Tropicalities

HE was a beery derelict,, and we were abusing him for bringing in under sized fish, to trade for drink, when he suddenly burst out:— “Wot the ’ell do you know about it?

Was you ever fishing for sponges in the Bah’mas wid a Malay skipper aboard, who ’ad a watch in one ’and, and a revolver in the other, ready to pot yer if yer showed yer ’ead above water a second under the specified two minutes?

An’ then, if yer escaped the battery, was yer ever cussed in four different land widges for bringin’ up squidges instead of glove-sponges? Or was yer ever divin’ fer pearl-shell in the Aru Islands, in the Murluckers, with a nigger what ’ated you like pizen, on the pump, ready and willin’ to cut off your air supply the minnit the skipper’s eye was off ’im?

“I say, was you ever in them predica ments? ’Cause, if yer wasn’t, don’t talk to a perfessional fisherman. An’ if you wos, yer ought to be pole-axed fer doin’ nigger’s work. Blast yer!”

He got his drink. —C.B.S. ♦ GUESTS of honor at a sherry party given by the Pacific Islands Society on January 29 were Mr. and Mrs.

Trafford Smith, of London, and Mrs.

R. B. Croudace, and her daughter, Miss Jean Croudace, of Apia, Western Samoa.

Mr. Trafford Smith is an official of the British Colonial Office who has been travelling extensively in the British terri tories in the Pacific administered by the Colonial Office. The exact character of his mission is unknown, so he has become something of a mystery man. He recently has been in the Solomon Islands and he now is awaiting transportation to the Gilbert and Ellice Colony.

Mrs. and Miss Croudace were also the guests of honor at a Polynesian Club meeting in Sydney on January 21. The two ladies, good looking and amiable, have given charming demonstrations of Samoan songs and dances, and have made a host of new friends in Sydney. ♦ THE Brotherhood of the Bottle are shouting with joy, says our Tahiti correspondent. The island bards are intoning paeans of praise to the sound of harps with a thousand strings; poetasters are composing sonnets and madrigals to celebrate the advent of a new nectar which promises to disperse the gathering clouds of a very grim and dismal future.

Diminishing stocks of “Mountain Dew” and “Three Star Lightning” (that cannot be replenished), had awakened black forebodings.

This new liquid delight is derived from pineapples—and there is no end of pine apples in these islands. The South Sea pineapple is especially rich in sugar. The more sugar, the more good cheer will produce itself in every gallon. In addition, the name is enticing and the price low. * PERSISTENT reports, in some of the sensational newspapers, that Felix, Count von Luckner, is in command of one of the German raiders in the Pacific, appear to have no basis in known facts.

One report of von Luckner placed him in a Nazi concentration camp. Another said that he was hunting in the Hartz Mountains, in Germany. Nevertheless, many people believe that his recent Paci fic journey was not unconnected with Nazi operations in that ocean.

A von Luckner relic is in the posses sion of an Aucklander, Mr. H. C. Hills.

In September, 1917, when, as a Fijian

police official, Mr. Hills proceeded to Wakaya with a party of unarmed native constabulary and captured the Count, a telescope came into his pos session. Though it was taken from the German commander, it is believed that he must have purloined it at one of the islands. Lettering showed that it had been manufactured in Auckland about fifty years ago.—“Eriki”. * MEMBERS of Sydney’s Polynesian club recently were much interested in meeting two residents of Chatham Island, Mrs. Haydee Idiens and Miss E.

Hough, who belong to the little-known Chatham Maori or Moriori race. The ladies were members of the party of 496 persons from sunken ships, put ashore in New Guinea by German raiders, and, later, brought to Sydney. They were travelling to Lyttleton in the little steamer “Holmwood” when it was cap tured by raiders. They lost all their personal belongings and furniture —they were actually on their way to start a new home life in Christchurch. ♦ A WRITER in this journal, in January, after carefully reviewing survivors' reports of the mass landing of prisoners from German raiders on Emirau Island on December 21, remarked: “An extraordinary good job appears to have been done by the District Officer at Kavieng, who took charge of the situa tion”. We now learn from the “Rabaul Times” that the DO in question was Mr.

J. I. Merrylees, and a correspondent says: “He immediately placed himself behind his office table, gave his commands clearly and explicitly and Kavieng jumped into action. Too much commendation cannot be given to Mr. Merrylees for his prompt and capable handling of the situation”.

Good work! ♦ IN one issue of the “Rabaul Times” (January 10) it is reported, in one place, that two native employees of the Burns Philp store (one. had been on the staff for 16 years) had been sent to gaol for stealing from the stock; in another place, that 33 native labourers,

from Natava district, were sentenced to a week’s gaol; while, in the leading column, the editor (a very old resident of the Territory) comments acidly upon the growing cheekiness and lack of discipline among native labourers generally. This is no new thing. Who or what is responsible for this apparent failure to properly con trol New Guinea natives?

Miss B. Coulson, of the Methodist Mis sion at Kiriwina, Papua, will go on fur lough in August.