Robert Dean Frisbie [Frisbie - The Island of Desire

In a past inconceivably remote it must have been the peak of a volcano, juttingfrom the midst of a sea whose solitude was broken only by flocks of migratingbirds, a pod of sperm whales lumbering down from the Austral ice fields, or theintangible things of the mythic world; the spirits of Storm, Fair Weather,Night, Day, and Dawn.

Coral polyps attached themselves to the steep walls of the volcano tobuild their submarine gardens a mile or more to sea, surrounding the islandwith a reef and shallow lagoon; then erosion, the battering of the Pacificcombers, and subsidence, until finally the volcano had disappeared, leaving ablue lagoon shimmering in the sunlight, a barrier reef threaded with islets andsand cays; Danger Island, or PukaPukaLand of Little Hills.

So it was called by the first Polynesians who came here, centuries ago. Itappears now much as it did then: a tiny place compared with the vastness of thesea surrounding it. The low hills, scarcely twenty feet high, are shaded bycordia and hernandia trees, groves of coconut palms, thickets of magnolia bushes;and between the hills lie patches of level land where taro is grown in dikedswamps and where the thatched houses are half obscured by clumps of bananas,gardenia bushes, and the gawky-limbed pandanus.

There are three islets on the roughly triangular reef: Ko to the southeast;Frigate Bird to the southwest; and the main islet of Wale to the north. Ko andFrigate Bird are uninhabited eight months of the year, while on the crescent-shaped bay of Wale, facing southward toward the lagoon, are the three villages:Ngake, Roto, and Yatoor Windward, Central, and Leeward.

The trading station is in Central Village. I, Ropati, live in itsupstairs rooms, while the two downstairs rooms have been vacant since thestation was closed. The building is glaringly white, shaped like a packingcase, has an asbestos-cement roof, balconies in front and back, and, leadingfrom the balconies to the living quarters, doorways just high enough so I cancrack my head against the lintels.

Across the village road from the station stands the schoolhouse, another boxlikecoral building, but with a thatch roof, pleasing to the eye. The greatglaringly ugly church, with its red iron roof, stands to one side of theschoolhouse, while elsewhere, to east and west, lagoonward and inland, are the Central Village houses, all save Araipus native store, attractively built of wattle andthatch.

The rumbling sound that rises and falls fitfully is not caused so much bythe surf on the outer reef as it is by the snores of my six hundred and fiftyneighbors. All are asleep, for it is midday and they must be refreshed for thenights toil ahead. There is old Mr. Scratch, Deacon Bribery, and Bones pipingoff the watches under a coconut tree. There is William the Heathen folded on mywoodbox, his head between his bony knees. There is pretty Miss Strange-Eyes,daughter of Bones, without any clothes at all, fast asleep in a canoe, while arooster on one of the crossbeams stares at her perplexed. And there isConstable Benny, growling like Cerberus as he guards the village in his dreams.

I walk on tiptoe to the lagoon beach lest I waken the toil-exhausted neighbors;but even here there are scores of toddlers, aged one to ten, fast asleep in theshady places.

The beach of the big crescent-shaped bay is not very attractive. The sandis scarcely white, and there is plenty of rubbish strewn about; but the bay itselfand the lagoon beyond are clean, blue, sparkling, enticing. Almost daily Iexplore its submarine mountain ranges and chase the grotesquely beautiful fishamong its crevices and caverns.

Today I follow the beach, first eastward, then gradually to the south.The great piles of plaited fronds are coverings for canoes; the dash of red is theiron roof of Araipus store; Miss Legs sleeps over yonder, in the little housewith unnailed floor boards that can be pushed up from below if one is lonelyand wants to talk to Miss Legs.