Tropicalities

IN Fiji, as in other places, “party-line” telephones must be endured. You know that the district “stickybeak” prob ably is listening-in, so you arrange your conversations carefully.

One day, two women in a Fiji district were talking on the party line when, quite suddenly, they heard the chimes of a cuckoo clock. Comparing notes after wards, they found that neither of them had a cuckoo clock.

“Aha!” they said, and waited.

A week later, they were at a district tea-party; and, in a quiet moment, their hostess’s cuckoo clock shrilled out the hour.

The other guests still are wondering why the two women laughed so much. —L.A. * * * DURING my recent leave in Australia, I had left a fairly reliable boy in charge of the house and grounds, and the odd jobs such as feeding the fowls, watering the few cattle, weeding the lawns, mending the fences and so forth.

His father, lately lamented, was one of the finest native Christian teachers of my experience, clever, gifted with a sense of real humour, sincere, and generally an all-round good man; and his son has inherited at least some of his father’s brightness, writes a good hand, and has a good grip of things.

I left a couple of stamped and ad dressed envelopes for him to let me know how things were going; and, towards the end of my holiday I was delighted to re ceive his epistle. The star effort was the following: “Every chop (job) is going on well; but only one trouble, the bull duck is eating all the chickens. I don’t know what to do with the bull duck”. —P. * • • rE emphatic absence of Dr. C. M.

Dawson, M.L.C., and Mr. O. P. Nel son, M.L.C., from the official dinner and ball at Government House, Apia, Western Samoa, when the Governor-General of New Zealand was making a formal visit, was reported in this journal. We now are informed that Dr. Dawson somewhat resents the way in which the fact was stated. He attended all other functions in honour of Viscount Galway; but he had already advised the Administrator that, owing to unfair treatment which he considered he had received at the hands of the Administration, he would attend no more Government House functions.

Mr. Nelson, it is understood, takes the same position. • * • A SERIES of minor illnesses —none, of itself serious, but sufficient in the mass to impose a handicap on movement —has kept C. V. T. Wells at home in Ade laide for many months, and he has not made his accustomed periodical visit to New Guinea as chairman of Guinea Air ways Ltd. Mr. Wells reports a much better condition of health now, however, so the Lae-Wau-Salamaua circuit should see him again soon.

New Guinea owes more probably than it realises to this quiet and unobtrusive man. The biggest thing in the Territory to-day Is Bulolo Gold Dredging Ltd.: it keeps hundreds of Europeans employed there, and the N.G. administration would be a poor, anaemic thing if it were not for the gold royalties, customs taxes, licence fees, etc., paid by B.G.D. and its associates. There would have been no B. G. D. if it had not been for the vision

of the late C. J. Levien; and probably Levien could not have launched his great gold-dredging-aerial-transport plan had it not been for the courage and steady faith of Mr. Wells and his friends. That Morobe goldfield, with its eight dredges, its innumerable mines, its half-dozen busy little towns, its dairy farms and plantations, is still one of the wonders of the southern world—there still is ab solutely no connection, except aeroplanes, between that high, rugged valley in Cen tral New Guinea, and the sea-coast.

Nearly 15 years have passed since Levien, Wells and Lapthorne planned this thing, and I have seen it many times in recent years; yet, seeing it once more a few weeks ago, I still marvelled at the vision and the faith which created Morobe in this upended, inhospitable land. Faith, here, did not move the moun tains, perhaps; but it linked the moun tains to the sea in a manner in credible. —R. « • • WHEN Monsieur Oscar Meyer, the French anthropologist, was in New Guinea, he was told an extraordinary story by a native, now more than eighty years old, of how he came in contact with the German scientist, Herr Schneider, at Tami Island, in the Huon Gulf. The visitor was, at first, inclined to disregard the tale, but when engaged on research in the Mitchell Library, in Sydney, he saw the story confirmed by a report, in French, written by Prince Roland Bonaparte. The latter, a wealthy descendant of a brother of Napoleon 1., was a member of the Schneider expedi tion. It appears that the natives, hav ing learned of Schneider’s presence on the island, planned to kill him. That duty was deputed to Monsieur Meyer’s informant, then a young man of about 25. He crept into the camp at night.

In a large cage he found two strange, hairy, man-like creatures, who jumped about and made weird noises. They were ourang-outangs. The native, never hav ing seen monkeys, thought they were some strange type of bushmen, and he

became so interested in them that he stayed by the cage with them until morn ing. Schneider, on discovering him there, kept him a prisoner with the monkeys for a week. The native, later, became his personal servant, and remained with Schneider for three years. * * » AN air pilot known in New Guinea, Captain J. N. Wilson, has been warmly praised for his coolness and courage in handling an Imperial Airways airliner when it was attacked by the Japanese on its regular run between Hong Kong and French Indo-China in November.

Captain Wilson was carrying passengers and mail, and was several miles from Weichow Island, in the Gulf of Tong king, when he was suddenly set upon by three Japanese planes, which attacked him viciously and certainly attempted to shoot him down. Although the airliner was riddled with bullets, and the pas sengers escaped injury only by lying on the floor, Wilson carried on quite coolly and succeeded eventually in bringing his airship down uninjured on an island near Hong Kong. He was then informed by the Japanese that his plane had been flying directly over Weichow Island, which they control and which is a prohibited zone, but this was denied by both Wilson and his passengers. However, the Jap

anese seized the plane, the mails and the passengers and took the lot of them to Canton. All subsequently were re leased. * * * SHOULD soldiers read? Hot controversy rages in Port Moresby over the ques tion of whether reading matter should be provided by the residents for troops quartered in the town. One school of thought hold that residents should sub scribe to provide a suitable library for the use of soldiers, and they recently organised an entertainment to raise funds for the purpose. The opposition boycotted the entertainment and pointed out that a public library already exists and, if soldiers really want to read, they may en joy the privilege on payment of a small subscription, such as is demanded of or dinary residents.

Feeling both for and against has been expressed with a good deal of freedom.

In some quarters, the fear is entertained that, unless some agreement is quickly reached, the much discussed troops will have to come into action and clean up the mess.