Little Islanders’ Corner

Dear Dorothea, —I was 14 years of age on November 24, and would very much like to be come a member of the Children’s Corner.

At present I am living on the fifth largest island in the Fiji Group. Its name is Gau, and it is shown on the map as Ngau. My parents live in the capital, Suva, which is situated on Viti Levu (Big Fiji). Suva is about 60 miles from Gau, and is connected jvith our island by the auxiliary cutters which carry bananas. Gau is about 40 miles round, and along the coast are dotted little native villages. The distance between each village is about two miles.

On this island there is a hot water spring, so the Fijians who live close by call their little village Waikama which means boiling water. The men till the soil, make gardens, spear fish, or else tidy up their villages, and the women comb the seashore for tiny fish, plait mats, and cook all day long.

Most of the natives here are Methodists, and each Sunday, clothed in their best, they march seriously to church with their Bibles under their arms. One Sunday a man did something that was wrong, and was turned out of the church.

He immediately became a Seventh Day Adventist, and then every Sunday at church time he ham mered loudly at his cutter so much that the Methodist parson begged him to come back.

I am enclosing a snapshot of myself and my two pets.

Sincerely yours.

Mary Boulton.

Tautu, Gau, Fiji.

Miss Nancy Armstrong, of Cambridge, New Zealand, has joined the staff of the Melanesian Mission’s school for native girls at Bunana in the Solomon Islands.

Epeli Dreganivitilevu, a Fijian agricul tural instructor, who was trained by the Methodist Mission at the Navuso Agri cultural School, Fiji, left Sydney for Papua with his wife, Miriama, on January 30.

Mr. F. W. R. Godden, late of Placer Development Ltd., who was recently ap pointed general manager of Loloma (Fiji) Gold Mines N.L., left Sydney for the Tavua field, Fiji, by the Niagara on January 30.

Mary Boulton, who lives on Gau Island, in the Fiji Group, snapped with her pets.

Margaret Leembruggen, of Ocean Island, Central Pacific, photographed with her brother in native costume. Margaret’s father is secretary to the government of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony.