Memories of Louie

Pothier

IN reminiscent vein, Mr. J. Nixon Westwood, once a resident of Papua, writes from San Francisco: I note in a recent issue of the that Mrs. M. Lett talks of an old friend of mine Louie Pothier. The question of his being an escaped con vict from New Caledonia was once or twice discussed when I was on Daru Island, but he was never caught nap ping; and even when he and his com patriot, Celestine Diot, got into heated arguments, there was never any trace of the word thrown at him by Diot.

They were a great couple, and I think two of the most comical men in New Guinea. When they lost their tempers they always started swearing in Eng lish, and I felt sometimes that they purposely staged these affairs to see the tears roll down my cheeks.

Louie had a place at the mouth of the Fly, and most of his income was derived from dealing in Paradise birds.

He would fill his schooner with coco nuts, unhusked, and lying nicely packed below would be a few packages of plumes. Sometimes, he would take his cutter to one of the islands, and have the plumes put into the centre of a case of shell. He was, however, a good scout, and I always liked to have him visit me when he passed through Daru, either to Thursday Island or back to his place on the Fly.

The people living near Daru in those days are now history, I suppose, but Jack Summers, John Cowling, Hughie Beach, Diot, Pothier, E. Court Osborne, Wally Maidment, Lanny Luff, et al, cer tainly saw more of life than most folk.

I remember a time when Louie had returned from Thursday Island, and part of his cargo was a 56-gallons cask of good red wine. He cleared it, paid duty, and then called to visit his friend Diot.

In the course of their chat, Diot got Louis to get the cask ashore and, between them, they managed to empty it before morning.

Most of the wine was wasted because, as Louie and Celestine got more and more under the weather, they changed from jugs to dippers; and, finally, when Celestine went to fill a bucket, he turned on the plug tap, and fell down in a heap, and the rest of the good red wine filtered through the floor on to the ground, under the store.

That store was eventually taken over by Papuan Industries Ltd., and Mr. Dan iel Coulter Harman, of Maidstone, Eng land, managed it under Captain Walker.

Mr. Harman was a real Englishman, and did not like paying duty on im ports. If he is still in those parts, he will remember the passages of arms he had with the then Collector of Customs.

He may also remember his pug dog, whose manners were decidedly un- English. It had a bad habit of picking up anything it saw. I put down three 5-gr. sugar-coated quinine tablets and pug took them, “glub glub”. Ten min utes later, “glub glub” was very sorry for himself, and was most careful of his food afterwards.

Anyway, Louie and Celestine were fine characters, and as they were both from the same part of the world, they had a lot in common. One of these days, I will tell you a long story, with the two as principals.