Hail, Pioneer!

A Porker Makes Aviation History in Polynesia

From Our Own Correspondent

Papeete, June 11.

OUR local aviators, after long practice in flying about Tahiti and Moorea, recently undertook an experimental flight to Rangiroa, the largest atoll of the Tuamotus, situated about 300 miles north-east of Papeete.

As is customary in the Islands, the people of Rangiroa made haste to offer hospitality to the new arrivals. The most ceremonious of the rites of Polynesian hospitality is the presentation of gifts to the departing guests. The gift of gifts, the symbol of highest honour offered to a distinguished stranger, is a buxom pig.

Now, it is all very well to receive pigs when a schooner is at hand to carry away your mark of esteem. You have space enough to avoid its intimate society. But the narrow cockpit of an aeroplane is another matter. To be cribbed, cabined, and confined in quarters so constricted with a noisy, restless, and not altogether fragrant pig does not portend a happy and peaceful flight.

The aviators were aghast. But there was nothing to do save accept the offer ing—they could not insult their generous hosts.

So the pig was trussed with many knots and turns of rope, and thrust into the aeroplane thereby becoming forever illustrious: the first pig in Polynesia and, perhaps, in all the world to ascend the heavens!

We have heard of chimpanzees, alliga tors and boa constrictors, being trans ported by plane, but never a pig. The Pig of Rangiroa—although now disinte grated to ham, bacon, and sausage—has written its name on the roll of immortal pioneers of aviation: the first of its race to mount the skies in Polynesia.