To Fiji
p. 41 · Read in the full issue
How Von Luckner Came
Rev. C. W. Whonsbon - Aston, now a resident of Eastern Papua, and formerly vicar of Levuka, Fiji, writes interestingly of the Von Luckner letter, now preserved in the Ovalau Club, at Levuka, as a memento of the brave and gallant German. A photograph of the letter was pub lished in our October issue.
THE October P.I.M/s reference to the von Luckner relic in the Ovalau Club misses, through an error in typescript, the writer’s little display of humour. The signature is not “W”, but “M. Pember ton.”
T. O. U. Stockwell is a fine, big Yorß shireman, who went to the Lau Archi pelago after some time in the U.S.A. He owns the island of Katafaga, which is the easternmost islet of the Lau Archi pelago, previously owned, I believe, by a German.
He tells the story that he had just left, in the very early morning, in his boat, to run over to Lomaloma, on Vanua Moalavu —the main centre —when a launch arrived through the entrance to the lagoon. The launch party landed and made free use of his house, beds, sheets and produce.
The launch party—which, of course, comprised Count von Luckner and his men, who had come all the way across from the Paumotus, where the See Adler had been wrecked—left Katafaga next day. Von Luckner intended to go to Levuka and there capture a vessel, by which he might take assistance back to his crew and prisoners, left behind in the Paumotus.
It says something for his spirit that von Luckner could “crack a joke” in this letter which he left on Katafaga. He and his men-had come through much buffet ing in their epic voyage in a small boat, over a wide stretch of ocean.
But von Luckner never reached Levuka.
His next island call was to th.e island of his fate —Wakaya, which he reached just as a terrific S.E. trade gale broke, and several vessels were sheltering there.
Two of those vessels are of note in the
incident. One was .a new twin-engined schooner (I think, named Eleanor B ) owned by a well-known figure in Fiji, Henry Palmer; the other, a cutter cap tained by a half-caste named MacPherson, who is still about Levuka. The former boat took von Luckner’s eye as a likely vessel for his purpose.
But MacPherson was shrewd and sus picious. The von Luckner party said they were Norwegians, but MacPherson some how fancied they were not genuine. He had heard that a part of the enemy were being sought for. He and his boat’s crew, in the teeth of a raging gale, put out for Levuka, and got through and gave the alarm.
The police inspector at Levuka, with native police, tried to go out in a cutter, but were driven back by the gale. The inter-island steamer Amrah most luckily came in, and took the police across to Wakaya,, only eight miles away. That was the end of von Luckner’s adventure.
Count von Luckner stands high in the estimation of most Fijian residents; though some aver that it was a pity that Lowell Thomas wrote The Sea Devil, for they seem to have seen some incidents from another angle.
EDITORIAL NOTE: Press cables from Ger many, in November, announced that Count Felix von Luckner had just built a new vessel named the Seeteufel (Sea Devil) from the proceeds of his books and lectures. In his new yacht, he pro poses to make a lengthy cruise, and probably he will visit some of the scenes of his South Sea exploits.
Mr. Pat Costello, of Suva, Fiji, recently underwent an operation at the Mater Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand. “Sir Garrick Robertson made a good job of me,” says Mr. Costello, in a cheery letter to the editor—and then, as always, he turns his attention to the economic future of the Colony. “I am of opinion that 75 per cent, of Fiji’s exports eventually will com© from the dry zone between Penang and Sigatoka,” he writes. “You can count on thousands of tons of raw sugar, bars of gold, and thousands of cases of pineapples. We are in for a period of prosperity.”