Tropicalities

FROM a well known man of the Pacific Territories, who recently passed through America on his way to London: “I find the spirit of the people here (London, May) good—though every one indulges in black marketing to a greater or lesser extent. I have not met a shop assistant or a taxi-driver who didn’t curse the Government and the miners. Morally and spiritually, this country is on a different plane from America, where sizzling steaks and/or fornication are about all they seem to care for, “The modern tragedy is that the country which is materially strong enough to lead the world is morally not fit to do so; whilst the country which is so fitted has not now the material strength”. * * * I REALLY thought, when I lifted a box the other day, that the mil lion pounds offered to the first finder of a snake in the Cook Islands (one that really is there, I mean!) would be mine.

There he was, wrigg ing along—a 3 inch serpent, green as grass! But the ophidian wasn’t streamlined en ough; and further investigation re vealed him to be just a lizard, ap parently born without legs, and thus compelled to move, like Napoleon’s army, upon his tummy (and he snaked along quite professionally too!) Such a freak of nature could get his meal of insects well enough— cockroaches, etc., are plentiful—but he could not, of course, climb a post like his 4-legged fellows. Has any other “PIM” reader seen such a snake?

—“Eti”.

* * * THREE other young men are about to sail a small boat around the world—starting off with the Pacific.

They are Sydneysiders and in May they had got as far as Newcastle where they intended to stay for six weeks and earn sufficient cash to take them on the next leg of their journey.

None of them has worked since the end of the war; the time has been spent studying small ship construc tion and in building their crait which is 38 feet long with a 11 ft. beam.

Their plans are made on the long range principle. When they finally leave Newcastle they will call at Bris bane, Tahiti, Tuamotus, Galapagos, Honolulu, and from there they will go to the American Pacific coast. By re moving the masts they hope to cross America by sailing along the inland waterways (query: what waterways?) and if this is impossible they will hitch-hike across the continent to meet American servicemen they met in Australia. They will then return to the coast, pick up their boat and sail her through Panama to the Atlantic, and across to Europe.

“Our ultimate aim is to settle down on an island in the South Pacific out side the malaria area”, they say.

Such ambition is worthy of record.

And what fun to be so very, very young!—“MAC”. * * * TWO other parties of round-the world yachtsmen (and women) have been reported from Suva, Fiji, which seems to be a sort of focal point for these adventurers.

One party is already there and mention of it was made in the last issue of the “PIM”. This is the crew of the Danish yawl “Nordkapern”, a year out from Copenhagen. The owners-crew are Messrs. Carl Neilsen, Knud Larsen and Paul Larsen. They prepared their vessel for a round-the world voyage just before the beginn ing of World War II and during the occupation of Denmark by the Nazis, they dismantled her in order that she would not fall into enemy hands.

They finally left Copenhagen in June 1946 and sailed to Suva via Madeira, Virgin Islands, Panama, Galapagos, Tahiti and Suva. After the “Nordkap ern” is slipped and painted in Suva, the voyage will proceed via New Heb rides, East Indies, Singapore, Ceylon to Suez, through the Mediterranean and back to Copenhagen.

An American ketch, the “Barbary”, owned and sailed by Mr. Albion Howe and his wife is also reported cruising in the Pacific. This is a 38 ft. yacht of modern design. It is expected to reach Suva from Tahiti within the next few weeks. * ♦ * THE distant rumbling heard com ing over the hills across Suva Bay the other afternoon was not the noise of thunder. It was the voice, in angry eruption, of a well-known Lautoka business baron who had just received a copy of “PIM” containing the following: ‘Nadi Airport is on the barren north-west coast of Viti Levu.

It is an excellent airfield, but it is surrounded by bare, uninhabited

grasslands. The nearest place contain ing amenities is the hot, dusty, unin teresting little town of Lautoka, 15 miles away; ’ ” —From Flotsam and Jetsam column, Fiji Times, May 10.

Unfortunately, this representative of “PIM” has not been able to com municate by telephone with the chairman of the Lautoka Town Board (Mr. C. A. Adams). But, a Lautoka resident, now visiting Suva, has said that while he is not acquainted with many of his home town’s business barons, he is quite sure that the Town Board chairman himself must be very annoyed indeed with “PIM.”

“After all,” added the Lautoka man, “we all know what Mr. Adams thinks of Lautoka’s future as the Garden City of the South Seas and what he thinks of Nadi Airport and of Suva’s vested interests and their silly air strip at Nausori. What worries me now is not the anonymous business baron, whoever he may be, but what Mr. Adams will think and say and write about ‘PIM’.”—S. * * * I AWES Road is one of Port Mores- L* by’s most famous thoroughfares —mainly because, as yet, it is not. It was commenced last November and was to have been finished in January but progress may be judged from the current “prayer” concerning it: Our road which art in Moresby Slow is thy name, Thou wilt be done in ’5O, if not in ’5l; And forgive us our abuses Of Public Works who fail us, But we are long suffering, Patient and meek, For ever and ever, AMEN.

A number of Moresby’s famous Stubbs’ homes are in this road and all except a few have been equipped with kerosene stoves in lieu of the electric stoves for which they were originally designed. During a recent kerosene shortage busy housewives were to be seen cooking over open fires in the back yard. It is reported that there is small hope of electric stoves being supplied for a long time to come. Al though stovettes are available in Sydney, the Papua-New Guinea Ad ministration does not seem to be able to get them.

Mr. Len Odgers, who used to write the sporting column in the “Rabaul Times” under the pen-name of “The Slug”, astonished local residents in Port Moresby by naming his house in Lawes Road “Withering Heights”.

When a lass queried the spelling, and didn’t he mean the famous book by Emily Bronte, Mr. Odgers showed her around the “estate”— the gravel gar den beds and the lack of top-soil so carefully carted away when the house site was bull-dozed. ‘That’s why it’s called ‘Withering Heights’!” he said.—PM. * * * A N Australian-born Honolulu busi ness man, Leslie Fullard-Leo, and his wife Helen, have been given title to Palmyra (one of the Line atolls of about 50 islets) by the United States Supreme Court. The United States Government had claimed that they

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had acquired the atoll when they acquired Hawaii in 1898; the Leo’s said that the US did not that they had bought it in 1922 from two Hawaiian citizens who had been given title to it by King Kamehameha IV.

Total area of the islets is about 250 acres and there is no sheltered anchorage. They were used for some copra production, but until trans pacific flights became practical politics. Palmyra was a fairly useless wisp of coral and coconuts. In 1939 the US cleaned out the coral heads from the lagoons and Palmyra became a flying-boat base. During the war the United States disposessed the Leos and Palmyra became a “prohibited area” and presumably an aerodrome for land planes was built.

This is what the Pacific Islands Yearbook has to say about the owner ship of the atoll: “Palmyra (which was discovered by Captain Sawle of the American ship “Palmyra” in 1802) was annexed by the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1862; by Britain in 1889; and included by the United States among the Hawaiian Islands by Congressional Act of 1898.

The US cruiser “West Virginia” took formal possession in 1912. Judge Cooper of Honolulu acquired title to the atoll in 1911 and used it for grow ing coconuts. Later he sold all except two islets to Leslie and Helen Fullard- Leo.”