A Phrase Explained

Prom Our Own Correspondent

Noumea, Jan. 9.

IN your November issue, Mr. W. W.

Bolton, MA, of Tahiti, and the “PIM” ask for enlightenment on a phrase included in the “weird, official appoint ment” which gazetted the Tahitian chief Teriiri’i as Captain Commandant of the native contingent of the troops stationed in New Caledonia in 1859.

The phrase in question is the near poetical one: “From the summits of Morare to the Plains of Diahot.”

The “summits of Morare” are the twin peaked Mont Dore, the beautiful moun tain rising over Morare Bay (as it was then called, for now it is Boulari Bay) It was here that M. Berard and his 13 white settlers had just been massacred.

Mont Dore is the mountain that lies be hind and to the south of the Noumea Peninsula; and, putting the phrase in an unromantic way, one would say “from the south of New Caledonia to the far north.”

The Diahot (pronounced “Jowatt”) River is the island’s largest stream, the only one which runs with the axis of the island, and it emnties itself into the most northerly bay, at a place called Pam. It is a mosquito-infested country, wild, and very sparsely inhabited even to-day; but. once, Australians worked there the only gold-mine that was ever made to pay— the Fernhill. There is also copper and zinc lead in the vicinity.

When Teriiri’s and his 24 Tahitians went back to Tahiti the Sydney-built and Caledonia - operated schooner “Kate” changed her name in his honour to “The Teriiri’i.”