Excited.

Norfolk Island

Preparations for “Strathaird's”

Trippers.

From Our Own Correspondent.

Norfolk Isld., Dec. 9.

MORE like London every day! That is, if London has two race meetings within a single year, the constant competition of two amateur dramatic companies in up-to-date plays, and an influx of distinguished visitors from oversea.

That is the situation on Norfolk at present. We have just held our second race meeting since Easter, with horses, owners, trainers, and jockeys familiar figures in our daily life. Two plays, with equally familiar players but totally different casts, have been most successfully produced to crowded houses within a week of each other; and we face the overwhelming excite ment of the arrival on Boxing Day, of the luxury liner, “Strathaird,” twenty six thousand tons, with over a thous and travellers aboard.

We are accustomed to the incon spicuous arrival of the little “Morinda,” landing cargo, mail, and a handful of visitors, who sink without a ripple into the easy flow of our daily existence.

But this Leviathan is to steam majes tically through the dawn, along our rocky coastline from Anson Bay to Kingston. The interest and excitement of the passengers will scarcely rival that of our unsophisticated community lining the cliffs from dawn and pre paring to dog the footsteps of the strangers from the moment they land till their lamented departure. We have a resident population of less than nine hundred. Over eleven hundred visitors, their ranks swelled by the holiday presence of a hundred or more of the ship’s complement, will descend upon us and blot out for a few merciful hours, our too familiar selves.

New faces, new clothes, new voices and strange topics of conversation.

How refreshing! And for them the novelty of setting foot upon our rough stone jetty—of circling our tropic island, ringed with surf and bright with parrots flashing through banana groves. A storied island, also.

Tumbled grey prison ruins still bear silent witness to the cruelty of man a century ago; splendidly built descen dants of the famous mutineers of the “Bounty,” who, a hundred and fifty years ago, cast adrift in the Pacific, their commander, Bligh, and, with their Tahitian wives, took refuge on the islet of Pitcairn. Their descendants were, in eighteen fifty six, transferred to Norfolk, abandoned in the same year as a penal settlement, and nowadays live in harmony and fellowship with settlers from every part of the British Empire.

With this great day in prospect and the hope of attracting new settlers and new business enterprise, local public bodies are busy upon schemes for their comfort and entertainment. A trans port committee is organising a fleet of everything upon wheels to convey all those who wish to survey the entire island in a sort of continuous circus

procession; covering a definite route, and including all that is worth seeing.

Guides will accompany the parties and tell the history of the island, and a bureau of assistance and information will be in capable hands. Picnic lun cheon, brought ashore from the ship and served by stewards assisted by local volunteer is to be laid on the site of the annual Bounty picnic, while rich and individual afternoon teas pre pared by island hands will be offered everywhere that the visitors find them selves at the appropriate hour of the afternoon.

When the liner takes her departure at nightfall, her pathway across the dark encircling seas will be lit by rockets and Catherine wheels set off by the waters of Emily Bay, and we shall hope, as she disappears to “the pleas ant sound of music and dancing on her decks,” that every traveller will carry away the happiest and most pic turesque memories of a day that we shall have done our best to render agreeable. And for ourselves, there is no doubt that for many years we shall date our Christmas seasons from that one “when the ‘Strathaird’ was here.”

There are rumours, too, of another shipping company starting a regular service between Melbourne, Norfolk, and Noumea (New Hebrides), with a four thousand ton vessel. Many are hoping that we may thus connect up with two new markets and two new sources of tourist traffic, but, should it eventuate and become popular and profitable, then, at last, historic little Norfolk Island will be definitely estab lished upon the map of the Pacific.

Prince Miliame Tugi, Prince Consort to Queen Salote, and Premier of the Kingdom of Tonga, will arrive in Syd ney on January 27 from New Zealand.

He is accompanied by his son, Crown Prince Taufaahan, who will be educated in Sydney.