provided with every material comfort, substantial cottages, electric light and power, an ice plant, an excellent library, a reservoir for a 50,000 gallon reserve of rain water, and a garden of an acre of ground for which thousands of tons of soil were gradually brought in from Hawaii. With this soil came a host of pests, garden worms and caterpillars galore. Here was a new problem for the amateur agriculturists, and they solved it effectually by their usual resort to science and the aid of scientific friends. This whole story of the transformation of Mid way shows, indeed, that where the drudging but ignorant peasant would be wholly at a loss to convert bare and shifting sands into pro ductive and carpeted land, even the amateur, of education and intelligence, need not despair. A ship anchored off Midway in 1909 and a pair of yellow canaries were bought from her Chinese steward at one dollar for each bird. They were taken to the station and carefully fed and cared for, at last being turned out to return to their original wild state. Water and feed troughs were placed on the verandah of the superintendent’s house, and his wife—for women are not prohibited to live with their husbands on Midway—was the keeper of the birds as well as the flowers. The canaries multiplied themselves, and now there are thousands of wild canaries on Sand island, but no longer a pest of worms. Walk out, and these songsters circle all about one, unafraid because they know nothing but kindness from the hand of man. None are ever captured, none ever killed or molested in any way. The canaries saved the garden, though the Chinese gardener complains that they take toll of his berries and fruits for their labor. In the same year the Laysan finch was intro duced on Sand island, and for the same purpose— getting rid of the worms and caterpillars. This finch had been found on Laysan island, east ward of Midway, and taken to Eastern island in 1905. It had made its way on Eastern island, and now it made its way on Sand island. The imported soil also brought the blight to the ironwood trees, they soon appeared in malignant silver coatings boding ill for the em bryo forest. Edward Ehrhorn, entomologist of Honolulu, was consulted. He sent a bug called the lady bird, perhaps she who flies away home in the nursery rhyme. It multiplied exceedingly and ate up the blight. Nowadays whenever the blight reappears the lady bird returns to its job; at other times the useful bug keeps in hiding somewhere and abides its time, no blight, no lady-bird bugs. A wingless bird on Eastern island, probably a survivor from the Wandering Minstrel, wrecked at Midway in 1887, shares honors with the Laysan finch as a pest killer. Two herds of wild donkeys are a part of the faunal life of Midway. A pair were taken to Eastern island and turned loose 22 years ago to subsist on the beach grasses. They did, and now there are two small herds on the island. Some have been haltered, when work was to be done on Sand island such as the leveling of the dunes, and when the work was done they were taken back to Eastern island and turned loose again. They stamp holes in the sand to get down to water. The grasses introduced afford ing sufficient pasturage, a small herd of Jerseys is kept at the cable station to provide fresh milk, cream and butter. Life passes pleasantly at Midway, not only because of the work to be done with the steady volume of cables pouring through the station day and night, but because of the garden, the birds and the plants. Midway is one of the most remarkable rookeries of wild birds in the world. Regularly every year, the birds repair to Midway and make their nests: the wandering albatross, the boatswain, the frigate bird or man-o’-war hawk, the sheerwater or petrel, the booby, curlews, plovers and terns. Tiniest of all is the white love bird, and very curious about depositing its egg, which by some queer magic it manages to place upon a leaf of some small tree or shrub so it will remain there until it hatches; and then the parents merely stand by until the fledgling appears and is able to fly. Other birds resort to the sandy beaches high above the tide to deposit their eggs. Such is the habit of the albatrosses. When you visit them, they receive you with great ceremony, bowing and making it a state affair. They conduct you to the nest, proudly show its con tents, then settle down to business—when you are expected to leave. Calls are expected to be formal ones. Daddy albatross, takes his turn on the nest. Midway offers a first rate op portunity for the scientific study of bird life. All the varieties are so tame—rather, free from any fear of man—that it is easy to observe them under wholly natural conditions. Observe the man-o’-war hawk getting his breakfast. This old sea pirate has an enormous spread of wing and can fly countless miles and poise motionless, or seemingly so, over one spot min utes at a time. When man knows as much about flying as the man-o’-war, the Pacific will be no problem to him. The man-o’-war makes the booby bring him his breakfast. The booby, an excellent fisher, dives into the teem ing waters of the atoll and comes up with a handsome fish with which he rises high into the air in the hope of getting to a secure spot to devour it. In the offing the men-o’-war are circling, one quite near the water; and when the booby has risen high enough with the fish the others give chase, make him drop the fish, and depend on their confederate to catch it before it reaches the water. He does, and they all feast; the poor booby has no alternative but to return to the atoll waters and try his luck again. Fortunately the fish are as plentiful as the birds; a yam-spinner declares that the art of fishing at Midway has been reduced to an effort to make a cast without hooking a fish, considered a real feat; while to supply the kitchen the Chinese cook simply makes a single dip of his net and selects only the primest of an abun dant haul. Naturally there are sharks in the atoll waters, but they feed well enough on the fishes and never molest the swimming beach, which shelves gradually away from the land in gleaming white sand. Spearing porpoises from canoes is good sport. They float about as if asleep, but jerk the canoe furiously along after the harpoon hits them. It may be an hour or more before they give up the struggle. Ashore there is tennis, also golf. In the latter game, owing to the sandy nature of the course and the un satisfactory bunkers and greens, one gets within an approximate distance and then concedes himself that particular hole. But it is all re duced to rules and genuine contests are possible. As there are no contagious or infectious dis eases on Midway, life there is healthful; the residents never even suffer from colds. Yet, in the course of 25 years, a few graves have been dug: there was the doctor who succumbed to an attack of angina pectoris, and the young operator who dived off the wharf and broke his neck. These and one or two more are the mortality statistics. Midway, of course, with the cable constantly babbling, keeps in hourly touch with the world of today, while the past is all there, too^ bound in the many and well chosen volumes of the station library.