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Geographical Society of Ber1in. – Apri1 11th, 1891.

THE BONIN ISLANDS.

      Dr. 0. Warburg read a report upon a journey to the Bonin and Vulcano Islands, which he undertook in company with an expedition sent by the Japanese Government. The Bonin Islands derive their name from the Japanese Munin-fo, i.e. "uninhabited islands." The Japanese also call them Ogasawara shima, after Ogasawara, the supposed discoverer of the islands, a Japanese nobleman, who in 1593 was cast on these desert islands, and who prepared a map of them, and took possession of them on behalf of the Japanese Government. But it was the Spaniards who, in 1543, first discovered some of the islands of this group, and named them. In 1639, they were again "discovered" and named by the Dutch. Three Japanese from Nagasaki visited the group in the year 1675, and prepared a fairly recognisable description of them, which Klaproth has published. Later on the islands were used temporarily by the Government as convict colonies. In 1823 a whaler discovered the southern group of the Bonin Islands, which was named after him Coffin Island. In 1827 the islands were

visited by the English Blossom Expedition under Beechey, who took possession of them in the name of England; and in 1828 by the Russian expedition under Lütke, who found there two shipwrecked sailors belonging to a whaler, who had lived there for two years "a la Robinson Crusoe." In 1830 the group was, with the support of the English Consul at the Sandwich Islands, settled with colonists of all nationalities, who, without paying any regard to the English annexation, proceeded to make their own laws to the best of their ability as seamen and South Sea islanders. The visit of the English warship Raleigh, under Captain Quin, in 1837, effected no change in the situation. Perry, the leader of the American expedition to Japan, took possession of the southern group in the name of the United States, as it was likely to become an important coaling station between Shanghai and San Francisco. On the closing [sic] of Japan to foreigners, the Bonin Islands quickly lost the importance which they had for a short time gained, and they were consequently left to themselves. Then Japan, after an interval of a century, directed her attention to the group, and in 1861 despatched thither a hundred Japanese colonists. But in 1863 this attempt at colonisation, which was of too bureaucratic a character, was given up. In the middle of the seventies the islands were again visited by Russian, English, American, Japanese and German warships. In 1876 Japan took possession of the group definitely, and commenced a fresh and energetic scheme of colonisation. In 1881-3 the islands were surveyed, a map on the scale of 1:10,000 was prepared, and the last census showed a population of 355. The islands are subject to the governor of Tokio, and it was a tour of inspection undertaken by the latter which afforded Dr. Warburg the opportunity of visiting the Bonin Islands. First of all a visit was paid to Miyakeshima, the largest of the Chichido or "Seven Islands" group, an active volcano, as its name "burning mountain" signifies, the last eruption of which took place in 1884. This island, which in some parts attains an elevation of 2700 feet, is covered with bush and forest; it is four nautical miles in diameter, and there are about 4000 Japanese, grouped in five villages, living upon it. The prevailing rock formation is andesite, in which there appears a new description of rock, a compound of manganangite and andesite, called after the island "miyakite." The inhabitants live principally on sweet potatoes, millet, barley, and taro. Box-trees are much cultivated, and the wood is exported to Tokio for manufacture into ladies’ combs. The vegetation is entirely Japanese. Somewhat different in this respect is the Hachijo group, a volcanic island, formed by two volcanoes which have not shown any activity for the last 300 or 400 years, with a small plain lying between them. It was originally settled with convicts two hundred years ago, and many old customs have been preserved here. The women are reckoned, according to the Japanese standard, to be especially beautiful. Silk stuffs, died with peculiar vegetable colours, form a much-prized article of export. The animal and vegetable world is poorer than that of Miyakeshima. At certain places along the shore there are gigantic walls, composed of fragments of andesite, which are used as bulwarks to protect the houses against the violent storms. The precipitous character of the shores prevents fishing. St. Peter, or Ponafidin, called by the Japanese Torishima ("bird island"), lies 160 nautical miles to the south. It is also an old volcano (1200 feet), with traces of an ancient crater, which is now quite cool. The island is completely uninhabited, but is covered with albatrosses, for which it is a great breeding place. Between this island and the northern part of the Bonin group, viz. the Perry group, consisting of three larger and some smaller islands, there is a clear space of 180 nautical miles, broken only by one small, sharp rock, called Lot’s Wife, which, under-wasted by the violence of the waves, rears its solitary crest above the sea. Of the Perry group, only the middle island, Mukoshima, is inhabited by some Japanese. The second group, Kater Island or Kagatashima, is unin-

