Journal, 22nd holographic. May 8 - July 16, 1890 [Inventory no. 25]

Abstract

This book-length log of Dr. Rabe’s cruise and sojourn in the Carolines, principally at Yap, is one of three such volumes which are scarcely excelled in the annals of such works of laymen because of the richness of detail and the infinite variety of folk customs which he observed and carefully recorded. The Doctor had struck up a warm camaraderie with the famous trader Captain D. D. O’Keefe in Manila. O’Keefe invited him to accompany him as a non-passage-paying guest aboard the Schooner “Jenny” bound for Yap. It flew the flag of the U.S. and was of 48 tons registry (but 100 tons gross). Captain O’Keffe was a general trader in the Caroline Islands. He was the sole owner of the St. David's Group near the Dutch New Guinea Coast. Writing to his brother Dr. Benjamin Rabe (letter dated April 3, 1892, at O’Keffe’s canteen on Yap), Doctor John Rabe said that even then O’Keefe was a name to conjure with in the islands of the South Pacific. He had at that date spent twenty years in Micronesia. In 1892 O'Keefe owned an island in the Yap Group and a small archipelago in the Carolines and three fine trading schooners. On Yap he owned and operated the mint, a quarry, where he kept six Yap natives busy cutting out the massive stone rings used there for money. This log book has one of Captain O’Keefe’s own charts placed inside the front cover and one placed inside the back cover, and signed by O’Keffe. They are in a medium of ink and pencil and are of Yap, dated from May 8 to July 16, 1890. Notebook size 9X7 inches. Consists of 214 pages with approximately 60,000 words.