[#] There is historic parallel to this incident in a similar settlement of Dutch and natives on the little Island of Kissa, where they were left unvisited and forgotten for over two hundred years.--C.T.B.
The book described in detail the building of the settlement. The stone was easily quarried. They were solid and substantial people, these Dutchmen. They had built their houses in that way. They had built a church, too; had endeavored to act as civilized, God-fearing Christians should. The counting of time had soon been lost. Entries in the log book, at first very full, grew more and more infrequent. There was, indeed, little to note. Nothing happened. Life was as monotonously pleasant then as now. They had saved seeds and plants, and some European animals such as dogs and pigs--the animals multiplied; the seeds, being planted, grew and offered a welcome supplement to the fruits of the tropic island.
By and by the entries were confined to records of marriages, births, deaths. The Polynesian men appeared to have died first. Captain Van Rooy, while he lived, had acted as the schoolmaster and the spiritual leader of the inhabitants. He had married them in due and proper form. Their marriages were recorded in the log book. The births of their children were entered. He had allotted to these records a section of the book which was even yet not full. It was possible to trace the lines of descent of different families for as many as six generations.
When he had died, others, obviously less skillful with the pen, less well informed, but with good intent, took up the task of keeping the records. Beekman afterwards made calculations based upon the probable duration of lives, and found that they had managed to keep the record, although more and more imperfectly, until the birth of old Kobo, the present patriarch of the island, who was Truda’s grandfather--descendant of the first Jacobus, certainly. Of course all of these things did not come to Beekman at once, but gradually. As the summary of his investigations is alone necessary for this history, they are set down.
He discovered that old Captain Van Rooy had alone among the Dutchmen apparently been proud of his line, and had kept his children and grandchildren from any intermarriage with those who had Polynesian blood in them. Evidently the custom, or his habit, had become a fetish for his descendants; for in so far as it was possible, and Beekman noted this with delight, in one family at least the pure Dutch blood had been maintained. It was not possible to avoid all admixture, but there was less of it in Jacobus and Truda than in any other dwellers upon the island, and next to her and old Jacobus in the purity of blood was Hano of the supercargo’s line, although his strain did not compare with that of the woman.