Travellers' Twaddle

Soliloquy Induced by a Book About Tahiti

IN the pages of an English review we discover still another book about Tahiti—this one written by Mr. Cecil Lewis.

The review quotes some of the au thor’s most rhapsodic paragraphs, about bathing in coral lagoons and floating, face up, in the crystal water, his soul enraptured by the ineffable splendour of tropical sunsets.

He was a very fortunate gentleman.

Prudent people do not float about, face up, in coral lagoons admiring sun sets. There are too many alarming

things under the waters to distract their attention. The stealthy nohu, which biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder, and is almost as dangerous as a cobra-da-capella; the tatara-i-hau, a fish even more to be avoided than the nohu; the dreaded taramea, a thorny and venomous star-fish; the aavere, a needle snouted garfish that skims the surface of the waters at eventide with the speed of a bolt from a cross-bow; great conger eels, as fearsome and truculent as the jabberwock; octopi, that lurk in shadowy caverns of reefs and snatch sharks, and sting-rays and ribbon-like horrors that wrap themselves around the limbs with the tenacity and torture of the garment of Nessus; and the coral itself, a cut or abrasion from which infects the blood with violent poison.

The average European sojourner is contemptuous of counsel or warning. He sees Tahitians swimming and diving about the lagoons and in the open sea, and believes he can do likewise, with equal immunity. He does not reflect that the Polynesian has wisdom concerning the ways of the sea and of the things under the sea, inherited from experience gathered since the dawn of time.

We have a friend whose domicile over looks a lovely bay, whose scattered reefs serve little to impede the waves from the ocean as they sweep in, to break on the palm-shaded sands of the shore.

It was once his custom to swim out far from land and to float, face up, en rapturing his soul with the ineffable splendours of tropical sunsets.

The natives thereabout were alarmed for his safety. “Beware” they counselled.

“There is no barrier reef and ma’o (shark) and ono (barricuda) and other dangerous fish of the deep sea wander in here, and one day you will not return to shore”.

Our friend thanked them for their ad vice, but continued his offshore contem plation of glorious sunsets.

One day, when he was floating about 200 yards from land, he was startled by a bump as from a heavy body. Think ing he had collided with some half sub merged piece of flotsam, he turned over to examine it. A second bump against his chest made him aware that the as sailant was not a water-logged spar, but a living monster of the deep.

Our friend did not tarry. Those who witnessed that race, for the beach affirm a new all-world speed record would have been made, had the electrical apparatus, used to time speeding juggernauts on the alkali flats of Utah, been available. The water behind the swimmer boiled and foamed like the wake of a motor launch, and frequent bumps in his midriff—re minding him that the monster was keep ing pace—added high octane to the fuel of his energy.

Our friend still bathes in the waters of the bay; but in ankle-deep shallows re freshed by the foaming debris of waves breaking on the foreshore.

The reviewer informs us that Author Lewis made expeditions into “The Won derland of Wine, Women and Song”. We hope he emerged thence with equal im munity, as from the lagoons; for there abide there dangers vastly more perilous than those of the shimmering coral seas about Tahiti. —A.C.R.

Dr. W. Worger, District Medical Officer in Fiji, is at present absent from the Colony on six months’ leave.

Mr. C. Harlen, Surveyor in the Fiji Civil Service, arrived in Australia last month on long leave.