Tropicalities

ALTHOUGH it is more than 70 years since Queen Victoria’s son, the Duke of Edinburgh, visited Tahiti—he spent a gay fortnight there in June and July, 1869—Mr. Arthur Brander, of Papeete •(then six years old) can remember the junketing. His mother was one of the Pomare line, and she was one who en tertained the Royal party. Many times, afterwards, in London, the Branders were entertained by the Duke. In an historical note, Mr. W. W. Bolton, of Tahiti, says:— “Still there may be heard sung here a short couplet, with many musical vari ations, composed in those far-off days to welcome Victoria’s son, though the sing ers, alas! to-day have but a hazy notion of who he was or whence he came. It follows: “It Ora Te Arii Aferiti, I Tona Tae Raa Mai, Maeva Te Arii Aferiti, I Tona Tae Raa Mai”.

To translate it is to spoil it. * * ♦ ON August 8, some well-disposed person in New Guinea packed up the larva of a moth, and sent it by post to Mr. Frank H. Taylor, of the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, University of Sydney. The sender failed to attach his name or address. Mr.

Taylor has written to us and, in the hope that the note will reach the person re sponsible, has asked us to say that the larva was a most extraordinary one and that he is personally very grateful to the sender of the specimen. * * * rOSE glamorous days when one reached one’s launch just one hop ahead of a healthy headhunter have passed, so far as Islands residents are concerned; but Mother Nature still can provide Islands residents with a thrill or two. Mrs. W. F. Paton, who returned to her home in the British Solomon Is lands the other day, had a vivid story to tell of what happened when her hus band’s plantation at Yandina was visited by an earthquake and tidal wave a few months ago. Buildings were shaken down, wharves and launches were swept away, the plantation homestead was damaged, and even the wedding presents of the newly-married Mrs. Paton were destroyed.

Every quarter-hour, after the initial shock and tidal wave, for the rest of the day and night, there were sharp earth quakes and earth rumblings. Mr. and Mrs.

Paton could do nothing about it—so they went on as far as possible with the routine duties of their plantation. But she acknowledges that it was queer to realise that at any moment the two of them might be obliterated by a severe development of the earth’s convulsions. * * * ON November 20, 1939, it will be exactly 100 years since the pioneer mission ary, John Williams, was murdered on the beach of Erromanga, in the New Hebrides. The story of his life is told in an article elsewhere in this issue. It is worth noting that John Williams gave his name to an interesting series of mission ary ships. The grim old missionary per sonally built small craft in Rarotonga and Samoa, and in the last of these he sailed on eastwards into the New Hebrides. Five years after his death the children of Britain, by subscribing pennies, formed a fund from which a mission ship, christened “John Williams”, was built.

The “John Williams” served for sixteen years in the Pacific and was wrecked in

1860. “John Williams II” and “John Williams III” were built at Aberdeen.

“John Williams IV” was built on the Clyde; and, in 1930, the “John Williams V”, which still serves the great mission ary organisation in the Pacific, was launched in Scotland.

“I¥7HEN you and I had a drink in Ra ff, haul, beer cost us 2/- per bottle, didn’t it”, says a * Rabaul resident, writ ing to the editor.

“Well, you were here a bit too soon.

All the scorched beer from Carpenter’s fire was sold at auction recently, and went for 36/- per case. Ninepence per bottle, my son —and it wasn’t half bad either!” ♦ * ♦ SHE had just arrived at Papeete, and was discovering that French learned at Los Angeles is much like that of “Stratford Atte Bowe”.

“What impresses me about this town”, said this sprightly lady, “is that half the houses in the place belong to one wealthy Frenchman. I see his name everywhere on little square boards tacked to gates or front porches”.

“Who can he be?” mused her friend —an old resident.

“Usually, I cannot remember French names”, replied the lady, “but I have seen this one so often that it sticks in my mind. He is a Mr. A. Louer. Do you know him?”

“And another thing”, she continued.

“I have never seen a place so full of orphans. All over the town are big buildings with signs in front of them reading ‘Ralentir Aux Enfants’. That means ‘Refuge for children’, doesn’t it?”

Her gentle companion replied: “Why, no. Those signs are merely warnings to motorists to go slowly when approaching a public school. While A. Louer is not a wealthy landowner, but merely only a notice ‘For Rent’ ”.

“Oh”, exclaimed the lady, “my French is a bit rusty, I know. Anyway we never came across those words in our French class at Los Angeles”.

WHAT do aeroplanes live on? was a question that troubled the minds of natives in the Tarifuroro Valley, Papua, when an A.P.C. plane recently flew over their territory. Watching it, as they explained to one of the Company’s officers after the machine had landed, they concluded that so huge a bird must eat a terrible lot, and there was anxious discussion as to whether it would eat men. To reduce the chance of being detailed to fill the stomach of the strange bird, they cut all the food in their gar dens and stacked it near the village.

“If the bird was hungry”, one of them explained, “we thought it would see the food and eat it, and would not want us. Then we went away and hid in the grass”. * * ♦ r.ERE is dismay in remote valleys in New Guinea, and lamentations among hard-boiled overseers in the Solomons.

Certain mining men in distant Fiji have declared a day of mourning. For the news has gone forth that “Ethel’s Bar” no longer exists in a well-known Sydney hostelry, and that Miss Ethel Paulter, a sunny-natured woman who created a unique Islands institution, has retired into private life. For years, “Ethel’s Bar” has been a rendezvous for Islands men on furlough in Sydney. Almost any day, one could find there men from the Is

lands—almost always divided into groups according to Territories. One went there to inquire after one’s friends and ac quaintances, or to get the latest news of home—“ Ethel” always could be depended upon for the latest and most reliable in formation. One entrusted her with mes sages for one’s friends, or left with her a few £5 notes, to provide against that inevitable sad day when one must face the homeward trail, stoney-broke. And one confided one’s secret ambitions and joys and sorrows to “Ethel”—it was said of her that, if she ever talked, she would wreck all the Governments and half the homes in five Territories. To Islands men, Sydney, without “Ethel’s Bar”, will be merely a place like Melbourne.