Tahiti News.

New Steamer Service.

From Our Own Corretpondmt.

Papeete, Jan. 26.

IT is announced, on good authority, that the “Marc Saint Hilaire,” a coal-burning steamer of 2,000 tons, be longing to the Messageries Maritimes Co., will shortly arrive in Tahiti to in augurate a regular inter-island freight and passenger service in French Oceania.

For many years past communications within the group have been maintained by means of trading schooners without fixed schedules, and, with few excep tions, offering little in the way of com fort and convenience for passengers.

The proposed new service should add materially to the attractions of Tahiti from the point of view of tourists, and prove of great convenience to local business men who are obliged to take periodical trips through the Islands.

Horticulturist Dead.

Mons. Constant Defleselle, an old resident of Tahiti, passed away in France after a protracted illness. The deceased gentleman, who got his first glimpse of The Islands some thirty years ago, whilst serving as an officer on a French war vessel, was so at tracted by the place that he very soon afterwards returned to make Tahiti his permanent home.

Being wealthy, with a natural flair for horticulture, and possessed of an admirable public spirit, he soon ac quired land and commenced intro ducing useful fruits and flowers from other countries, which beneficial work he carried on unceasingly, and at his own expense, until failing health com pelled him to leave the Colony.

We have to thank M. Defleselle for many of the beautiful flowering trees which now adorn certain quarters in Papeete and outlying districts, and which remain as permanent reminders of his generosity.

Yacht In Dirty Weather.

The yacht “Vanora”, an English schooner-rigged steel vessel about 65 feet long, arrived in Tahiti yesterday by way of the Galapagos Islands.

Lt.-Commander Hollings, R.N., appears to be the owner as well as the master of the vessel, and has three com panions on a world voyage. He brought with him two native Indians from Panama, who are somewhat of a curiosity in Tahiti.

The “Vanora” ran into bad weather before reaching Tahiti and suffered damage to her rigging and sails. When this has been repaired she will sail for Hongkong, via Fiji and Samoa.

Voyage Postponed

The schooner yacht “Pilgrim,” which left New York some months ago, en route to the South Seas, is laid up in Panama awaiting the result of an im pending lawsuit in America.

Dr. Hawthorn, who was with the party as first mate, arrived in Tahiti by the last Messageries Maritimes steamer from Panama, and states that the “Pilgrim” was built to order in

the United States, under the super vision of one of the foremost naval architects in that country. Soon after leaving the States the vessel developed a series of leaks which caused much anxiety and had become really serious by the time the Canal was reached.

Here the “Pilgrim” was put into dry dock and an examination made of her hull, when it was discovered that the holes which had been bored for the purpose of fastening the planking had been filled with copper spikes too small for them, and that in consequence water oozed into the vessel from every nail hole.

Efforts to force litharge and other filling materials under pressure into these thousands of apertures were ap parently ineffectual, and it seems that nothing but an entire renewal of her planking will serve to put the “Pil grim” into sea-going shape again.

In the meantime, the proposed cruise, which was subscribed to by a party of friends, has been abandoned. This is assuredly a case which has all the appearance of deliberate sabotage.