Varo A Gastronomic

Delight

From Our Own Correspondent

Papeete, Nov. 25.

TTHE coral reefs about the Society Is * lands hold the distinction of being the breeding grounds of a shellfish, called the Varo, which, when expertly prepared for the table, will waft epicures into the rose-tinted upper heavens of gustatory bliss. This crustacean, however, hides its transcendent virtues under a very for bidding exterior.

It was many years ago, at Raiatea, that we first saw Varo. A European schoolmaster, on horse-back, was passing by, holding in his hand a cord strung with what appeared to be a dozen or so gigantic centipedes. Of our companion we inquired: “What on earth is he going to do with those horrible objects?”

“Eat them,” was the reply. We shud dered.

Months afterward, someone at a dinner bandaged tightly our eyes and placed in our mouth a morsel which melted on the tongue with all the flavours of ambrosia from the table of Neptune.

When our ecstasy had abated suffi ciently to permit speech we sighed “What was that?” The blindfold was taken from our eyes and on the plate before us we saw a Varo —no longer a loathsome object but transfigured by the halo of its incomparable virtues.

We understood, then, why epicures will go barefoot across burning sands and by thorny pathways strewn with sharp angled flinty pebbles, if a feast of Varo awaits them at their journey’s end.

Miss Ellen Fagan, of Raga, who has been in the New Hebrides working for the Melanesian Mission since 1930, arrived in Sydney bv the Morinda on November 30 to spend furlough in Victoria.

Miss Edna Williams, of Nanakai, New Britain, where she has served as a nurse for eight years for the Methodist Mis sion, has resigned owing to ill-health, She is at present in Australia.