Station?

Why Not A Hill

Tahiti Has Everything But the Energy

From Our Own Correspondent

Papeete, Mar. 18.

EVERY now and again, we hear of a proposal to establish a residence settlement in the mountains of Tahiti.

There is much talk of the folly of sweltering the year around on the hot coastal plain, when a cool and salubrious climate exists at our very doors. But nothing has ever come of it and, doubt

less, nothing ever will; for the going and coming would involve a certain amount of walking and climbing.

No one on Tahiti does any walking or

climbing nowadays.

Papeete is a community that could be circumambulated in less than an hour To cover the average distance between the main residence district and shops on the water-front would take not over ten minutes. So great a distance would exhaust the aver are householder to a quaking shell empty of all vitality, if accomplished on foot; so the expedition is always under taken by motor car.

To be sure, as in every community, there are a few contumacious conserva tives who cling to the old order, and re fuse to conform to the march of pro gress.

These continue to walk and climb and go hunting after wild pig in the fast nesses of the mountains, to bring back tales of high valleys and glens as lovely as the Vale of Tempe, and cool and brac ing as the temperate zone.

Such an expedition was taken some months ago by Messrs. J. and Y. Malarde, and a small party of guides, and Messrs!

Malarde are delighting the readers of the “Bulletin de la Societe des Etudes Oceaniennes” with a serial describing their “Fifteen Days in the Mountains”.

The first and only attempt to establish a settlement in the mountains was in the latter years of the nineteenth century; when a villa was erected for the Gover nor of the Colony on the Rupe Plateau, which is overlooked by Mount Aorai (the second highest mountain of Tahiti) and La Diademe. One other house was built nearby.

The place was never much frequented, although a good road leads inland to the end of the Fautaua Valley, where the path of ascent begins.

The only one who inhabited the place was an old gendarme who acted as care taker and amused himself by raising strawberries and tending a vegetable garden. After the gendarme passed, the place was left to itself, the houses crumbled to ruins, and the plateau re turned to the custody of Nature.

Years ago, when people still navigated on their legs instead of on wheels, we tried to stir up some interest in estab lishing some Chinese gardeners on one of the high plateaux, to cultivate straw berries, peaches and other fruits that, in these latitudes, appear only in tins.

No one became enthusiastic and so our neighbours continue to eat strawberries and plums and peaches out of tins, as they will surely continue to take voyages of from four to ten thousand miles in quest of a climate they could have at home were they willing to expend the small exertion necessary to establish a mountain settlement on Tahiti.

The New Guinea Administration re cently accepted the tenders of Cheung Thin, of Rabaul, for the following new buildings; Two new wards at Bitolova native hospital (£1,070), Assistant Dis trict Officer’s quarters, Gasmata (£1,270) and Sub-District Office, Gasmata (£500).

The Salamaua Trading Company Ltd., New Guinea, has been voluntarily wound up, according to a notice in the N.G. Gov ernment “Gazette”.

Mr. P. O’Meara, formerly chief account ant with Greenwood and Laws Ltd., Wau, arrived in Australia from New Guinea by the “Macdhui” on March 28.

He has accepted a position at Singapore, in the Straits Settlement.