Depart on

Disillusioned Tourists Depart on An Unsavoury Ship

From Our Own Correspondent

Papeete, Dec. 1.

WHEN a certain ship, which we christened “Aua Pua’a Painu,”

J sailed from Papeete recently she ‘ carried away a goodly number from a I long waiting list of men and women who, r for many months, have watched the horizon for the smoke plume of a steamer , which would serve them as a transport to I “get away from it all.” ] So eager, indeed, were these people to [ get away to some place—any place— \ which is not a South Sea island, that they crowded aboard the already over crowded vessel; disregarding all warnings i of the awaiting them.

I One is astonished to learn of the num ber of people—in the States and else where—who still believe that the South ! Pacific Islands in general and (what has been the most tourist-ridden piece of ter ritory on earth) Tahiti, in particular, remain Utopian refuges inhabited by simple, happy natives who pass the time singing and dancing.

Well, there are quite as many people in the States who steadfastlv believe that Hawaii is still inhabited by descendants of the cannibals who ate Captain Cook, and that Honolulu is a primitive Poly nesian village. . , . .

The product of this undying belief is the long waiting list here, and the frantic rush aboard the most unsavoury steamship that has ever entered our port.

It is rumoured that commercial estab lishments which manufacture the en trancing paraphernalia of South Sea glamour for night clubs in West Coast cities, have been commissioned to supply some nice, bright-leaved palm-trees; so that tourists may find, in our island honky-tonks, the authentic atmosphere of South Sea romance to which they have been accustomed at home.

Our other tourist industries are buzz ing like a hive of bees, when the first warm rays of the vernal sun announce the end of a long, bleak winter.

The influenza epidemic brought to Tahiti by that squalid, reeking tourist ship—so aptly named by Tahitians “Te Aua Pua’a Painu” (the floating pig sty) —has assumed formidable proportions.

This means that the plague ship may in fect the whole Pacific area.

Is this a foretaste of what the post-war period will bring upon the wretched people of Polynesia?