Tropicalities

r E usual sensational newspaper head lines suggest that Paludrine, the discovery of a 38-years-old British professor, is the answer to the malaria sufferers’ 'prayer. Experienced tropical people will withhold their cheers until they have more information.

Quinine, the ancient remedy for malaria, held its place until it became the monopoly of a greedy ring; and it was a “rough and tough” remedy, anyway.

Then the drug-makers got busy. Plas moquine was produced, with a mighty flourish; but it did not stay the dis tance. Next came atebrin—and this sys tem-shaking, yellow-making drug is known, with disfavour, by every Service man in the Western Pacific. It seems to have “held” the disease; but it has been by no means the complete answer.

Quinine might have returned to favour, had it been possible for the Netherlands Indies planters to get back to their cin chona trees. But that is now a very un certain date. ♦ ♦ ♦ mHERE was something more than ordi- J. narily wrong with the Apia tele phone exchange. Especially did it

act strangely at night, when subscribers were almost deafened by long series of crackles and screams from mis-handled plugs. . , Complaints poured m; and, finally, authority decided to investigate. A sur prise evening visit was paid to the ex change. There friend operator (Samoan) was found, tilted back on his chair at leisure, smoking a cigarette~and mani pulating the switchboard plugs with his toes. * * * Before, flight - lieutenant MAURICE SCOTT embarked on a troopship in Britain, he was told that it would be arranged for him to fly home to Fiji from Australia ‘via America.” A geography lesson failed to convince the RAF authorities that it would be simpler, and cheaper for the taxpayers, to allow him to get on in Wellington, train to Auckland, and fly to Fiji in seven hours, rather than fly from Australia to America and then back to Fl Fhght-Lieutenant Scott decided to finish the argument in Australia; but, when he arrived on September 9. no one there had ever heard of him. After some search his papers were unearthed, and these duly B scheduled him for a trip home via America. Finally, he was able to per suade the RAAF, whose geography of the Pacific is presumably better than that of the RAP, that it would be better for him to return to Auckland, and fly to

arrived° ln *Suva on September 21.

He and his mother, Lady Sco^ t ’ d wl L 1 n short holiday in Tonga and Samoa before he returns to his law practice in Suva. * ON this little isle, no European ever ■falls into the notorious trap offered the unwary by the good old Poly nesian word for “fish.”

“Ika” means that; but it can also mean, differently-accented, a portion of the human anatomy that even f Islanders don’t mention m public- So, delicate Mangaia says not but “mauga-ika,” for the finny sea-harvest, and saves full many a Europeans cook from rosy embarrassed blushes. With the prefix, there’s “no possible doubt what ever ” (Rarotonga papers please copy!)— EG - * - * PAINT has been mighty scarce in Fiji during the war years, and even if one had old stock one was not per mitted by law, to use it. Consequently, when an American Liberty ship was wrecked on one of the °utlyuig islands and some containers of what toe Islanders took to be brown paint were washed up on the beach, the Lauansi were happy to Improve the shining ; hour and bits of woodwork around their bures.

But strangely enough th ® P, d int a nd f aEo to drv as good paint should, and also attracted every aSt and insect for miles ar The d 'mystery was toaUy s olv e d b y wandering European. What the Lauans had taken for rich brown paint was several gallons of chocolate syrup which our Yankee friends use for flavouring ice creams and other sweets.

Mr f *R CHARLTON, who was Director of Lands in Fiji until he retired some time ago, and who more recentlv has been engaged in town nlanning B for the Colony’s ambitious post

wa^reeonrtructionschemeserveddurmg

World War I in the Coconut Lancers in New Guinea. Part of that time he

was stationed in Bougainville, and can shed some light on the ascents of the Island’s peaks, inquiries about which were made by Lieut. R. Rodda in the Septem ber “PIM.”

Lieut. Rodda, a member of the New Zealand Alpine Club, wanted to know if anyone had climbed Mounts Balbi and Bagana. Mr. Charlton says that during the time he was stationed in Bougain ville, an Army sergeant, accompanied by one native, climbed Balbi, descended the other side and reached the coast oppo site his starting point. Mr. Charlton and some natives also attempted the ascent of Balbi, but did not quite make the summit. His boys, as usual with coastal natives, objected to the cold, and even more to the thick jungle of bamboo through which they had to cut their way.