habited. The third group is the most important, and is for the most part inhabited. Stapleton Island, or Ototoshima, which lies in the north of the group, is inhabited, and so is Peel Island or Chichishima ("mother island"), lying in the extreme south. The latter has an area of about eight square miles, and possesses hills from 1000 to 1200 feet in height. The middle island, Buckland Island, or Ahishima, serves only as a pasture ground for numerous cattle and goats. Peel Island possesses in Port Lloyd an excellent anchorage from 18 to 20 feet in depth. The interior of the harbour is enclosed by coral reefs. The vegetation has even here quite a southern character; clumps of fan-palms rear their heads between the leaves of the bush which covers the steep slopes. The coast swarms at certain seasons with sharks and turtles, and their capture forms the most important branch of industry of the inhabitants. The turtles usually visit the island in January or March, and remain till August; at any rate, the females do so, the spawning period lasting from May till August. Sharks, which usually leave these regions in the winter, are, on account of their fins which are exported to Japan, eagerly sought for, and are caught with hooks. Oil is also extracted from them. A shark yields from five to thirty-seven gallons of oil. The inhabitants of the Bonin Islands are celebrated as otter-hunters. In former times American schooners used to call and carry them to the hunting grounds, but they now perform their journey to the northern parts of the Pacific from Yokohama or Hakodate; they are also excellent seal-hunters. The number of pure Europeans in the group is now reduced to two; these are two formerly German sailors. The number of half-breeds has greatly increased, owing to the large number of births and to the healthy climate, which, being free from fever, conduces to longevity. The women all come from the Sandwich Islands, the Ladrones, Kingsmill, Marshall Islands, and Japan; the men are Americans, Englishmen, Germans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese, Mulattoes from the Bermudas, Tagals from Manilla, and Polynesians. That out of this strange and confused mixture of races — a woman has often had five husbands, and not infrequently several at one time — the formation of a characteristic mixed race has been impossible, is natural; in spite of that, however, there exists a certain unity of customs and mode of life. The colloquial language is a kind of Americanised English. Scarcely any one can read and write properly, but the children of the few well-to-do persons are sent away to boarding-school at Yokohama. Neither a priest nor a church exists in the islands. If one reads the description which Bayard Taylor gave in 1853 of the ruggedness and inaccessibility of the islands, of the wild character of the vegetation, &c., and compares with it the little low Japanese villages, the great pine-apple and banana plantations, the fields of sugar-cane, maize, taro, and sweet potatoes, as well as the immense plantations of a species of indigo (Strobilanthes flaccidifolius) from South China, the cultivation of which is in the hands of a Japanese company and is becoming of great importance, one cannot fail to recognise the great revolution which Japanese colonisation has produced here. The time when a few people could revel here in abundance and idleness has gone; the indolent life of the Polynesio-European mixed race must gradually disappear as agriculture takes the place of hunting and desultory fishing as a means of livelihood. What is now taking place in this respect in the Bonin Islands will also come to pass in other beautiful pearls of the South Seas. Sulphur Island, the position of which was determined by Gore and King, the companions of Cook, in 1779, but which had been discovered earlier by the Spaniards, was found by the traveller to be very nearly bare, just as the old description states. A precipitous volcano (644 feet high), surrounded by rocky fragments, lies on the south side; the sulphur deposits would not pay for working. Water was not found on the island; it is inhabited by boobies (sula) and albatrosses. Just as at one time, when the number of endemic species of animals was overestimated,

the Bonin Islands were considered to be a kind of centre of creation, so the botanical studies of Dr. Warburg prove that there are purely oceanic islands of more recent origin which have not, and could not, preserve ancient types of any sort. Any organisms they possess which have not been introduced by man, consist of fragments of the neighbouring floras and faunas, either in original or in slightly altered forms. About one-half of the plant-forms belong to tropical circles of affinity; nearly all from Polynesia and the Malayan Archipelago; the other and smaller half belong to subtropical forms, of which hardly one can be exclusively referred to Japan. That there are so few purely Japanese plants found on the Bonin Islands is explained by the fact that the Kuroshiwo between these islands and Japan passes away to the north-east, and so divides both regions sharply from each other.

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