Waster Petrol In Tahiti

From Our Own Correspondent

Papeete, Oct. 1.

rpHERE probably is no place on earth X where petrol is so persistently and joyously wasted as in Tahiti—par ticularly by truck-drivers.

One of the favourite procedures is to clean or attempt to clean) foul spark plugs by racing the motors. When a motor begins to stutter in a manner that informs any experienced driver that a ihul spark-plug is the cause, our learned Tahiti chauffeurs will try everything but the obvious method of unscrewing and cleaning the plug. Often the lorry will stand on one spot for half an hour while the chauffeur presses down the accelera- P®dal, at intervals of five seconds, until the whole neighbourhood is filled Wlt ii noise ’ Petrol fumes, and profanity— as though a Panzer division were operat ing there.

The only variation, in the case of a choked carburettor, is that—after the usual period of thunder and profanity— the lorry is bunted ahead a hundred yards, and the process repeated.

Another procedure is carried out when ever a lorry is sent to deliver a box of groceries to the Mission (distance kilo meter) , or to Mamao (distant \ kilometer) The route home is invariably via Fau tana Avenue, and Prince Hinoi Road (a distance of 2i kilometers) in order that the chauffeur and his assistants may be refreshed after their arduous labours The enigma of the errands of the empty lorries that buzz through the highways and byways of Papeete at all hours of the day and far into the night constitutes a mystery as profound and dismal as Easter Island.