Rarotonga
p. 40 · Read in the full issue
Polynesian Traveller Revisits Rarotonga
From Our Own Correspondent.
RAROTONGA, August 11. 11/I R. H. H. HEMUS, travelling inspector for Messrs. A. B. Donald and Co.’» wideflung Pacific interests, is paying Rarotonga one of his periodical visits.
Mr. Hemus’s island memories date back 47 years, commencing with his first voyage on the old Countess of Richmond in 1888, when that vessel made a regular six weeks’ trip from Auckland, calling at Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, and Rarotonga. On that occasion Robert Louis Stevenson came aboard at Samoa and was a guest of the ship’s officers at dinner. In those days A. B. Donald and Co. was knowrn as Donald and Edenburgh, but among the natives it was spoken of as the Taporo Co. on account of being the first to make large purchases of island lemons.
To present residents it seems a far cry to the time when all cargo had to be unloaded in whaleboats and there was only one white woman on Rarotonga.
Glancing at the Union Co.’s extensive waterfront buildings and the gaily dressed crowd which gravitates thither on mail days, it is difficult indeed to believe that such changes have taken place in the short span of 47 years.