Nor’-Wester Paralyses S.I.

Shipping

From a Special Correspondent.

TULAGI, February 4.

AN unusually strong nor’-west blow has visited the Solomons, paralysing local shipping. In Tulagi the Government baths were washed away and residents have been flooded out of their homes by the torrential rain.

All vessels are laid up, including Levers’

Kurimarau, which was to leave for Samarai, Papua, on January 29.

This blow is a double “blow,” as, owing to the rise in copra this week planters are anxious to get the benefit of the higher market prices. As no vessels can leave port, consternation is strongly manifest among copra producers.

Photograph, kindly supplied by an old resident of Bougainville, of the township of Kieta as it Was before the outbreak of war in 1914. The white house on the beach at the right was subsequently removed, and,it is believed, was rebuilt in Avara as the office of Messrs. Hernheim and Company.