Tropicalities

THERE can be no more fascinating hobby than that followed by Mr. A. .J. Vogan, who has wandered far and wide over the Pacific, seeking traces of ancient .migrations and extinct cities. Within recent years he has been in New Cale donia, in Eastern Papua and in various ■corners of Fiji, and in all those places he has secured details and photographs of mysterious things which may some day help in piecing together the story of what happened in these Pacific lands long be fore the advent of the white man. Mr.

Vogan has an extraordinary collection of books and documents dealing with the •early history of mankind. From certain of his manuscripts he has prepared plans .and details of an ancient city which he •claims once existed near the Upper Mis sissippi, in North America; and he has .given these to his friend, Mr. E. J. Bryce, -of Sydney. Mr. Bryce has been travelling Jn Central Asia and Russia, and is now on Jus way to the West Indies and Mexico.

He has promised to go and examine the .site of Mr. Vogan’s ancient city. Mr.

Vogan says that the city was destroyed some 2,000 years ago and that it was once the home of millions of people. * * * IT is reported in the Sydney newspapers that, in 1936, Cinesound Ltd. (a Syd ney firm which makes cinema films), in conjunction with United Artists, will make a film based on lon Idriess’s book, “Gold Dust and Ashes,” which tells the story of the discovery of the New Guinea gold field. * * * THE Administrator of the tiny phos phate island of Nauru was originally the most absolute ruler in the world (said Sir Robert Garran, in an address recently in Melbourne). His ordinances were not subject to disallowance by anyone, and he was bound by no instructions. But a supplementary agreement of 1933 between the high contracting parties—Britain, Australia, and New Zealand—clipped his wings a little. Little legislation in such a simple and orderly community had been necessary, however. No budget difficulties worried the Administration. The ex penses of administation, as far as they were not met out of other revenue, were defrayed out of the proceeds of phos phates. ♦ • ♦ X>ILL BORTHWICK, who discovered the new Fiji goldfield, put £2 on Peter Pan at the Melbourne Cup; and declared he would back the animal every time it started in a race. Everyone thought the prospector was merely demonstrating faith in a marvellous bit of horseflesh; but the reason, while sentimental, was quite different. It appears that, 60 years ago, at Dumfries Academy, in Scotland, Borthwick had a schoolmate, one James Barrie. This was the same person who afterwards wrote “Peter Pan,” and be came world-famous as Sir James Barrie.

Borthwick, at the Cup, met a man whom he had not seen for 39 years, when they were fellow-miners together in New Zealand. Borthwick now has gone off to Queensland where, despite his age and his bank balance (both represented in high units), he is going to do some more prospecting. * ♦ ♦ T ORD BEAUCHAMP, who is spending > some months in Sydney, following a visit to Tahiti, received a ceremonial visit from a young Polynesian chief the other day. Teuira Tuteao, a cousin of Koroki.

the Maori king, presented the felicitations of the Kingite tribes as once, many years ago, Lord Beauchamp was the manuhiri, or guest of the late King Mahuta, at Waahi, near Huntley, New Zealand.

Teuira Tuteao (The Lightning that Struck the World) is a direct descendant of that notable navigator, Hoturoa, cap tain of the Tainui canoe, which left Papara, Tahiti, for New Zealand, more than six centuries ago. He was accom panied to Sydney by his young cousin, Te Akonga Pihama, another close relative of the Maori king. Both chiefs are students for the Methodist Maori ministry. • * * ALTHOUGH Jack Hides, of Papua, is living the quietest of lives just now— recovering his health, nursing his new baby and writing his new book —he can not keep out of the news. On November 14 he was driving a car over the Har bour Bridge. A lorry, loaded with long steel rails, came careering up behind him, failed to stop quickly, and the steel rails were driven through the back of Hides’s car. The rails stopped within a couple of inches of the young explorer’s head.

He may have had several narrow escapes from death, but none was much closer than this, ♦ ♦ * It/I'EASURES to give the respective countries authority to co-operate with the League of Nations, in regulating the whaling industry in the Antarctic, have been adopted by the Parliaments of Aus tralia and New Zealand. It is all part of a slow-moving procedure to implement “an International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling,” which was drawn up by the League of Nations, and signed in 1931. Whale oil, as every planter knows, has become an important sub stitute for coconut oil; and the Antarctic whale oil marketed in the last ten years has increased in quantity so much that it has been definitely a factor in the disorganisation of the copra market. The whale herds of Antarctica already have

been decimated, however; and, without the Convention, it was only a question of tipie before the creatures would dis appear from the Southern oceans (just as they have disappeared from other oceans during the past 100 years) and the copra industry correspondingly re lieved. Police action under the Conven tion may delay extermination; but the end of the Antarctic whale is definitely in sight. • * * EVER heard of the Cartier Islands? No —neither have I. It appears, how ever, that they are one of the various Pacific Territories owned or controlled by Australia. My authority is Sir Robert Garran, formerly Commonwealth Solici tor-General, who gave an address in Mel bourne recently. The Cartier Islands are “half-way between Australia and Timor.”

All the map-makers I know have ignored them. • • • THE skipper of a tramp steamer, in writing up the log recording an eventful day, rounded off his task with the entry: “Mate intoxicated.” To the mate, who indignantly protested on read ing it, the skipper retorted: “Well, it’s true, ain’t it?”

On the following day it was the mate’s duty to write up the log, and he com pleted his account with “Skipper sober.”

The captain stared at it for a moment, then exploded.

“Well, it’s true, ain’t it?” was the mate’s rejoinder.

Mr. R, Mel rose, District Officer at Sala maua, arrived in Sydney from New Guinea by the Montoro on November 7.

During the past 18 months, he said, the territory has progressed amazingly; aero planes have doubled, and, in the year ended June 30, the gold production in creased by £400,000 over that of 1933-34.

Mr. Howard L. Clark, of the Bay Loo Company, Rabaul, who was married in N.S.W. last month to Miss Ellen Liggins, departed from Sydney for New Guinea with his wife by the Montoro on November 13. He is secretary of the Rabaul Ama teur Turf Club.