The April Blow.

Damage at Mallicolo.

THE hurricane that visited the West ern Pacific last month seems to have been particularly severe in the New Hebrides. Reports of the damage it did in New Caledonia were published in last

month’s Pacific Islands Monthly. By last

mail from the New Hebrides comes the following- account —taken from the jour nal of a planter at Mallicolo: April 5. —Barometer 757, wind S.E. fairly strong in the morning, and a few squalls in the afternoon, with rain.

April 6.—Barometer down to 754, wind turning E., with strong squalls from N.E., and rain.

We pulled up the launch, and tied down the store, copra house and all outbuildings. Barometer at 4 p.m. 753. All night continuous gales from E. and S.E., with torrential rain.

April 7.—Barometer down to 751½, wind turn ing to S. and at hurricane force the whole day and night, with torrential unceasing rain. Coco nut trees, limbs, leaves and nuts falling all the time. Impossible to venture out or do anything.

In the afternoon the wind turned to the S.S.W., still doing a lot of damage, blowing and raining all night, but the wind gradually getting round to the W.

April B.—Barometer still at 751½ wind from the W. not doing so much damage to the coco nuts, but giving the cocoa and castor oil plants pure hell. Rain without ceasing all the time; the river is overflowing its banks, and half the plantation is under water. The river has broken its banks in the cocoa and through the planta tions, and a lot of coconuts and cocoa have been washed away. In the cocoa there has been a big landslide, and hundreds of cocoa trees have been swept away, and tremendous damage done by the shade trees being blown down and smash ing the cocoa plants, also a lot of it under water.

Raining and blowing continuously all night.

April 9. —The wind has dropped, and the barometer has started to go up, so the worst is over. Barometer rising steadily all day. The blow is finished, but oh! what a mess! The place is now two-thirds under water, and littered with coconut palms, leaves, trees and all sorts of rubbish. Of our 50 hectares of castor oil plants, I don’t think there is one left, and after ex pecting 100 tons of seed at least, we won’t pick one lb. !

It’s hard, and the price of copra, too, is £4/5/-, paid by the shipping Company, and it is impossible to make copra on a plantation and bag it under £5.

Hundreds of coconut trees down, and the cocoa practically ruined. Thank goodness, we are all well and safe, but it has given us another big knock back again, so on goes the fight.

The Rev. W. H. MacFarlane will leave the Torres Strait Mission next July.