Tropicalities

ANOTHER story by Charles B. Nord hoff and Norman Hall, of Tahiti, has started serial publication in “Satur day Evening Post”—“Out of Gas”. It opens as an affectionate study of the fortunes of a happy-go-lucky, improvi dent, open-hearted Tahitian “clan”, owning to a dour New England great grandfather . . . and Sydney gets honor able mention, in the first instalment, as the origin of a fighting cock which downed the ’Frisco bird on which the entire wealth (borrowed) of the Tuttle clan was staked. The title refers to the perennial state of the clan’s decrepit fishing launch. * * •* GOSSIP in Polynesia is a thread of truth which, as it passes from hand to hand, grows to warp and woof, em broidered and adorned, until it becomes a glittering tapestry of things that are not so.

It has been often said that were the people of the Islands endowed with liter ary skill, their genius of invention would fashion masterpieces of imagination rivalling, if not surpassing, those of the world’s great men of letters.

The Islands world is a vast whispering gallery. Gossip is transmitted from island to island by trading schooners and, in many cases, it would seem, by telepathy. The passenger steamers carry heavy cargoes of gossip, and certain ones have long been notorious as floating schools for scandal.

This almost universal habit of em bellishing and adorning trivial chatter plays havoc with the oral transmission of matters of consequence.

A good rule in the Islands is to be lieve nothing you hear, and only a fraction of what you see—until you have access to authoritative sources.—A.C.R. * * * CONGRATULATIONS to Burns. Philp Recreation Club, Salamaua, on “Blurb” No. 3 —an exceedingly amusing compilation published for the club’s annual dance, on New Year’s Eve. Some where, hiding his light in Salamaua’s small population, there is a born hum ourist, who can be funny in print—we

suspect Mr. T. Elwyn. The parody on Mrs. ’Arris and Mrs. Tggs is really clever.

The belligerently respectable Mrs. ’Arris pays a visit to New Guinea—and thus one is shown the comic aspect of many things so familiar that they go un noticed by regular travellers. “Them shameless black ’ussies at Port Moresby what wears nothing but bits of grass”, for instance; and the way in which the lady lost her “sang frood” when the “toughs” on the Salamaua hotel veran dah played “Slippery Sam”. It is a little publication issued by an isolated com munity for its own amusement: but it has a wider and more definite interest.

It breathes the typical gay spirit and unquenchable humour of Young Austra lia—a thing that stuffy politicians and over-zealous “would-to-godders” usually ignore or under-estimate. * * * SCENE: Aft hatch of English copra steamer.

Dramatis personae: Red-headed Irish mate; Burns. Philp overseer: numerous ferocious-faced saddle-hued, half-naked, violent-haired, Malaitamen. Also native cook. Malaitamen are loading ship.

Overseer: “. . . an’ three is eight, an’ two is ten, an’ five is fifteen.”

Enter mate: “Bedad and begorra, and they’re all Roman Catholics.” 8.P.0. (dubiously): “Mmm. . . . maybe.”

Mate: “Weel, they’re all weerin’ crosses aroond their nicks.” 8.P.0.; “Mmm . . . not all.”

Mate: “Weel, thin —most o’ thim.” 8.P.0.: “Probably won ’em gambling.”

Enter native cook, wearing cross.

Mate: “Hi, you! Are ye a Rawmon Cartholic?” ‘Cook (ununderstandingly): “Wha, name, suh?”

Mate: “D’ye b’long t’ th’ Rawmon Car tholic Church?”

Cook (indignantly): “No more, suh!

Me b’long B.P.’s!” —Mcl.

A JAPANESE trading boat which re cently visited Port Moresby had among a wonderful exhibit of goods manufactured in Japan, and which were displayed in the local Library Institute a cheap chemical with an action similar to peroxide. They suggested to those natives, who were welcomed to the hall that the liquid would turn their hair a nice golden colour. A thriving business resulted with the mixture, at 9d. for a 6 oz. bottle; and, as a consequence, a big percentage of the Papuans in Port Moresby now have clay-coloured hair. Its action in colouring, though much quicker, is the same as that brought about by the treatment of lime and clay, but it re quires less labour and less inconvenience —two things the natives appreciate.

What will be the ultimate result is hard to prophesy; but, should the natives be come bald the Japanese will lose a num ber of customers for their cheap wares.—H. * * * ON his way to Antarctica from the United States in December, Admiral Byrd called at a number of outlying islands of French Oceania, and in one or two cases he was able to inform very isolated European residents that war had broken out again in Europe.

The only white man living now on Rapa is a French viscount, and he dis played great excitement when he learned that France again is fighting Germany.

“I must go over there and join up— I must go,” he cried—forgetting that nearly 25 long years have passed since he was a famous French aviator on the Western Front, * * * rERE is an article in a recent issue of the “Austral Asiatic Bulletin” in which a comparison is made between the achievements in Papuan exploration of the late Mr. Jack Hides and of Mr.

Ivan Champion. It is a comparison that need not have been made, for the sake both of the man who lives and of him who is dead. Except that each proved himself an explorer of ability, strength and courage, any comparison between them —and especially a comparison of their achievements—is unwarranted.

Undoubtedly, Hides worked under tem peramental disadvantages, because he always was eager to jump ahead in mat ters of exploration, and felt always that he was being held back by his superior officers: and as his temperament was such that he did not secure the ready co-operation of his more sober fellow officers, and he somehow was intensely conscious of that fact, he suffered under what might be described as a moral handicap. Ivan Champion, on the other hand, is not one who is accustomed to live in a state of exaltation; he is a steady, methodical, dependable man; he commands the respect and co-operation of his fellow-officers; and he always can be confident of the reasonable backing of headquarters, where his father is the well-known and highly-esteemed Gov ernment Secretary of Papua.

Let the subject be closed. Each is a man whose name will remain always written prominently in the history of Papuan exploration. And, so far as Jack Hides is concerned, it surely now is sufficient only to remember that it was a lad of amazing courage and superb bushcraft who now lies quietly sleeping under the gum-trees in the North Syd ney Cemetery. Few of the chatterboxes who to-day make play with his name will achieve, in three score years and ten, one half of what that young man packed into fifteen years of life in Papua.