Tropiealities

SIXTEEN boys and two girls from Western Samoa, and Cook Islands, attending New Zealand secondary schools, spent the September school holidays in Wellington under the care of the Island Affairs Department.

About 60 of the children are at New Zealand secondary schools under Gov ernment scholarships. They can return home for holidays only once in three years.

Some are billeted for the holidays by their schoolmates, but the remainder are cared for by the department.

The fourth-year boys in the party visited the West Coast, Nelson and Christchurch. They saw cement works,

tobacco, flax and textile fac tories, a gold dredge, a saw mill and agricultural research stations.

Other students were shown the sights in Wellington—in cluding a visit to Parliament. * * *

Mr. George Houng

LEE, an indefatigable fisherman in the Kings’

Wharf area of Suva, with his nephew, landed two 9-ft. sharks at the wharf on Oc tober 10. Mr. Houng Lee maintains that the sharks had followed the Matua into the harbour in the hope of a meal of refuse from the galley.—S. * * A READER, C. B. Clemens, of Denver, Colorado, USA, writes to tell us that New Guinea is not the only country to have giant snail troubles. He sends us a clipping from his local paper which shows that we are as much behind USA in our methods of coping with such pests, as we are in brighten ing up our newspaper Eng lish: GIANT, crop-des troy i n g snails, stowaways from the orient, were slated to get a scientific bum’s rush Friday.

The snails were discovered aboard the Greek freighter Aspasia Nomikos amid a cargo of scrap iron from the Pacific island of Saipan.

Unloading operations were halted and officials of the bureau of plant quarantine and entomology ordered a fu migating job. The govern ment scientists had to ac cumulate about 1,000 pounds of deadly hydrogen cyanide gas for the work.

Officials estimated the fumi gation will cost from 20,000 dollars to 25,000 dollars but said it would be worth the price. One of the fast multiplying creatures can de vour the head of a lettuce in a single night when it reaches adult size—five inches.

Authorities said the giant snails had moved from the orient to Saipan with Japan ese forces in World War 11.

THE following has been received from Mr. William Courtenay, Aeronautical Correspondent of the London Daily Graphic, Kemsley Newspapers, England, dated October 17, 1949.

I HAVE just returned from a world flight of 40,000 miles by Philippine Air Lines from London to India, Manila, Hong Kong, and Japan and thence to San Francisco; also by courtesy of US Air Force through the United States and by MATS to Alaska and England. On my return on October 6, I found a welcome pile of PlM’s awaiting me. My wife always says when she sees me reading them:— “Put that magazine away. You’ll be wanting to go off again to your Pacific Islands otherwise!”

So you see, PIM is a sort of family Bible in my home and of course, in the issue for March I espied your story on page 47 and Mr. Archer’s comments.

Of course the story of the tankard came from PIM —a sufficiently authoritative journal for me not to have to check up on the accuracy of any of its information!

I admit that I probably embellished the story—and that was how it came about that I credited Mr. Archer with a host of respectable descendants.

I therefore owe a belated and abject apology to Mr. Archer (presented here with) for having suggested that he might have begat when on his own showing this was impossible in his state of single bliss.

But no great harm has been done and the story of his famous tankard has spread a little further.

I would add that my thoughts are con stantly with my many friends in the Islands and in Australia, with whom I shared the glorious comradeship of the Kokoda march; in fact, in Japan, America and Alaska I have been recounting the story of their fine achievements to US Service audiences and have been gradu ally taking this story round the world. I hope to meet Mr. Archer when I reach the enchanted islands again one day.

May it be soon. * -is * THE Carpenter motor vessel, Komaiwai, Which bustles about the Lau Group and other remote parts of Fiji col lecting copra for Suva, has produced a notable string of events, all of which hap pened on Fridays.

On Friday, August 8, 1947, when heav ing anchor at Mago, the cable parted and bang went the anchor. This loss was made good at Taveuni on Friday, Octo ber 3, 1947, when a second anchor caught on the fluke on the Komaiwai’s anchor and was hauled up. On Friday, February 20, 1948, at Cicia, the cable parted and away went the anchor, only to be fished up by the managing director of W. R. Carpenter and Co. (Fiji) Ltd. (Mr. W. G. Johnson) who operated a grapnel. On Friday, October 7, 1949, at Mago, a spare anchor came up with the cable—possibly the anchor that was lost in 1947. Finally, on yet another Friday, a Fijian baby was born in the Komaiwai.

This was on October 14, 1949, when the ship was five miles south-east of Naitauba.

The additional passenger was named Stephen Lakeba Komaiwai, after the master (Captain Stephen Smith), the ex- AMP (Lakeba Buadromo) who attended the mother and child, and the ship. The officers, crew and passengers gave the parents a gift of £4. —“S”